Chili Rellenos de Rachael Ray

Sure, when you're thinking of Mexican food, Rachael Ray isn't the first chef to come to mind. However, Gina and I have been trying to decide how to use our anaheim peppers from our garden, and we wanted chili rellenos. The recipes out there, though, aren't very healthy and are usually battered and fried.  Rachael's looked fresh, delicious, and it is not loaded with a ton of fat and calories. Find the recipe here.

First, the recipe called for fresh sweet corn: one of my favorites. I grew up eating corn straight from my grandparents' fields, and I love its nice fresh taste. We cut the corn off of the cobs, then sauteed it up with some onions and serrano peppers.

The serrano peppers we got from our friends Wendy and Jerry who grew it at their apartment (Thanks guys!). 

Here is a picture of the sauteeing step, we later added some fire roasted tomatoes and garlic to finish it off.

We also followed Rachael Ray's recipe for some cilantro lime rice. We took this opportunity to use the microplane tools that my grandparents bought me for my birthday this year. Lime zesting made easy.

We put cilantro, lime zest, vegetable broth, spinach, and some lime juice into our food processor and ground into a paste. We put it into a bowl and stirred in with some cooked rice (cooked in vegetable broth).

Of course, we can't have chili rellenos without some roasted green chilis. We used the broiler to roast some of our homegrown Anaheim chili peppers (also two store bought, because we didn't have enough ready).

We covered the chilis with the corn/tomato/onion mixture and used the broiler to melt some cheese on top. The rice turned out very well, and brought in some nice color and flavors to the rellenos. We'd recommend this healthy alternative to fried chili rellenos to anyone, again you can find the recipe on Rachael Ray's Food Network website.

YUM - O!