When life gives you banana peppers.....
the answer is not attempt to make chile rellenos out of them. I got a bunch of banana peppers and other peppers from our CSA over the last two weeks. Well, I've been getting them for most of the summer, and passing them on to the other people with whom I share the share, but I figured I needed to suck it up and do something with them for a change. I don't really like pickled banana peppers, and so I got the seemingly great idea to make chile rellenos out of them.
Simple, right?
I selected this recipe to make. It seemed straight forward enough. The problem is that that the reason why you never hear of banana peppers used for chile rellenos is that even though they look plenty big to hold lots of stuffing, they are too delicate. When I peeled them after charring the skins, they pretty much disintegrated.
I had to salvage dinner somehow. I peeled as much pepper flesh as I could and assembled it in a colander to drain.
I mixed the cheese and spinach and chopped up/shredded peppers into the beer batter, which I had to do with my hands because it was so gooey. This is the fun part! Then I stirred in the beaten egg whites. The recipe says to fold them in, but with a batter this stiff it wasn't going to work. I stirred as gently as I could, verging on vigorously.
I filled a large heavy frying pan with vegetable oil about half an inch deep and heated it up over medium high to high heat. Then I dropped spoonfuls of the batter into the oil and let them cook until they were orangey-brown on all sides, turning them to cook evenly.
The funny thing is that the kids loved it! I had reheated some leftover macaroni and cheese and cooked up some peas as soon as I realized this wasn't going as planned, but through some genius spur-of-the-moment rebranding as "cheesy bites," they ate them up, and left the mac and cheese. They didn't even notice the spinach or peppers.
Thoughts for future reference:
My DH recommended dipping them in sour cream, or somehow forming the balls around pieces of cheddar cheese for a cheesy center.
I recommend making half a recipe. This makes a lot of cheesy bites. They fill you up quickly!
I used a Shiner Bock beer since I was trying to be southwesty. It definitely calls for a beer for the grownups who are eating the cheesy bites! Children can have milk.
Simple, right?
I selected this recipe to make. It seemed straight forward enough. The problem is that that the reason why you never hear of banana peppers used for chile rellenos is that even though they look plenty big to hold lots of stuffing, they are too delicate. When I peeled them after charring the skins, they pretty much disintegrated.
I had to salvage dinner somehow. I peeled as much pepper flesh as I could and assembled it in a colander to drain.
I mixed the cheese and spinach and chopped up/shredded peppers into the beer batter, which I had to do with my hands because it was so gooey. This is the fun part! Then I stirred in the beaten egg whites. The recipe says to fold them in, but with a batter this stiff it wasn't going to work. I stirred as gently as I could, verging on vigorously.
I filled a large heavy frying pan with vegetable oil about half an inch deep and heated it up over medium high to high heat. Then I dropped spoonfuls of the batter into the oil and let them cook until they were orangey-brown on all sides, turning them to cook evenly.
The funny thing is that the kids loved it! I had reheated some leftover macaroni and cheese and cooked up some peas as soon as I realized this wasn't going as planned, but through some genius spur-of-the-moment rebranding as "cheesy bites," they ate them up, and left the mac and cheese. They didn't even notice the spinach or peppers.
Thoughts for future reference: