A single female and a bag of jalapenos…oh the places the night could’ve taken me! I chose the road most traveled and skirted over to All Recipes website. A quick ‘ingredient’ search with just jalapenos revealed a slew of choices.The first one that caught my eye was Easy Jalapeno Hot Sauce. The recipe called for 1 ¼ lbs of jalapenos. Great. I couldn’t remember how many pounds of peppers I purchased…and I’m sure the receipt is lost in New Hampshire somewhere. But then I noticed too it served 32. Yeah, not going to eat all that!
Thus, I took some liberties. I cut it down (I think) to 8 peppers. I didn’t have any canola oil, so I subbed vegetable oil. I don’t like to measure much. The water and oil measurements were just splashes in the blender.
Also, it was my first time cooking with jalapenos. I read enough about it to put my rubber gloves on. I seeded them with a spoon after cutting the stems off and slicing them lengthwise. While seeding one of the peppers, it fought back and squirted me directly in my right eye. I waited a second. No burn, just a little dryness. I survived my first jalapeno squirt.
One whole jalapeno dropped in the blender followed by the boiled and seeded ones. With the oil and water added, I set the blender on low - puree. Some green smudge happened on the bottom but not much more. I stepped the blender up to chop and I could see the peppers turning. When they were mostly chopped in the green liquid, I switched back to puree. It was pretty cool to see my blender steaming from the heat. Meanwhile, I also found a recipe for Jalapeno Cocktail Squares. It called for 6 eggs, of which I had 4. Hello Google. A few sites recommended using a meal of flaxseed and water. I had flaxseed, but they were whole. Finally I found where I should be able to grind them with a food processor. Half hour later, I had ground flaxseed. It took a bit, but did the job.
For the meal, I did 1 tbsp ground flaxseed to 3 tbsp of water for each egg. I decided to do 3 eggs and 3 substitutes. I put the seed and water in the saucepan on low for about 10 minutes until it was the consistency of the beaten eggs .
I used 7 jalapenos for this recipe. I believe they called for 5. The food processor minced them up for me after I rinsed it from the flaxseeds and I layered the bottom of my 8” x 8” pan with them. Next came the cheese, which of course I teetered with too. I had a block of cheddar that I shredded over the peppers. Then I dabbled some of the cream cheese mixture (cream cheese, garlic, and cheddar cheese) from the Firecracker recipe in the pan too.
I beat 3 eggs with the flaxseed meal and poured it over the peppers and cheese. It didn’t quite cover it, nor seem like enough. I used the last egg I had and beat it with a splash of water. This did the trick. The peppers and cheese were covered.
The oven was preheated to 350°F as the recipe called for. See, I don’t change everything! And I popped the pan in.
The recipe called for 30 minutes in the oven, or until firm. An hour later mine was done…but my house smelt great!
While my cocktail squares were cooking, I had to sample my hot sauce. I put some over my nachos and used up the last of the cheddar block I had. It was good, but not great. The sauce was more mild than I expected and reminded me more of guacamole. I will definitely use what I made up; however, next time I will probably keep seeds in and maybe add a few things. It is definitely a good base recipe.
I hoped for better luck with the squares - which I must say I had. The squares took a bit longer than expected to cook. I think it was because of the flaxseed meal made with water, and then the additional water added with the last egg. I kept resetting the timer with each dent made by my spatula when I tested the firmness
. The edges browned and became crispy. I pulled the custard out of the oven and placed the pan on a cooling rack. I kept telling myself that I’d wait until the morning to try it.
But the delicious smell got to me and I stole a corner of it. Yup. It’s also a keeper. But, not as a base, as a real recipe as I made it. I’d definitely add cream cheese and flaxseed again.
Someone in the reviews for the recipe compared it to a crustless quiche. I think with the flaxseed instead of some of the eggs, it’s lighter than a quiche. Also, someone else said it was just as good reheated. I will know tomorrow morning when I have some at work….if the pan doesn’t disappear before I sleep!
