Hello and Chicken Enchiladas

Well, I'm back. That vacation went a bit longer than I had intended it to. If only the part of it that was spent in Cozumel had gone longer too! I've been getting back into the habit of meal-planning and cooking more and more, but it has still been a rather sporadic thing. Josh has been practicing several nights a week, and along with shows, plans with friends and a good pinch of laziness cooking hasn't been a full-time thing again just yet. And just as some of this stuff will be slowing down after Friday, other things will be picking up. We'll be starting the house hunt this weekend, which I'm sure will only make me crazier, and then lazier. So things won't be quite back to normal for some time I would guess, but I am back to cooking and will be happy to share the new recipes I make when I get the chance. :)

So, we had a little Mexican/Caribbean vacation earlier this month and upon our return I wanted to keep us in the vacation spirit. To help I decided to make these Chicken Enchiladas with Creamy Green Sauce for dinner the week after we got back. This recipe had been sitting around on my To-Cook list for an embarrassingly long time. I figured like crossing it off would be a good way to jump back into the kitchen habit. I halved this recipe, just using the two chicken breasts I had in the freezer. That was apparently more chicken than I needed cause I ended up making two extra enchiladas and still had some chicken leftover. The extra enchiladas threw off my salsa ratio a bit, so these enchiladas were truthfully a little dry. But they were also truthfully delicious! And I can only imagine that they will be that much better when I get the math right.

Chicken Enchiladas with Creamy Green Sauce
Recipe from Everyday Food; Serves 6













3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves
Coarse salt and ground pepper
5 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 jars (16 ounces each) medium green salsa
3/4 cup heavy cream
12 corn tortillas (6-inch)
12 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, coarsely shredded (3 cups)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper; place with garlic on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted in thickest part of breast (avoiding bone) registers 165 degrees, 25 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine salsa and cream.
• Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Once chicken is cool enough to handle, shred meat, discarding skin and bones. Peel and chop garlic. In a large bowl, combine chicken, garlic, and 1/2 cup salsa mixture.
• Stack tortillas flat, and wrap in damp paper towels; microwave on high for 1 minute to soften. Working with one tortilla at a time, dip in salsa mixture, lay flat, and fill with 1/3 cup chicken mixture. Roll up and arrange, seam side down, 8 enchiladas lengthwise and 4 crosswise in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Top with remaining salsa mixture, then cheese.
• Bake until cheese is browned and salsa is bubbling, 40 to 45 minutes; let rest 10 minutes. Serve, sprinkled with cilantro, if desired.

My notes: I will definitely be making this recipe again, and probably just make the full-size batch so I don't have to worry about any of that pesky dividing. The only other change I might make would be to add a bit of cheese to the filling. I served this with Cilantro-Lime Rice on the side and our usual pre-dinner salad.

Roll With It

Well, this week is just chock full of cooking for me. I'm sure you're saying to yourself that it's about time. Hush. :) This week I'm making meals that are either recipes that make double batches or have good freezable leftovers. My bro-in-law and his wife had their first baby yesterday, a little boy, and I told her last week that I would get together some meals for their freezer. Kim is a planner, like me, but she didn't have as much energy to stock her deep freeze up for the lean newborn months as she hoped she would. Luckily I fluttered in, like a dinner guardian angel, and told her I was gonna be bringing some grub their way. We still have to go see the new addition to the family, but that will be later this week once Josh doesn't have evening lessons. Anyhow, I am making a lot of repeat recipes this week, since I wouldn't want to stick them with an icebox full of untested and untried foods. Last night however I did try one new recipe that I was eager to make as soon as I saw it in the December issue of Everyday Food. These Vegetable Enchiladas looked delicious, but the recipe also looked hard to halve. Since it makes two 8" pans worth this was the perfect opportunity to give it a shot. One for us, and one for the new threesome!

Vegetable Enchiladas
Recipe from Everyday Food; Serves 8












2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for baking dishes
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) reduced-sodium vegetable broth
Coarse salt and ground pepper
3 cups grated pepper Jack cheese (12 ounces)
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 box (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 box (10 ounces) frozen corn kernels, thawed
6 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
16 corn tortillas (6-inch)

• Make sauce: In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium. Add 1 teaspoon cumin, flour, and tomato paste; cook, whisking, 1 minute. Whisk in broth and 3/4 cup water; bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and cook until slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.
• Make filling: In a large bowl, combine 2 cups cheese, beans, spinach, corn, scallion whites, and remaining 1 teaspoon cumin; season with salt and pepper.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil two 8-inch square baking dishes; set aside. Stack tortillas, and wrap in damp paper towels; microwave on high for 1 minute. Or stack and wrap in aluminum foil, and heat in oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Top each tortilla with a heaping 1/3 cup of filling; roll up tightly and arrange, seam side down, in prepared baking dishes.
• Dividing evenly, sprinkle enchiladas with remaining 1 cup cheese, and top with sauce. Bake, uncovered, until hot and bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool 5 minutes; serve garnished with scallion greens.
• To freeze: Prepare enchiladas through step 3; top with cheese, and cover baking dishes with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. Place sauce in an airtight container. Freeze enchiladas and sauce for up to 2 months.
• To bake from frozen: Thaw sauce in refrigerator overnight (or microwave on high 2 minutes, stirring once halfway through). Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove foil and plastic wrap from baking dishes, and pour sauce over enchiladas; cover with foil. Bake 30 minutes; remove foil, and bake until bubbly, about 15 minutes more. Cool 5 minutes before serving.

My notes: These enchiladas were actually really awesome. Not that I didn't have faith in the recipe, but I didn't have a lot of faith in my execution of it. I have had trouble with making sauces with flour in the past. This time everything went exactly as it should, and I just almost couldn't believe it. I'm sure it sounds silly, but I really never thought I would make enchilada sauce. But I did, and it tasted fabulous, just like what comes to mind when I think of it. In typical fashion with anything Martha rolls I had extra filling leftover. No complaints though because I'll be eating two veggie quesadillas for lunch. I was going to make some Spanish rice as a side dish, but I was so engrossed in the process of making the enchiladas and preparing their batch for the freezer that I completely forgot about it until I sat down to eat. So I ate 3 enchiladas instead of two, ha. That left three for the hubster at dinner and two for his lunch today. I don't often freeze meals for ourselves, but this recipe was so delicious I think that next time it'll be great to know that I've got one of these tucked away for later.