The Daring Cooks May Challenge - Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh. 

I finally invited my sister & husband over for a Daring Cooks Challenge recipe and they were in for a treat. I have made enchiladas before but never with my own homemade tortillas and enchilada sauce.
The end result was fabulous, really authentic and totally homemade (even the chicken stock). I got the recipe for homemade tortillas from Mangio da Sola, really easy to follow and great instructional video.  To put it all together I poured some of the green chile sauce in a casserole dish, then placed the tortilla, cover in sauce, monterey jack cheese, grilled chicken, cheese, sauce, another tortilla etc... till I had a stack four tortilla high.  Bake in oven at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I will definitely be making this again, it was just too delicious! 

I also enjoyed the challenge of actually not getting my enchilada sauce from a can. Tomatillos are something I pass by in the supermarket (this was the first time I have ever even picked one up) so it was great to take a crack at this never used vegetable.

 Making the enchilada sauce was actually pretty easy ... roasting the fresh chilies in our oven was quite the adventure. My birds let me know when they needed to be taken out by their squawking... boy the air in our house was spicy!  It was actually fun to burn something on purpose, this is something I can definitely do! Check out the before and after pictures:

After charring the chilies close in a paper bag till cooled, then scrape skins off with a knife.  I made sure I wore gloves to remove the skins, getting pepper in your eye is something you will always remember and never, hopefully, repeat. Discard the skins and seeds and you are left with flavorful chilies (do not rinse with water).

Green Chile Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1½ pounds Fresh Anaheim chiles (about eight 6 to 8 inch chiles), Charred & skins removed
• 4-6 Tomatillos, stems & outer papery skin removed 
• 4 cups Chicken broth
• 1 clove Garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons yellow onion, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ tsp Kosher salt (add more to taste)
• ¼ tsp Black Pepper (add more to taste)
• 2 tablespoons Cornstarch (dissolve in 2 tablespoons water, for thickening) 
• Couple dashes of Hot sauce (optional)

1. Place tomatillos in a medium sauce pan with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes till soft. Remove from water and puree in blender till smooth.  

2. Pour puree into saucepan with chicken stock, chopped green chilies, onion, oregano, garlic, salt & pepper. Adjust salt & pepper to your taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Add the cornstarch that has been dissolved in water and simmer again for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add hot sauce if you want more heat.

Meatless Monday - "Meaty Quesadilla"

Meatless Monday Number 2!
I found an excellent way to use leftover filling from the Lentil Walnut Mushroom burgers... make some quesadillas!  This was super filling and a big hit with the man. Its also a great way to use leftovers from the meatless burgers making it fast to whip up.

This was also my first attempt at making homemade tortillas, I love how rustic it looks

Follow the recipe for Lentil Walnut Burgers until you get to the part where you form them into patties.
Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and fry up the filling as if it was ground beef until browned.  Place a large clean frying pan on medium / med high heat on the stove.  Get a tortilla and spread lentil mixture evenly on one side, place in frying pan lentil side up.  Sprinkle some cheese and spinach on filling and cover with another tortilla.  It will be ready when the cheese is all melted.  Serve with a side of salsa!

Avocado Dip and Corn tortilla chips

As you probably can tell from previous posts Jeff & I have kinda fallen off the wagon of healthier and lighter eating. It started with "if the girl scout cookie is broken you dont have to count it" ... to eating a whole pan of Lasagna.  Since smashing an entire box of Thin Mints to feel better about inhaling it is not really where we want to go its back to eating healthy!  As fun as it was to eat naughty, and I will admit it's kinda fun for a while, I am excited to eat healthy again and to not feel like a blob.
My favorite food at the moment is avocado, I seriously love it better than any Easter chocolate. So last night I made something really light for dinner since I was still stuffed from the lasagna feast earlier.
This is a really simple dip that celebrates the fresh flavor of all the ingredients.  The corn chips go great with it and are definitely better for you than your bagged chips.  Plus how can you not impress people with your own little "homemade" corn chips.

Guacamole

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 2 Tbsp finely chopped onion
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Remove avocado from skin and mash with a fork in a bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly

Corn Tortilla Chips

Ingredient:

• 5 corn tortillas

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut corn tortillas into quarters and place in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes till chips are crispy.
(if you feel the chips are too chewy bake them a little longer!)

