Here’s a pretty easy and straightforward recipe for you!  You are going to need to whip out your blender for the sauce!  There’s a little bit of prep involved with about an hour of cooking–but that’s it. This means you can clean up your kitchen and watch your kid run around outside in the backyard while you wait. Or you can get in an episode of one of those trashy shows you’ve been telling me about! The smell that will waft from your kitchen is worth the effort you put in. You might even find yourself watching commercials instead of fast forwarding…because the scent is so intoxicating. Believe me.

The peppers will get fork tender after all that roasting and the cornmeal/ black bean/ cheese mixture turns part solid and part gooey inside the peppers. It’s as if a tamale mated with a chile relleno and produced a lighter & healthier offspring! (YES- I really just said the word mate!) You are going to want to spoon a bunch of the leftover sauce on your pepper. You’ll probably sit there imagining what else to put that sauce on…if you have any left. It’s quite enjoyable. Go ahead, top it with some hot sauce. You like it spicy, don’t you? You’ll find that the peppers taste even better the next day. Funny what a little overnight stay in the fridge will do to a pepper. Enjoyable, huh?

You start with 4 poblanos!

Cut them in half & dig out all of the seeds.

Start making your sauce! Put all of the saucy ingredients in a blender.

Puree that mofo!

Now pour it into your pan. Set aside. Nice work.

We need to start working on the filling. Get out some cornmeal.

Mix it with your cheese, cumin, onions & water.

Stuff the filling into each pepper!

Place the peppers into the baking pan. You might want to add a little more sauce on top.

Stick that bad boy into the oven to roast with some foil on top. Then you take it off top for a bit.

It comes out of the oven looking like this!

Look at that sauce….

YUM!

Stuffed Poblanos

(recipe from Everyday Food)

• 1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes in puree
• 1 minced jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed for less heat if desired
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, 2 whole, 1 minced
• coarse salt, ground pepper
• 1 can (19 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 large poblano chiles, halved lengthwise [stems left intact] ribs and seeds removed

Preheat oven to 425 F degrees. In a blender, combine tomatoes in puree, jalapeno, half the onions, and 2 whole garlic cloves. Puree until smooth. Season with salt. Pour the sauce into a 9×13-inch baking dish and then set it aside.

In a medium bowl, combine beans, cornmeal, 1/2 cup cheese, remaining onions, minced garlic, cumin and 3/4 cup water. Season with salt and pepper.

Dividing evenly, stuff the poblano chile halves with the bean mixture and place in the baking dish on top of the sauce. Sprinkle the poblano chiles with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil.

Bake until the poblanos are tender, about 45 minutes. Remove foil and continue to cook until the sauce thickens slightly and cheese is golden brown, about 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

***I thought this recipe needed a little more black beans…and then I realized that the recipe calls for a 19oz. can of black beans. My 15 oz. can didn’t cut it. That’s what I get for breezing over directions! ***