A very special lady in our lives had an accident last week and is in the care of some wonderful doctors, nurses and therapists  to whom we wanted to say "thanks". (And if the truth be told, we wanted her to have the advantage of bribery foods in her room!) That goal in mind, I began going through recipes looking for the perfect one to satisfy everyone's cravings.  I decided on a new version of an old favorite - Chocolate Chip Cookies With Sea Salt and Caramel.

Here's what you'll need:

4 1/2 cups Flour
2 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Finely Ground Sea Salt
2 cups (4 sticks) Butter, Softened
1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 cups Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed
2 tsp Vanilla
4 Eggs
22 Soft Caramel Pieces, cut into small pieces
2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 Tbl Course Sea Salt (for topping)
Parchment Paper

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda and ground salt in a bowl and set aside.

Cream together butter, both sugars and vanilla. 

Add eggs separately and mix thorougly. 

Slowly add the flour mixture to the creamed ingredients and mix well.

Add cut caramel pieces and chocolate chips and stir by hand.

Drop overfilled spoonfuls onto baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Sprinkle each cookie with coarse sea salt and bake for 9-11 minutes. Slide the parchment paper from the cookie sheet. Allow cookies to cool enough for the caramel to set before removing from parchment paper.

These are easy and delicious. This recipe makes about 7 dozen so feel free to cut it in half. 

The poblanos looked so good at the grocery store this week that I was inspired to try my hand at stuffing them. They are such a beautiful thick-skinned pepper and easy to work with.

Here's the ingredients you'll need:
4 Poblano Peppers
1 lb ground sirloin or ground chicken breast
1 16 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 Tbl Olive Oil
1/2 sweet onion, diced (any onion should be fine)
3 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 6oz can tomato paste
1/2 Tbl garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
2 chopped  jalapenos (seeds & membranes removed)
1 6oz can of diced green chiles
sea salt to taste
coarse ground pepper to taste

Optional Topping:
Plain Greek yogurt
Fresh cilantro, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Heat up the oil in your skillet.
Add the chopped jalapenos and diced onions and cook until the onions are translucent.
Add the garlic and cook another minute.
Add the meat and cook until browned.
Add tomato paste, green chiles and the rest of the spices.
Add the black beans. 

While that is cooking together, get your poblanos ready. Cut down one side of
the pepper as shown here and pull out the seeds while rinsing.

Stuff them with the meat mixture.

Place them in a baking dish and cover with foil.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the pablanos begin to soften and the skin blisters. 

Top them with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of fresh chopped cilantro and you're ready to eat!  They were great leftover too.