Rockin' Recipe -- Chicken Enchiladas

Like I said yesterday, due to our excursion last week to the farmer's market, I had a lot of produce to use up this week that was slightly past its prime.  There's no need to throw away produce that isn't as fresh as it was. Yes, the nutrients start waning the moment it's picked, but there are plenty left to give soups, stews and sauces and extra punch. Leave a comment with your favorite way to save a veggie??


I remember watching a Barefoot Contessa show where Ina said to roast winter tomatoes that didn't have as much flavor, to concentrate the flavor and make them eatable.  Oven roasted tomatoes are REALLY shrivelly, so the ones I had that were slightly wrinkled did just fine.  I also had some onions that were beginning to sprout and some garlic that was a little less than plump.  We haven't had anything Mexican in a few weeks and while I was rooting through the freezer I came across two lonely chicken breasts that seemed to fit the bill for this recipe. 


Julie's Roasted Chicken Enchiladas

5 Roma tomatoes

6 garlic cloves

2 small onions

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

Salt and pepper

2 chicken breasts

6 flour or corn tortillas

2 cups shredded cheese (I used Mexican Chihuahua Cheese)

I cored the tomatoes and got rid of the seeds, peeled the onions and threw away the green sprout in the center and peeled the garlic.  I covered a sheet pan with foil, sprayed the pan and veggies with olive oil and added salt and pepper.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with the garlic since it burns faster than tomatoes and onions, so I left some on the tray and wrapped some in foil with some oil and guess what.  They both burned!  I added some crushed garlic later...I also threw two left over raw chicken breasts in the oven at the same time to cook through.

Make sure you cover your baking sheet with foil, otherwise it will look like this when it's done!

Roast at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the onions are soft and the tomatoes are soft and starting to brown.  Empty all into the blender with the wine and spices and give it a whirl. 

Shred chicken and add it, with 1/3 of the sauce into a saute pan and simmer over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes.  Allow to cool completely and mix with 2/3 of the cheese.  I ended up with about 3 cups of the filling.  I wrapped a half cup into each tortilla and lined up in a 9 X 13 baking dish.  Top with the remaining sauce and cheese.  Refrigerate, freeze or bake immediately at 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes, until browned and bubbly!  Thumbs up from Big Mama and the Little Mouths both cleaned their plates.

Thank you to all my blogging friends for allowing me to link to their posts.  Looky Here!  for links to their grat blogs!

Meal Plan Monday!

The goal of this week's meal plan is to use up produce and pantry items that are a little past their prime.  I roasted some less than plump tomatoes and onions that were starting to sprout to make the Chicken Enchiladas we're having this evening. Those same sprouting onions and some shiveled carrots joined some not-so-firm potatoes in a wonderful soup on Sunday.

There's no need to throw away produce that isn't as fresh as it was.  Yes, the nutrients start waning the moment it's picked, but there are plenty left to give soups, stews and sauces and extra punch.   Leave a comment with your favorite way to save a veggie!

Sunday           Sneaky Potato Soup
Monday         Chicken Enchaladas (Recipe to follow)
Tuesday         Chicken Noodle Casserole
Wednesday    Pork BBQ Sliders and Garlic Fries
Thursday        Roast Beef and Brie Panini (Recipe to Follow)
Friday            Eat OUT!
Saturday        Pasta with Shrimp

Soup-er Sunday Sneaky Potato Soup

Once again, our little cul-de-sac is swathed in snow.  The little mouths and I are in our jammies, well, jammies and apron for me, and snug as bugs. 

One of the best ways to keep our bodies resilient and get much needed veggies into the little mouth's diet is soup.  With two sick kids in two weeks, we need to beef up our immune systems.  I'd love to be able to stuff them full of super-foods, like kale and turnip greens, but if they would eat that stuff, they would be no need for my blog.  So while I have one child who's idea of a smorgasbord is the produce section, the other one wouldn't touch a tomato with a ten foot pole.  I have to be sneaky.  

This is a soup I invented one day with what was in my pantry with a little inspiration from Jessica Seinfeld.  You can hide just about anything in this soup.  I have included cauliflower, summer squash, butternut squash, carrots and parsnips.  It is especially good with anything that is a little orange in color.  My family, even the adults, swear there is cheese in this soup.  But except for the occasional garnish, there's not a drop. 

This is also a great way to use up leftover bacon (as if), sausage or ham.  Today I threw in a cup of diced leftover holiday ham from the freezer.  Thumbs up from Big Mama and both little mouths.  Yummy in the tummy on a cold winter's day.

Sneaky Potato Soup

1 cup grated onion
2 cups grated carrot
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and Pepper
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup white wine (optional)
2 pounds potatoes (I used Yukon Gold)
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups milk

Cook onion and carrot in butter, salt and pepper.  Add herbs, spices and flour and stir until lightly browned.  Deglaze the pan with wine or chicken stock.  Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer or 45-60 minutes, until potatoes are creamy and falling apart.  Add ham etc. to taste.

The only difficult thing about this soup is finding a good pot to cook it in.  For most of my soups, I use my totally overpriced but beloved enamel covered cast iron dutch oven, similar to this:
 While it caramelizes the onion and carrots beautifully, this soup is half milk that needs to simmer for at least 45 minutes to cook the potatoes through.  I've tried adding the potatoes already boiled, but it definitely steals some of the flavor.  The last time I used this pot for the soup, I spent a day soaking and scrubbing the bottom of my pot and vowed, never again.

The next time I tried this stock pot that came with my set of Calphalon Cookware. 
It's non-stick surface made the cleanup a breeze, but the deep, rich flavor of the caramelized veggies was missing.  But better than the heart attack I had when I looked at the bottom of my Enameled Cast-Iron pot.

