Hatch Green Chilis

The town of Hatch, New Mexico has been known as the "Chile Capitol of the World" for over 200 years. Hatch is about 3 hours from here. Every year around this time they have a "Chile Festival" we've been hearing stories about people that travel down to the festival, buy chiles by the box load and have them roasted there. On the way home, there are caravans of people on the side of the road having little fiestas and enjoying the chiles they just bought. The smell of the chile's are so overwhelming that they just can't make it the whole way home without eating some:)

I have always had a 'when in Rome' attitude - so when they started selling boxes of Hatch Chiles at our local grocery store - I bought one (30 freakin' pounds of chiles) it is such a big deal here that the grocery store will actually roast them for you on the spot...

This box was over flowing with chiles
This is what they look like after being roasted. You leave them in this plastic bag to let them 'sweat' for an hour or so.

We called my hubs good friend who is a Master Chile Dude and has been for the last 40 years to ask advice on what to do next. He advised us to put 5 -8 of them in Ziploc baggies and freeze them. Then, when we are ready to use them, just stick the bag in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes and they are ready to go. YUM.

I am not a chile person - well, let me rephrase. I wasn't a chile person. I wanted to have some peeled and diced b/c I am making an AWESOME recipe with them tonight.

The chiles we didn't freeze went into the sink filled with cold water. When you pull them out, the skin practically falls off. Then we diced them and left the seeds in (this being my first time doing this I got the MILD chiles - to be on the safe side)

We couldn't resist the aroma. We pulled out some tortillas, spread them with cream cheese and sprinkled chilis on top - then we just rolled it up, cut it into bite sized pieces and went to town.

Man oh man these are good. Stay tuned for one (of the very many) recipes I am going to make with these babies!