Jalapeno Poppers with Goat Cheese and Raspberry

This months recipe is one of my own design and it should be noted that I rarely pay attention to exact measurements of ingredients or times or processes.  Le Singe does not bother with such trivial bits of information which is perhaps why he is such a terrible baker.  But I did my best to keep track of what I was doing for your sakes, dear readers.  What originally started out as a craving for some raspberry-chipotle glazed chicken, evolved into this experimental popper.  Now, I've never actually made poppers before but the idea seemed simple enough; stuff small and reasonably spicy peppers with tasty cheesy fillings and deep fry.  Simple, no?  Well, this took some doing and it was, as I said, an experiment and a challenge to venture into new culinary directions.  For the peppers I knew ahead of time I wanted to try them both fresh and pickled.  If you opt for the latter, I suggest starting the day before to leave time for a pickling process.  And so I present to you recipe, method, and confessed mistakes.

Jalapeno Poppers with Goat Cheese and Raspberry:

Makes about 16 poppers

Filling:

4 oz Cream Cheese

5 oz Goat Cheese

Salt 

Pepper

Seedless Raspberry Jam

Pickled Peppers:

5 Tbls Kosher Salt

3 Tbsp Sugar

3/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 cup cold water

16 cored and seeded jalapenos

For breading and frying:

2 beaten eggs

1/4 cup flour

1 cup breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil 

For the pickled version, mix all of the ingredients listed above in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid.  I find that the kind a quart of wonton soup comes in does the job nicely.  Let sit in the fridge at least overnight.  I let mine go for about 2 days and they were great.

If you are not a big vinegar fan (which I can't imagine anyone not being), you can just core and seed fresh jalapenos and skip the pickling step.

Now, once the peppers are cored and seeded it's time to fill.  I discovered that cheaping out and using a sandwich baggie with a corner cut off, was not adequately strong enough for the extruding of cheese filling (read: exploded baggie) so I recommend the use of the pastry bag.  However, this method worked well for the raspberry filling, so go ahead with that route.  Fill each popper with about a teaspoon worth of raspberry.  I tried to leave a line of it laid down the inside of the pepper.  Next, fill the pepper with the cheese mixture.  When you've finished you'll have something that looks like these.  Once all the peppers are filled, put them into an airtight container and refrigerate for an hour or two to allow the filling to set up.

Now you'll need your breading stations: eggs beaten in a bowl, flour in the bowl next to that, and breadcrumbs in a bowl next to that.  Take the filled peppers out of the fridge and begin the breading process by first dipping each pepper into the beaten egg, then roll it in the flour, dip once again into the egg, and finally roll in the breadcrumbs.  If you are lucky to have such dedicated friends as LaGar

lique and Jamesicles, this process can be sped along into one great breading and frying assembly line.

You will need about an inch of vegetable oil in whatever vessel you choose to fry in. 

 I used a pot.  I regret that at the time of this writing I do not own a thermometer to 

check the temp on the oil.  I recommend that you use one and keep the oil at around 275 or 300.  I had to kind of guess this and wound up with some well done poppers on the first few tests.  Anyway, using a pair of tongs, because oil burns suck, gently place two or three poppers into the hot oil, being careful not to crowd them.  Fry until they reach a golden brown and then remove to a plate lined with paper towels or a cooling rack placed on top of a cookie sheet.

Let these cool for a few minutes because the insides, for those of you fortunate enough to not know this from first hand experience, are molten lava hot!  Enjoy!

Now, I have to tell you that there are a few things I learned from this.  One is that using raspberry jam straight from the jar seems to have too high of a water content when deep fried and got way too liquid-y inside the poppers.  It just did not stand up well and the flavor was lost due to the dripping of it onto the plate at first bite.  I would recommend cooking about 3/4 of a cup of this stuff down to about a 1/3 of a cup and cooling it before you attempt to fill the poppers.  I already mentioned the part where you should use a pastry bag for the cheese filling because of exploding baggie, and the fact that using ones fingers just does not get the cheese sufficiently stuffed into the poppers.  Then you're left with just a bite or two of cheesy goodness and then you run out!  Unacceptable!  Please see photos below for final product shots including illustration of above two mistakes.  Other than that, I feel like this recipe warrants another try. My brave taste testers discovered that some home grown peppers that I got from Scotts and Pans were really effing spicy as compared to the supermarket peppers.  Also they were divided on the pickled versus fresh debate but both seemed to enjoy the goat cheese/vaguely raspberry/jalapeno flavor combination.

