Roasted Pepper and Pepper Jack Corn Muffin Recipes (Steph)

Since I didn't take any pictures of our chili cook-off the other night, I might as well share the recipes I used for the food we brought.

Roasted Pepper Chili

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef
2 cups chopped onion (2 large)
1 large Bell Pepper
1 Anaheim Chili Pepper
1 Jalapeno Pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 15 ounce can beans (kidney, black, pinto)
    (I used one can pinto and one can black)
2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup water
2 Tbsp Chili powder
1 tsp dried basil (I didn't have basil, so I used dried parsley instead)
1/2 tsp black pepper

Roast peppers under broiler until dark and blistered.  Place in bowl and cover 5-10 minutes. Remove skins and seeds; dice. In dutch oven, brown ground beef then add onion, roasted peppers and garlic.  Cook until onion is tender.  Stir in beans , tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, chili powder, basil, and black pepper .  Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer covered 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

At this point, I usually put it in the slow cooker to keep it cooking until dinner time.  Serve with sour cream and/or cheese.


Pepper Jack Corn Muffins

1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 to 3 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

Preheat oven to 400 deg F.  In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In a small bowl, combine eggs, milk and oil.  Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture and stir until just moistened.  Spoon batter into greased muffin tin, filling each two-thirds of the way full.  Bake at 400 15 to 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.  Makes 12 muffins.

Just a note: I doubled this recipe, so I used 1 cup shredded cheese.  I don't think it was enough cheese, so next time I think I'll bump it up to 3/4 or 1 cup of cheese per batch.  Also, I thought that the corn muffins were still a little dry for my taste, so next time maybe I'll add some sour cream or something???

As for the bookin', Mom lent me one of her copies of "The  Halloween Tree" and I've read the first couple of chapters.  I want to read it aloud to Kevin, but when I brought up the idea, he wasn't too hot on it.  I'll let you know what I think when I'm done.  I know we watched the cartoon all the time when we were kids, but honestly, I can't remember most of it.  All I remember it the part where they eat the candy skulls and I thought it was cool, but kind of freaky at the same time.