Peppers and a Picture or Two

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know...we won't get into my skippin' out for a month.

Well, I have not taken any pictures of the baby blanket, but I did get a few of the horses at a family reunion at The Man's aunt's house. These two were kinda antsy.
And this one was a total ham. I absolutely loved him. Or her.
Ok, on to other things. I have the recipe for the peppers:D Now, this is a tweeked recipe, so it's not perfect, but this is my version.

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapenos

12 jalapenos, washed
1 8oz block cream cheese, softened
1 envelope ranch or italian dressing mix**
6(ish) slices raw bacon

Before I start, let me tell you this. If you buy large jalapenos, you might need a little more than one block of cream cheese. Which also means you would also need a little more dressing mix. This is all guess-timation, so just do whatever you think you'll like, but do make sure you have plenty of cheese to fill your peppers:D BTW, the size of the peppers also dictates how many slices of bacon you need, but I'll get to that.

In a small mixing bowl, stir cream cheese (or beat with a hand mixer, whichever) 'til smooth. Add dressing mix, stirring very well so you don't have little pockets of mix in your cheese. Bleh. Set aside.

Now, cut a piece off the side of each jalapeno and remove the innards, but keep the piece you cut off. The best I method I could come up with looked like this:

Go turn your toaster oven on to Bake at 350 degrees right about now.

Fill each jalapeno with the cheese mixture and replace the piece you cut off the side. Now, lay your bacon out on a cutting board and gently stretch each slice (to get the most from them). Lay your first pepper, opening up, on the end of one slice of bacon. Roll the bacon and pepper until the end of the bacon just overlaps a new layer (of bacon). Cut off remaining bacon and lay the wrapped pepper, bacon seam down, on a foil-lined pan (I used the one that came with my toaster oven, it held all 12 nicely). If you bought the smaller, hotter jalapenos, one slice will usually do 3 peppers. If you bought the bigger, milder peppers, one slice will only do 2, a little generously. Repeat with each pepper.

When your oven is ready, pop the peppers in and bake them about 30 minutes*, or until they look like this:
Beg your pardon, the grease from the bacon dirtied the back of my little oven. I hate for anyone to see that, but if you cook, you must also clean.

*My sister told me that they're best if the bacon is a little burnt, which I didn't do. I think you could achieve it though, by setting your oven a little higher.

**About the dressing mix, my sister actually had them with the italian mix and loved them. I came home thinkin' I'd have to break down and buy a packet of dry italian dressing mix (something neither me nor my husband like). But then a light bulb came on and I grabbed my canister/shaker of ranch dressing mix. I think I like them with ranch way better than I would with italian.
I hope you enjoy them as much as we are:D
Ciao!!