Raspberry Streusel Bars

One of my prized possessions is a cookbook of family recipes that was given to me when I got married. The cool thing is that it was put in a photo album so that I could keep adding recipes as I developed my own cooking style. Truth be told my repertoire in the kitchen hasn't drifted far from the lessons I learned from the many southern women in my life who wrote those church cookbooks that contain recipes that feed an army. So, it's only fitting that I found this raspberry recipe in my family photo album and kid you not, it's a recipe found on the box of Fleischmann's Margarine!

Raspberry Streusel Bars

1-1/4 cups quick oats, uncooked

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-3/4 sticks Fleischmann's margarine, melted

1 cup raspberry jam or preserves

3/4 cup white chocolate chips, divided

1/4 toasted chopped almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl. Stir in Fleischmann's margarine until mixture is crumbly. Reserve 1 cup crumb mixture; set aside. Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom of an 8 inch square pan. Bake 10 minutes.

Spread raspberry fruit evenly over baked crust to within 1/4 inch of edges. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips. Combine reserved crumb mixture with remaining 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and almonds. Sprinkle over fruit mixture, pressing lightly into fruit. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on wire rack. Cut into squares and serve. Makes 16 servings.

Things I tried with this recipe...

I had a little extra brown sugar, so I added more than the recipe called for and yes, I did stay true and buy Fleischmann's margarine! I purchased Smuckers' seedless red raspberry jam and 1 cup was the whole jar, I thought it would be too much, but it was a good balance with the crumb mixture. I did not include almonds - I just didn't feel like adding them and I don't think the recipe missed them at all.

The mistakes I made were thinking I could make a white chocolate raspberry sauce (do not melt white chocolate chips in the microwave - always use a double-broiler) or that I thought I had the time to make jam/preserves on my own...I entertained the idea for a few brief moments.

Overall, this was a yummy dessert made even better when warm and topped with Vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream and a couple of fresh raspberries. I displayed this dessert on a "American" patterned salad plate by Fostoria - a set of plates given to me by one of those southern ladies in my life.

Raspberry Vodka Fizz

When presented with raspberries as the ingredient for the month, I instantly thought of a refreshing drink.  Here's the recipe!

6-8 raspberries, muddled

1 Tbs. simple syrup

2 oz. vodka

1 oz. Cointreau

Club soda

Muddle raspberries and simple syrup together in a tumbler.  Fill with ice.  Pour vodka and Cointreau in, stir, and top with club soda.

Love the flavor - it's very refreshing.  I would make one small change - I would decrease the Cointreau to 1 Tbs. rather than a whole ounce - especially for someone who doesn't like sweet drinks.  Another option would be to strain it through a tea strainer to get the seeds out.  In that case, I'd use more raspberries, make the entire drink, and strain the entire thing.  I wouldn't recommend using a martini strainer because the pulp and seeds would easily get trapped in the strainer and be difficult to clean.

I also tried making it with gin (and no Cointreau).  I did not like it.  It was not good.

Fresh Fruit Pie with Peaches, Blueberries and Raspberries

Several years ago I developed a peach/blueberry pie. I decided to take that recipe and alter it using our assigned ingredient of raspberries. My original recipe called for 2 Tbsp of lemon juice which is what I use when working with blueberries, as the lemon juice brings out the flavor of the blueberries. However, in the new recipe, I didn't want to use lemon juice because of the acidity of the raspberries. Having the lemon juice AND the raspberries would have been a bit much in the amount of acid in the pie. Therefore, I decided to try raspberry schnapps in place of the lemon juice. Not knowing exactly how flavorful the raspberries were and the fact they were being combined with peaches and blueberries, I thought the raspberry schnapps would add to the raspberry flavor and take it up a notch without adding acid to the entire pie.


