Friday, January 27, 2012

Easy tequila jalapeño chicken

Thank God it is Friday! It feels like it has been a very long week and I dragged myself home from school today feeling totally worn out. John suggested going out to eat, but the defrosted chicken breasts were looking a bit forlorn on the counter so I decided instead to whip up a marinade for them and then go sit in the hot tub for awhile. The marinade is:
one onion, chopped fine
one jalapeño, grated
a handful of cilantro
about a tablespoon of olive oil
3 pressed garlic cloves
1 oz. tequila (John later admitted he added about another ounce in when I wasn't looking)
the juice from one lime, plus a bit more from the bottle in the fridge when that didn't seem like enough.


And just because I wanted to keep it nice and easy, I wrapped a couple yellow potatoes in tin foil and tossed them in the oven to bake.


After about an hour soak in the hot tub while the chicken breasts marinated in the fridge, we got out and went to work. John put the chicken on the BBQ.
And then, since one little measly jalapeño really isn't that much heat in our world, he broke out the Mad Anthony's Extra Hot BBQ Sauce to add on top of his as well.
I boiled the veggies in the kitchen until John had the chicken breasts done. We were out of sour cream for the potatoes, so we broke out the Litehouse Jalapeño Ranch dressing. Yum! What an easy delicious meal.















Friday, January 20, 2012

Jalapeño Peanut Butter Cookies

Going a little stir crazy on this fourth snow day, I decided to bake. John suggested peanut butter cookies so I broke out my favorite cookie book. As I was making the cookies I began to wonder what it would be like if I put a jalapeño twist on them. So after making sure that I had at least four dozen regular cookies, I grated up a jalapeño and added it in to the remaining dough.


Then I decided to bump it up a level. I rolled the dough into balls, made a well in the center of each cookie with my thumb, grabbed the jalapeño jelly I made in September, and filled each well with some jalapeño jelly.

I upped the bake time to 12 minutes instead of the regular 10 minutes because the jelly makes the center soft.


The green of the jalapeño created a beautiful cooky. But the taste! It was a little bit of heaven. It has enough heat that it leaves a nice tingle in your mouth, and who doesn't love peanut butter and jelly together.  I think I've just found my new favorite cookie.