Mexican Casserole

Since Jeff was lovin on my Mexican Casserole Enchiladas I decided to make the healthier and less caloric version (minus the enchilada part).  This recipe makes 6 cups worth, each cup being about 280 calories.  I ate mine with a large flour tortilla on the side and Jeff wrapped his up in the tortilla like a burrito.  This was really good and filling even without all the sour cream and cheese, and the spicy kick is nice too (if you are not a fan of spicy foods then make sure to use mild salsa and omit the red pepper flakes from the homemade taco seasoning recipe).

Mexican Casserole

Ingredients:

• 2-3 Tbsp oil
• 4 large chicken breasts
• 2 cloves crushed or grated garlic
• 1/2 half package taco seasoning mix or taco seasoning recipe
• 1 (15oz) can Kidney Beans, drained
• 1 (15 oz) can sweet corn, not drained
• 3/4 cup salsa

1. Cook chicken in oil in large skillet over medium/ med high heat till no longer pink inside.  Remove pan from heat and cut chicken into chunks on cutting board.

2. Drain any excess liquid from pan and place back on medium heat with crushed garlic.  Cook garlic for about 1 minute and add chicken and taco seasoning, mixing well.
3. Add can of undrained corn, beans, and salsa mixing thoroughly. Cover and let simmer about 10 minutes, adding water if it looks like it is getting dry.

In the mood for mexican food

I had this HUGE craving for Mexican food last night.  Since I had corn, beans, salsa, cheese, & tortillas in the house I thought a nice casserole would be easy if I just bought the chicken.  Then I started thinking about the enchiladas my sister-in-law made while they were visiting last month & thought maybe I could try that too.  We ended up with 5 different (slight) variations of the same dish just to see which was better.

The first pan, the casserole, had the basic recipe below minus the sour cream, enchilada sauce, tortillas and added crushed tortilla chips to the top.  Half had rice mixed in & the other half had none.  The second pan I made 3 different enchiladas, going by memory on how Stacy made it, one with the basic recipe plus cheese, one with sour cream, and one with sour cream and rice.  And the winner was..........enchiladas with sour cream no rice!  Though all of it tasted good & was promptly finished off at lunch today.

Don't you just love the strained expression on my face holding the pans up... "take the picture now hun before I drop this on my foot".

With this recipe measuring can basically be thrown out the window, its hard to mess up.  This is a fun recipe to play around with and experiment (as evident by my crushed tortilla chips version).  Substitute turkey, ground beef, kidney beans, or whatever you have laying around.  It can also be made lower calorie by not putting in sour cream and using low fat tortillas (or just going with my plain Casserole version.

Mexican Casserole Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• oil for cooking the chicken
• 3-4 chicken breasts
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1/2 package taco seasoning mix or a batch of the recipe on previous post
• 1 can black beans, drained
• 1 can sweet corn, not drained
• 3/4 cup salsa
• About 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• 1 can enchilada sauce
  
• 1-2 cups shredded mexican style cheese
• 6 large tortillas

1. In a large pan saute the chicken with 3-4 Tbsp oil on medium/ med high heat till chicken is cooked through.  Remove pan from heat and cut chicken into chunks.  Drain any liquid from pan and saute crushed garlic for 1 minute on medium heat.   Add chicken and toss with taco seasoning.  Add drained can of beans, undrained can of corn, and salsa. Cover & simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  If it looks like it is getting dry add a little water.

 

2. With a slotted spoon, scoop mixture in a separate bowl and add sour cream and cheese.  Mix thoroughly.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 9x13 inch baking pan with cooking spray.

4. Pour the enchilada sauce in a large plate.  Take one tortilla and coat both sides of it.  Scoop several spoonfuls of the chicken mixture into coated tortilla, roll tortilla up folding bottom ends under, and place in baking dish seam side down. Repeat. (if you don't have a huge mess right now you are not doing it right :)

5. Sprinkle top with lots of cheese and bake for 15 minutes until cheese is melted.

 

Craving is now satisfied :)

 

Taco Seasoning

I found a great homemade recipe for taco seasoning....for when you don't have the packet on hand or you are like me & nuts about regulating the salt in your food.  The original recipe is from here.

Yields about 1 oz or  1 packet.

Taco Seasoning:

1 Tbsp chili powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp paprika

1  1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp black pepper