Chili Pepper Poppers with Smashed Avocado

Mr Meatified wanted some “game food” this weekend and I was happy to oblige – as long as it was Paleo. I’m annoying like that. Now one of his favorite and often-ordered appetizers back before Paleo was Jalapeno Poppers. I will also confess that I used to force him to share because I loved them, too. While we’re doing confessions, I’m definitely a “steals food from other people’s plates but stabs anyone who tries to touch hers with a fork” kinda gal. What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine…

So I was inspired while reminiscing about those “poppers” to take the good parts of the experience like the handy-dandy scoop-like qualities of the jalapenos (and the “who’s going to get the hot pepper?” roulette!) but to also lose the deep fried tummy-owwie making coating. This is what I came up with. I tend to make huge batches of chili for the winter and freeze it in 1 cup servings, so I had my own chili already to hand – if your chili is already prepared, you are less than 30 minutes away from a plate of these yourself!

So here’s whatchya do. Preheat your oven to 375F and line a baking tray – I used my Silpat. Take your jalapenos and split them down the middle. DON’T chop off the stem ends first – by leaving them intact and then cutting through the stem, you retain the boat-like shape that will keep all your filling contained without spilling onto your baking tray. Like this:

Next, hollow out the pepper halves by removing the seeds and membranes with a spoon. Wear some latex gloves while you’re doing this if you can, getting jalapeno in surprise places after cooking is never fun!

Fill your jalapeno pepper halves with chili. I found that my coarse ground chili was too lumpy to fit into the peppers nicely, so I gave mine a quick pulse in my food processor to make it more spreadable. You might not have to do that, depending on the texture of your chili. You can also fill your peppers a little higher than these peppers show – a certain someone made off with some of my chili while my back was turned…

Put your tray of filled peppers in the oven for 20 minutes, until the filling is hot and the peppers are roasted. While they are cooking, smash up & season some avocados to your liking. When the peppers are ready, top each half with a little avocado and then devour!

Please note: I really don’t recommend you try to reheat these in the microwave. Mr M did and actually set fire to one of the stems…

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