This time I used a new dutch oven I purchased recently at a chef's outlet I visited.  It's also Calphalon, but this is from their Unison line and promises "non-stick searing."  I was sceptical, but I gave it a go.  And guess what?  It worked beautifully.  This is the exact set I purchased, complete with free spoon and towel.   It gave the same flavor as my extremely expensive enameled pot, but the easy cleaning of the non-stick.  I LOVE IT!

Salad Saturday -- Roasted Beet Salad

I decided I'm going to try to blog lots, lots more because the more I blog, the more I cook.  The more I cook, the better we eat and the better we eat, the better I do with my quest for eating more veggie and hopefully, the more veggies I eat, I might even lose a pound or two. 

A couple of months ago I went to Biaggi's with friends and had a few bites of Todd's salad...who knew I liked beets?  When we walked into the farmer's market on Saturday, I saw beets, remembered that salad and thought I'd give it a try.  Here's my version...

Roasted Beet Salad

1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of arugula
2 oz. goat cheese or other soft cheese
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup dried cranberries or cherries (I used cranberries)

Vinegrette
1/2 shallot grated
2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon honey

Peel and chop beets into small bite size pieces.  Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and wrap in aluminum foil.  Place on baking sheet pan and roast in oven at 425 degrees for 1-1 1/2 hours or until the beets are soft to the touch.

Chop walnuts and toast in a dry saute pan.  Remove from heat and place on plate.  Use a mellon baller or other small scoop to make balls of the goat cheese.  Roll between your palms to soften slightly and roll in the chopped walnuts.  Set the balls of walnut covered cheese on a plate and gently flatten.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Combine all the ingredients for vinegrette in a large salad bowl and whisk together.  Toss the cooled beets, arugula and dried fruit with the vinegrette.  Serve cheese on the side.  Serves 2.

Food Find Friday -- Turnips!

Fabulous Food Find!





The only thing I LOVE LOVE LOVE more than bread and ice cream are potatoes. I like them baked and fried, boiled or broiled. I don’t think there is any way I don’t like a potato except raw. Especially mashed. I love me some mashed potatoes, and for all of you other mashed potato lovers out there…what’s the one thing that could make them better? What if you could make them creamier, sweeter and silkier? How about if you could substantially reduce the calories?

It’s easy to do, substitute half of the potatoes with Turnips! Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure, or I’d have been adding turnips to my potatoes for years! Here is the breakdown of nutritional information from a random internet site.

Potatoes
1 cup diced, raw

Fat 0
Carbs 24g
Fiber 2g
Protein 2g
Calories 106


Turnips
1 cup diced, raw

Fat 0
Carbs 8g
Fiber 2g
Protein 1g
Calories 36

Now that I had my turnips, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. I knew I had to cook them somehow, so I peeled them with my potatoes and chunked them in the pot. The potatoes cooked, but the turnips were still a bit, al dente to say the least. The weird part was that the potatoes sank and the turnips floated. I’m sure there is some scientific reason behind that, but it worked out pretty well because I could just skim those hard little turnips off the top. I put them into a smaller saucepan with fat free half and half and a little butter and cooked them until they were soft, but it took a long time. About 20 minutes or so. Then, since they were a different consistency than the potatoes and I couldn’t find my potato masher, to flatten them, I put the whole mess in my blender and make a turnip smoothie.

I added that to the cooked potatoes in my stand mixer and gave it a whirl. What was left in that bowl was a little piece of silky potato heaven. SO GOOD! Try it, you’ll be surprised. I was.

The Bread Basket -- Parmesan Cheese Bread

I made this bread to go with the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup on Sunday. Big thumbs up from both Big Mama and Little Mouths.

Parmesan Cheese Bread

3 ¾ cup bread flour
½ cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Tablespoon Yeast
½ tsp Salt
1 1/3 Cup Water
Olive Oil to coat

Reserve ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese and place the rest of the ingredients except olive oil in mixer bowl. Stir together until moistened then knead with bread hook for 10-15 minutes. Remove from bowl and knead by hand for 1-2 minutes. Allow to raise for 60-90 minutes, until doubled in size. Divide into 12 rolls, brush with olive oil and sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of grated cheese on top.

Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then decrease temperature for 350 for an additional 10-15 minutes, until browned and yummy.

Enjoy!

Whiteout Wednesday! Smoothie Breakthrough!

Snow day!  Even for Big Mama.  It's a state of emergency in our town and I didn't have to go to work.  Of course, it practically is work, with all the things the HR person has to do to cancel work in a factory, but I get to do it in my jammies, so that's a plus.

Oh my goodness!  You'll never guess.  I ate spinach.  In my smoothie!  It was fantastic!

I had a comment on my last smoothie recipe that she put kale in her smoothie.  Kale?  Really?I thought to myself, "She's a better woman that me..." and went about my day.

Saturday at the farmers market I purchased some fresh spinach.  I thought I'd make some Sneaky Tomato Soup, but ended up not being in the mood for it.  I hated to see it go to waste, so I thought I'd just cook it up and freeze it to add to something later.  Then I remembered the kale. 

I am a brave woman.  I am!  So I took a deep breath, pulled the leaves off a couple of handfuls or spinach leaves and punched the puree button on my normally luscious orange-banana smoothie.  And guess what?

I was good.  The same.  YUMMY.  And I drank it and so did the little mouths. They even liked it until they saw is was a very bright green.  Howya like that?

Spinach Smoothie (Serves 3-4)

Bunch of spinach
2 Frozen Bananas
1 Cup Orange Juice
1 Cup Vanilla Greek Yogurt

Bend and serve!