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| Cooked chiles stuffed with cashew cream cheese, herbs, veggies, and spices. |
Chile rellenos, traditional style, have always been a rare indulgence. With the time it takes to make them, all the fat and frying involved, and the guilt afterwards for eating way too much of this fatty yet yummy food, my family doesn't go there very often.
Along comes Kris Carr with one of her most recent cookbooks "Crazy Sexy Kitchen". When we saw the picture of her Chile Rellenos with Red and Green Sauces, we just had to try it. However, as I have said before, I have trouble following a recipe so I adapted a little here and there. My past experience though tells me that all of her recipes are PERFECT just the way they are printed.
Chiles are abundant in our garden as end of season crops. We have serranos, habaneros, cayenne, jalapenos, and poblanos. That isn't counting the gentle black and red peppers which we will be stuffing this week. This chile relleno recipe works well with poblanos or anaheims.
Serves: 6
Prep and cook time: about an hour
6 poblano or Anaheim chiles
2 tsp. olive oil
Cashew-Jalapeno Cheese filling:
2 C. raw cashews, soaked in water about 30 minutes to soften
3 Tblsp. lime juice
3/4 C. water
2+ Tblsp, nutritional yeast
1/2 yellow onion, minced
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/2 C. finely diced yellow, orange, or red bell pepper (or a mix)
1/2 C. finely chopped cilantro
2 shallots, minced
1-1/2 Tblsp cumin powder
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
salt to taste
Sauce:
Kris Carr uses two sauces in her beautiful book version. An ancho pepper puree and a cilantro mint puree. Both are divine. The cookbook will give you those recipes. I chose to use one of my own salsa verdes which I had prepared with tomatillos from the garden.
Roast the chiles. Preheat oven to broil. Rub the chiles with the oil and place on a metal baking sheet. Broil for one minute on each side. Watch carefully! You want the skin to soften and bubble but not burn. Remove the chiles from the oven and set aside.
While the chiles are cooling, prepare the filling. In a blender, add the drained cashews, lime juice, and water. Blend on high until completely smooth. Pour mix into a bowl and add the nutritional yeast, minced onion, jalapeno, peppers, cilantro, shallots, cumin, oregano, and salt. Mix together gently with your hands until blended.
Back to the chiles...
Preheat oven to 225 degrees.
Make a slice down the length of the roasted chiles and gently open up a pouch. Spoon the Cashew-Jalapeno filling into each of the chiles using up all of the filling.
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| These chiles weren't roasted first. We decided we liked them roasted after making this batch. But hey, you can skip this step if you like or want to save time. |
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| The smell of these cooking is really nice. Place a spoonful of sauce on the plate and place a stuffed chile on top. |
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| We made a salad with chopped greens and yellow tomatoes from the garden. |
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| The finished meal. |
This was devoured by my men who all loved this. Even my carnivore husband ate every last bite.
Calories and nutrition for one large vegan chile relleno with 2 tablespoons tomatillo sauce and 1/2 cup dressed salad is approximately 600 calories. This serving includes 8 g fiber, 21 g protein, and almost 43 g fat, most of which is mono- and poly-unsaturated with only 7 g being saturated. Then there is a full compliment of vitamin C, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, phosphorous, and selenium. Oh, and lots of other minerals and vitamins too.
Don't be put off by the fat calories in this recipe. A traditional chile relleno would be stuffed with cheese, breaded and fried, and paired with beans and rice. There would be more fat calories, most of which would be saturated from the cheeses, not to mention the frying. Beans and rice pile on the starches of which you honestly only need one serving.
Explore and enjoy.
- Kim Fielding
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