Jalapeno Poppers

I have had many a deep-fry party in my day, and for some reason they always seem to turn out the same. Deep-fry parties are like pancakes - the greatest thing ever at first, but by the end you're sick of them and vow to never have one ever again. And also, you can smother everything with butter and syrup. But just like pancakes, the DFP always manages to find a way to creep back into your life to pull your life expectancy down just a touch. And that's why I love them so darn much.

This is a deep fried classic and we didn't do much to mess with it except wrap it with bacon. You will need jalapeno peppers, cream cheese, gouda, bacon, flour and breadcrumbs.



1. Cut the tops off the peppers and scoop out the seeds. Use a piping bag to fill them with cream cheese or any filling of choice. We used a smoked salmon flavored cream cheese mixed with shredded gouda.




2. Wrap the peppers with bacon. Cut each slice in half, drape one half over the open end of the pepper, and wrap the other half around.





3. Dip the bacon-wrapped peppers in a batter made of flour, water and salt. Cover with breadcrumbs and deep fry at 375F until bacon is cooked through.



The poppers were pretty effing delicious, but very spicy. If you don't like spicy food, you're just gonna have to man up.

Poppers with loaded potatoes

Spaghetti filled Meatballs

While I love classic spaghetti and meatballs just as much as the next guy, I find it a very messy and difficult food to eat on the run. I have tried many different ways to eat pasta while driving/biking/flying a kite (including feed bags), but nothing has ever worked. Until now. We here at Late Night Chefs have finally found a solution - spaghetti filled meatballs. All the flavors and textures of spaghetti and meatballs, with the shape and portability of a hand fruit. No more dangerously slippery tomato sauce on the steering wheel. No more showing up to work looking like the inside of a pumpkin. Here is how to make spaghetti filled meatballs:




1. Make spaghetti. We used a standard sauce and added some of our own herbs and spices.





2. Make your meatball mixture. You can use any recipe you want, but we used a ground beef/sausage mixture and added eggs, breadcrumbs and spices to taste.







3. Stuff spaghetti into meat mixture. This step can be a little tricky to do without leaving any holes in the meatball.






We made a bowl-like shape, filled it with spaghetti and carefully worked the meat into a sphere encasing the noodles, adding extra meat when necessary.





4. Bake at 375F for about 15 minutes or until the meat is cooked through.




I suggest you make at least a dozen of these at a time, and replace those apples in your fruit basket with something of substance.

You should have went with spaghetti filled meatballs, dummy

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura, Marcus, Michelle

Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese

How do you make an already awesome dish like macaroni and cheese even better? A generation ago the answer would have been simple: add bacon. This approach is very basic but has been the most reliable food-enhancer for years. I believe the culinary world has evolved in flavors and complexity since the days of our parents and grandparents, and today the answer has become much more complicated: add bacon and deep fry it. This formula works so well it almost seems like cheating. Using the bacon/deep-fry combo is like playing basketball against your kid sister/a midget - a little too easy and doesn't require a great deal of effort or skill, but ultimately still satisfying. So here are instructions on how to make deep fried mac and cheese:





1. Make macaroni and cheese. We used elbow macaroni and mixed it with cheddar, ricotta, sausage and bacon.






2. Wrap in a tortilla and hold in place with skewers.






3. Deep fry. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we don't own a lot of equipment. If you don't have a thermometer, don't leave the stove heat on too high like we did. We learned a valuable lesson in the smoke point of vegetable oil.





4. Eat.





Although we initially decided to just make deep fried macaroni and cheese, this session turned into sort of an experimental night. Since I don't want to make a post for each item, here's some of the stuff we made.

Another one, deep fried for less time with a thin coating of batter

Potato chips and sweet potato fries

Shrimp (the darker ones are coated with breadcrumbs)

Viva Puffs (marshmallow and cookie in chocolate shell)

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura and Marcus

Giant Ravioli

If you have ever made fresh pasta by hand, you know that it can be a very tedious and time consuming task. Now imagine being a poor student and not owning a pasta machine, or even a rolling pin. Imagine having to use a freakin' wine bottle to roll out ravioli dough in a stuffy, unventilated kitchen in the middle of summer. Unfortunately for us, we don't have to imagine doing these things because we actually did them. Fortunately for you, it was all done to bring you the next installation in our ongoing series of gigantisized foods. Our giant ravioli measured about 10"x 10" and weighed at least a couple of pounds. Here's how to make one at home:





1. Make ravioli dough. We followed a generic recipe that can be found online using flour, eggs, oil and salt. If done by hand, it will require quite a bit of labor-intensive kneading.





2. Roll out dough into a roughly rectangular shape, which will be folded in half to make the giant ravioli.






3. Make ravioli filling. We made ours by mixing ground beef, bacon, spinach and ricotta cheese, as well as various herbs and spices.




4. Place filling on one side of the dough and brush the edges of one half with egg wash.






5. Fold the dough, seal with a fork and trim to create a square. Make sure to get out as much air as possible so that the ravioli doesn't burst.






6. Boil giant ravioli for 10-12 min or until tender.







7. Top with sauce and consume.





While I was forced to do a good chunk of the hard labor, the joke is on the rest of the team who probably ingested about 2 cups of Marcus sweat. I'm sure it helped with the overall moisture and saltiness of the dough.


- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura, Marcus & Michelle

Poutine Pie

It's been more than a week since our last update, which means it is time again to combine two things we love individually and see what would come out if they had sex. The first half, poutine (poo-TEEN), is universally adored for its caloric density and artery-clogging properties. A basic poutine is made by topping fries with cheese curds and hot gravy, making it vegetarian (aka healthy?). The second half is pie. Enough said.

Note: Our integrity did come into question when we decided to take several shortcuts in this recipe. We use pre-cut fries, pre-made pie shells and regular cheese instead of cheese curds. Feel free to make everything from scratch, but for us it just means a longer wait until the final product. This is how we made the poutine pie:




1. Gather up the necessary ingredients: fries, cheese, gravy and pie shells. We decided to add some ground beef and mushrooms to ours, as well as our recipe standard - bacon.




2. Bake/fry the fries, cut cheese into small cubes (if not using curds), cook mushrooms and beef, heat gravy and bake pie shells according to instructions.





3. Add a layer of fries to the bottom of the pie shell. Top with cheese, a sprinkle of beef and gravy. Repeat for a second layer, packing down the fries so there aren't too many gaps.







4. Top with bacon weave. Not only will the bacon taste good on its own, but the bacon juices will seep into the pie like a magical nectar and enhance the flavor of everything it touches.







5. Return to oven at a high temperature to cook the bacon (we used the broil setting).






This was possibly the most delicious and fattiest thing we have made so far, despite not tasting much like actual poutine. I guarantee you will see more creations deriving from both poutine and pie in the future, as they have both taken their places under bacon in the "I don't care how long I live" food category. Enjoy the pictures.





- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Laura, Marcus & Michelle