Recipe Wednesday: Queso Dip Nachos

I originally found this copycat recipe over on the The Cooking Photographer blog when I had a craving for qdoba queso a few weeks ago. We couldn't find cooking creme at our grocery store, so we substituted regular cream cheese and some milk (while the result was edible and even good, it was a little off lol). This time we planned ahead and stopped at Trader Joe's to pick up some of their Creme Fraiche - and the resulting queso was so much better!

COPYCAT QDOBA QUESO

Ingredients

2 poblano peppers

10-ounce container Philadelphia Cooking Creme

8-ounce package Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese

2 medium tomatoes, chopped fine

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika

1/4 cup minced cilantro

1/4 cup water

Cayenne pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Place peppers on a hot grill or under a broiler. Blacken the skins on all sides. Place them in a paper bag and roll top down to seal. Set aside until cool to touch, about 30 minutes. Peel off skins and discard seeds and stems. Chop peppers very fine.

2. Add chopped peppers, cooking creme, cheese, tomatoes, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and paprika to a medium size pot and stir over low heat until cheese is melted.

3. Add the cilantro, water and cayenne pepper and stir for another minute or so until it thickens to preference.

4. Turn off heat and serve immediately as a dip or sauce.

Ingredients and printed out recipe

Blackening the poblano peppers under the broiler

My blackened poblano peppers

Poblanos resting in paper bag; while they rested, I cut the tomatoes

Small vine ripened tomatoes, I used three
(I wasn't sure which knife to use.)

As finely diced as I could get the tomatoes

My skin removed poblanos. As you can see, I lost some of the pepper. Oops!

Diced tomatoes and poblano peppers

What Step 2 looked like

Water, cayenne and sprinkle of dried cilantro

The taco seasoned ground turkey breast used in our nachos

Assembled nachos! (Chips on the side, of course.)