Have you see these ingredients yet?

One of the things I look forward to this time of the year is the flood of new baking products that seem to hit the shelves before the holidays. While I was browsing the aisles this weekend at the markets, I picked up a couple of them and then put them back... well after doing that a couple times, I went ahead and bought them anyway. I didn't and still don't have any plans for them yet, but I figure I will come up with/across a recipe where we can fit these two ingredients in!

The first are these caramel chips - really, I could just cut up a chunk of caramel if I needed to, but these just looked fun.

They are small and kind of squishy - I'm wondering how they will handle the heat in the oven. I have a feeling they are just going to melt into little puddles, unlike chocolate chips that keep their shape, but we will have to see. It does, of course, come with the obligatory sticks to make caramel apples if you so desire!

Next, this bag of Jet-Puffed Chocolate Marshmallows caught my attention.

Now, we have made homemade chocolate marshmallows before, so I highly doubt this will compete taste-wise, but I bet these will be fun to use in a recipe or tossed in a mug of hot cocoa. We tried the strawberry flavored ones when they came out a few months ago, however they were a little heavy on the artificially-flavored side and were just OK.

Has anyone else given these a try yet?

On the weekends, I will often cook up a big batch of brown rice, portion it out and keep it in the freezer to speed up weeknight dinners or if I happen to need a quick lunch. I was happy that I did this last Sunday as it greatly sped up the time it took to make tonight's dinner of Stuffed Poblano Peppers. We halved 4 big poblano peppers, stuck 'em under the broiler to char the skin and then removed said blackened skin (never wash it off, you don't want to wash the flavor right down the drain!) after they were cool enough to handle. We mixed the cooked nutty brown basmati rice with some gorgeous mid-summer sweet corn that I had previously blanched and frozen to use throughout the fall and winter season. Some red kidney beans are also tossed in and the mixture is quite simply dressing with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper. Each of the pepper halves are stuffed with a generous portion of the rice mixture and topped with a helping of creamy crumbled goat cheese. While this is suggested to be served at room temperature, when we've done stuffed peppers in the past, they are typically baked to finish them off. Don't get me wrong, this was hearty and pretty good for being so easy, but I thought it would have been a little better if they were served warm right out of the oven. We both happened to comment after finishing our plates that we especially liked the tang from the goat cheese and would use that again in other stuffed pepper recipes.

Recipes
Stuffed Poblano Peppers