Below in the recipe I developed and then my critique of the end result.


Fresh Fruit Pie

2 Tbsp. raspberry schnapps
3 cups sliced peaches
2 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/4 cups fresh raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 Pillsbury pie crust
Crumb topping (recipe belore)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Sprinkle the raspberry schnapps over fruit in large bowl. Combine sugar, flour and salt. Add to fruit, tossing lightly to combine. Let stand 15 minutes. Line a 9-inch pie plate with the Pillsbury pie crust, trim to fit pie plate. Turn fruit mixture into pastry-lined pie plate and mound in center. Top with crumb topping and bake 30-35 minutes or until fruit bubbles and topping is lightly browned.

Crumb Topping

1 stick margarine softened
1 cup flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
a slight shake of salt

Blend above ingredients until crumbly. Top pie and bake. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.




In my original recipe I used 3 cups of peaches and 1 cup of blueberries for a total amount of 4 cups of fruit. In this recipe I used a total amount of 6 1/4 cups of fruit. I did not increase the flour for the filling and found I should have increased the flour proportionately with the increase of the fruit. The next time I make this pie, I will use 3 Tbsp of flour in the filling. I will not change the amount of the sugar due to the addition of the schnapps which took care of the need for any additional sugar. The first piece of pie stayed together fairly well, as you can see by the picture, but the rest of the pie ended up juicy. I also think the weather during the growing season for the fruit has some relevance to the amount of water in the fruit. It is really the chance you take when making a fresh fruit pie - we don't know the water content in the fruit as it varies each season, so you never know if your pie will be set up or juicy.

The flavor was AWESOME! I refrigerated it and served it again - heating it in the microwave. It was just as good. I will definitely make this again with the adjustment of the flour.

Raspberries with two cakes and a whole lot of lemon

For the first experiment on this blog, I decided on the following general idea: cake soaked in limoncello, raspberry sauce, whipped cream, fresh raspberries. Sounds pretty good, huh? Feeling adventurous, I decided to make two versions. The first was with a pound cake recipe (picture below) and the second with angel food cake (picture at left).

The recipes for the cakes aren't original, but from a great source. Annie and I have used this book often- it's a great way to make small desserts for 1-3 people. I made one recipe of each cake, and split each in half for one serving.





For the actual dessert recipe, though, here are the ingredients and the steps:

• 1/2 oz. Limoncello for each serving of cake

• 6 oz. container of fresh raspberries
• 4 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• Juice from 1/4 of a lemon
  

• 1 pint whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

• Zest from aforementioned 1/4 lemon for garnish
  
• Additional raspberries for garnish
  

I poured the Limoncello on each serving of cake and let it sit while I assembled everything else. In a saucepan, I combined the package of raspberries, water, sugar and lemon juice and let simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring to break down the raspberries. Once it looked like it was broken down, I strained out the seeds and discarded them, then returned the sauce to the saucepan to reduce to a good syrup-like consistency.

Meanwhile, I made the whipped cream, with the cream, vanilla and sugar. This was WAY too much whipped cream for this experiment, but the container I had was the smallest I could find at Hannaford's, and what else am I going to do with a container of heavy cream? Shave? No.

Once the sauce and whipped cream were done, I assembled. For the purposes of taking pictures, I put the pound cake version in martini glasses, and the angel food cake on dessert plates we have.

After putting Pete to bed, we finally ate them. My pre-conceived notion was that the angel food cake version would be better because it's lighter, fluffier, and that usually works better with fruity desserts. Not this time. It was a unanimous decision that the pound cake is the way to go, mostly because the richness of the cake is better at sopping up the liqueur, and goes better with the whipped cream. Fortunately, when you're working with small batches of cake, it's really a quarter-pound cake, so the guilt factor is mitigated (slightly).

I think this recipe could be altered pretty easily, especially deciding what liqueur to use instead of Limoncello- Grand Marnier comes to mind pretty quickly. If you have any other suggestions, or general feedback on this post, please click the "Comments" link below. I'm hoping this will be as interactive as possible.