It’s creamy, it has shrimp, it has cheese and it’s on a jalapeno, oooo it’s spicyyy and oh wait, it’s baked too…

My obsession with jalapeno has started not so long ago, it’s only been an year now. When there is a hint of jalapeno in my dishes I will devour it happily, of course with few glasses of ice cold water. My favorite pizza topping is jalapeno. My favorite burger is the one loaded with pickled jalapeno. My favorite Thai food is garnished with jalapenos. My favorite bread is jalapeno cornbread. By now it must be crystal clear to you that I am a genuine jalapeno lover This doesn’t mean that I will ever dare to eat jalapeno as it is, I am not in for such challenges. I would rather hide

I’ve had stuffed jalapenos in many Mexican restaurants, since then I’ve been wanting to make this in my kitchen. Finally, I did make it. I bought a few pounds of jalapeno during my last grocery shopping. I wanted to make a different stuffing for the jalapenos. That day I had shrimp in my freezer. So, I made a stuffing with shrimp, cream cheese and parmesan cheese.

Be careful while seeding the jalapenos, if you want you could have the hand gloves on. Avoid the screaming part by accidentally rubbing your eyes with your jalapeno hands. If this happens for some reason, wash your eyes with cold water several times and if this doesn’t seem to work “Call 911″ immediately (just kidding).

I loved the bite of the shrimp from it, the creaminess and the mild spiciness from the jalapeno. While baking this, your house will smell as if you have jalapeno candles lighted on. Your eyes will have a slight burning sensation, but when you have a bite of this baked stuffed jalapeno you’ll forget about everything and your taste buds will melt into this.

Creamy Shrimp Stuffed Jalapeno

Ingredients:

• Jalapeno, halved and seeded, large- 7 no’s

• Shrimp, deveined, cooked frozen, minced- 6 no’s
• Cream cheese- 5 tbsp
• Parmesan cheese- 3 tbsp
• Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Dried Parsley- 1 tsp

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 425 F.
• Rinse the jalapenos, pat dry and cut them into halves vertically.

• If you want you could wear a hand glove while removing the seeds from the jalapenos and keep aside.
• Mince the deveined, cooked shrimp and keep aside.

• In a large bowl, combine the shrimp, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, ground pepper and dried parsley.

• Place 1 tsp of this stuffing on to each jalapeno.

• Bake the stuffed jalapenos for 25 minutes or until the top of the stuffing starts to turn golden.

• Let cool down for few minutes and serve immediately to kick off your smashing party.

Tips:

For Vegans: You could substitute shrimp with other veggies like green pepper or potatoes.

After blogging about the benefits of fruits and veggies, I went for a mega grocery shopping and I blindly took almost all the fruits and veggies that were in the store. When I was ready to check out, my shopping cart was stacked up with all healthy stuffs. I occasionally sneaked into others cart, and what I saw was all frozen and unhealthy stuffs heaped up. Looking at my cart, I felt way too healthy and gratified. After that shopping, I was surprised to see that I actually had ignored many fruits and veggies. For instance, Kale was one such veggie I never haven’t cared to buy. It was when I started to arrange all the healthies in my refrigerator that I realized; I actually needed one more refrigerator to keep all of them. Somehow I forced everything into the refrigerator and with a deep breath out, I stood still with the fridge open for a while and thought about all the healthy dishes I would be making with them.

Now, I make sure to include veggies in my daily diet. The best part is we don’t have to make a real fancy dish with the veggies to get its benefits, by really easy cooking methods we can include these in our daily diet and benefit out of them. One such cooking method is baking the veggies; only thing we have to do is season the veggies, which would take less than a minute. And then pop it in the oven and the rest of the cooking the oven would do, we don’t have to stand aside to stir it or sauté it.

It’s been only 4 years since I have included asparagus in my diet. I have never seen or heard about this when I was in Kerala, because it wasn’t available there, I am not sure whether it is available now though. When I first saw this veggie, I was so curious to taste this veggie. After tasting this veggie in a restaurant, this has become an unavoidable veggie for me. I always roast them in the oven, soup them and use them in stir-fry.

If you haven’t tried this veggie, you must definitely try this, it is really healthy and tasty. Check my “say YES to fruits and veggies” blog post to know more about its health benefits.

Roasting the asparagus in the oven is the easiest dish you could make out of these. This would make a healthy snack or a side dish.

Ingredients:

• Asparagus- 1 pound
• Garlic, cut thin long- 3 cloves
• Pepper powder- 1/2 tsp
• Salt- to taste
• Olive oil- 1tsbp

Preparation:

• Season the asparagus with the above ingredients,  toss them and spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
• Preheat the oven to 425F.
• Bake it in the oven for 20 minutes.

For Seasoning after the baking:

Ingredients:

• Lemon zest- 1/2 tsp ( grate the skin of the lemon using a veggie grater)
• Parmesan cheese, freshly grated or frozen- 2 -3 tbsp
• Basil leaves chopped-4-5 leaves
• Toasted Almond slices- 2tbsp ( you could toast the almonds in a pan until it gets golden brown)
• Olive oil-1 tsp
• Lemon juice-1tsp

Method:

• Combine lemon zest, Parmesan cheese and chopped basil leaves together and keep it aside.
• As soon as the asparagus is taken out of the oven, sprinkle the above mix on to them.
• Drizzle it with olive oil, lemon juice and put the toasted almonds on it.
• Serve immediately when it is still hot.

Tips:

• Make sure to sprinkle the cheese mix as soon as the asparagus comes out of the oven, this would help to melt the cheese and enhance the flavor.
• You could also skip the cheese, if you are going too healthy.

Chili soup, is one of my all time favorites. whenever I come across chili in any restaurant, I make sure to order that first. It’s a thick hearty soup, a bowl of chili is good enough to fill my stomach, of course with lots of cheese sprinkled over it.

Here is the recipe for making the most delicious chili and that too in under 30 minutes. Hence the name “Express Chili”. This tasted just like restaurant style. Now, I don’t have to rush to a restaurant if I feel like having chili. I could make this in my own kitchen. So let the countdown begin and in 30 minutes you have your bowl of hot chili ready.

Ingredients

• Precooked Chicken breast, diced -1 pound
• Chicken stock- 4 cups
• Salsa (store bought, mild or medium hot)-  16 ounce jar
• kidney beans ( rinsed)- 1can
• White beans (rinsed)- 1can
• Garlic- 3tsp
• Cumin powder-2 tsp
• Cheddar cheese ( grated)- 1 cup
• Tortilla chips ( finely crushed)- 1 cup

Preparation Method:

• Heat up a dutch oven.
• Add the chicken stock, followed by salsa, beans, garlic, precooked chicken, and cumin powder.
• Mix everything and let the mixture come to a boiling.
• When the above mixture starts to thicken, add the cheddar cheese and give it a quick stir and let the cheese melt.
• Finish up the chili with finely crushed tortilla chips.
• Ladle into bowls and serve with more cheese sprinkled over the soup or sour cream.

Tips:

• I poached the chicken in water until well cooked.
• This is a really thick chili, you could thin it down by adding more of the chicken stock.
• Health freaks, you could use fat free cheese.
• Make sure to add cumin powder, this really makes a difference, gives that smoky flavor.
• Hard core veggies: try this without chicken, and let me know how it turns out.

Now that you got the perfect recipe for making the chili just like restaurant style, what are you doing here? Rush into your kitchen and let the aroma of chili spread all over your house. Enjoy!