I love Jeff Dunham, and with his next special coming to Comedy Central in October, its important to have the necessary foods prepared. The food is essentually a candied (whole) jalapeno with dark chocolet and sprinkles for the eyes and mouth. Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients:

- jalapeno's
- chocolate (i preffer dark since it's less sweet)
- sprinkles (or really anything you can get that is red and white, and can be eaten)
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup sugar
- the same amount of shish kabob sticks as jalapenos

Don't be scared away by the 1 cup of sugar, btw. Remember, you won't be eating all of it, only the bit that coats the jalapeno. the rest will meet its unfortunate fate of going down the drain. Also, dependant on how many jalapenos you have, you should adjust how much sugar/water you have. Its basically just 2 parts water, 1 part sugar, so just change how much you put in by that ratio.

Step 1: Preparing the Jalapenos

Forward:

There are two parts to this step, only one of which is necessary. You have to cut the top off so that the sugar water can get on the inside. However, you do not necessarly have to scoop out the insides. I, personally, am not very manly, thus need to scoop out the insides (particularly the seeds), or else it is too hot for me to eat it. For those of you who love hot food, you can probably leave the seeds inside, which would probably also help hold the stick in, however no promises on the tast as i've never done it like that.

What to do:

You will want to cut the stem off first, and then proceed to cut out the white bit untill you find the cavity. You then may scoop the seeds out with either the knife or a wooden stick (like the one you will use to hold up the final product).

Step 2: Preparing the Water and "candying"

This one is pretty streight forward. Pour the water and sugar into a sauce pot and heat to a medium to high temp (you want some of the water to evaporate over time).

Put the jalapenos in, and let them stay in there for about five minuits, then take them out for about five minuits (putting them on a peice of paper towel or a strainer so the excess sugar and water runs off), and repeat a few times (like four or five, maybe more or less depending on the temp. and angle of the moon proportional to the sun). You want to go until the sugar water is at a consistancy so that it will properly coated the jalapeno (so it hardens into a shell), but not so much so that it globs on.

When cooked, the food should come out smooth, relatively firm and shiny. If it's dull or shrivled it was left in too long.

Step 3: Details

Now you need to turn the jalapenos into jose. You need to first melt a bit of your chocolate (but you don't need much) in the microwave. I then used a toothpick to apply the melted chocolate onto the jalapeno, and cut a bit off the bar (don't melt all of it) and used it as his hat. Be sure to scratch out the branding on the pice of the chocolate bar that you used as his hat (just a heads up).

after applying the chocolate, be sure to quickly put the sprinkles on (do so before the sugar coating hardens). obviously red for his mouth and white for his eyes.

put the sticks in and let the food harden. Then they sould be good to go!

BTW:

If you want the food, but don't necessarly need it in jose form, i'd recomend cutting the jalapeno into 1/4 in chips and cooking them like that. It will produce "Cowboy Candy", which on top of being a cool alliteration, is a semi-popular food down in texas. It also cooks better in the small chips, thus if your just using it just as a snack food, this is how i'd recomend doing it.

You can also use other types of peppers, basiclally any kind you think would tast good candied. above i also have a red jose jalapeno I made while experimenting with the recipe.