It's our wedding anniversary. Let's make chili rellenos!

On Saturday, Alex and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to make a chili rellenos casserole. It's Hatch chili season, so I had fresh chilies on hand. Yay me! This is a bit of a spin off from the Pioneer Woman's recipe. She uses canned chilies. Amateur!

Here's what you will need.

• About a dozen fresh chilies. The bigger, the better. Who says size doesn't matter?
• A block of grated cheese of your choice. I use monterey jack or pepper jack. You can also use already shredded cheese. Expect to use one bag. 
• 5 eggs
• 2 cups milk. I use 2%
• paprika
• cayenne pepper

Step one. Roast your chilies. Here in the land of no gas burners, I use my oven broiler. Set the broiler to high, lay out your chilies on a broiler pan or cookie sheet that can stand high temps. Let them broil for maybe 5 minutes on each side. You will hear some snap, crackle, pop sounds. 

Step two. Sweat the chilies. Once they are out of the oven, put them in a gallon sized zip lock bag and seal it up. Let them cool off for maybe 10-15 minutes. The steam will build up, and the chilies will continue to cook a bit in the bag. 

Step three. Remove the chilies from the bag and start to peel off the skin. Most of it should come off easily. Unless you don't roast the chilies long enough. See picture below. The resistant skin pieces can be removed with a knife. 

Peeling the skin off a chili

Step four. Slice the chili down the center and remove all seeds. The chilies are delicate, so be careful when you are slicing.

Step five. Lay the chilies flat onto a lightly greased baking pan. My latest cooking spray that I love is made from Coconut oil. Trader Joe's, baby!

Step six. Whisk the eggs and milk together, adding some paprika, and cayenne pepper. I don't measure, I just shake some in old school style.

Step 7. Pour the egg batter over the chilies.

Step 8. Sprinkle half the cheese over the eggs.

Step 9. Add another layer of chilies.

Step 10. Add another layer of cheese.

Step 11. Place the dish on top of a cookie sheet. Add some water to the cookie sheet. Just enough so that it is about 1/2 inch deep. Carefully place this all into a 325 degree pre-heated oven. 

Step 12. Patiently wait the 35-45 minutes until cooked. Enjoy the aroma coming from your kitchen.

Step 13. Eat! 

Step 14. Food coma, but totally worth it!

To celebrate our anniversary, I used our wedding china, wedding glasses, and even our wedding cake cutter to serve the chocolate chip cheesecake that I made. 

Yes, that is Minnie Mouse. We got married at the Disneyland Hotel.

Alex and I spent the afternoon at the movies. We saw The World's End, and really enjoyed it. Then we got home with Nik having a bit of an allergic reaction to a bug bite. Nothing major, but his arm was starting to swell.  At the advice of the on call nurse, we went to get it checked out. Fortunately, a bit of benadrl cream helped. Nik got to keep his arm, and he scored a lollipop. 

We capped off the day by watching our wedding day video with the kids. Happy Anniversary to us!