We sometimes get requests from our loyal readers for certain recipes and one we recently received was for chicken tortilla soup. This worked out perfectly because I happen to be a huge fan of tortilla soup and I have never made it before. So, I happily took on this challenge and made it on a very cold Sunday afternoon.
On Halloween night we changed up our usual chili recipes and made a white chicken chili. It was a nice change and the recipe could not be easier. I don’t have any pictures of the process because there really wasn’t one. All of the ingredients went into the crock pot and the rest took care of itself!
mmm tacos. Who doesn’t love a good taco every now and then? The beauty of the taco is that you can make it exactly how you like it and it’s still a taco (ie: hard shell, soft shell, choco taco 🙂 ). Although I do love me some of those pre-made corn taco shells or a soft flour tortilla to support my beef and cheese, we decided to go the healthier route for our taco night this time and use these large, beautiful romaine lettuce leaves. We made some fresh guacamole to complement the earthy lettuce shells and topped the tacos with cilantro and lime for a tasty version of the classic beef and cheese taco.
First, the guac. I like to make guacamole with just a few ingredients ’cause I love avocados so much.
All I use are avocados, red onion, fresh cilantro, lime juice and salt and pepper.
Chop, chop, chop…
…then mash, mash, mash…
…and you have one of the most easy, yet most delicious condiments on the planet.
From here all we did was brown some ground beef, mix in a little taco seasonings, and served it atop a large lettuce leaf with some cheese, chopped tomato, guacamole, fresh cilantro and lime. Nothing fancy, but downright delicious.
Nothing processed or refined in this spin on a Mexican? American? traditional dinner food. Whole foods and tons of flavor. YUM!
I love making chili in the winter time and there are so many different styles to try. I asked Greg to make chili for us one weekend and he decided to make chili with steak (beef chuck roast) instead of traditional ground meat. He began by trimming the meat and cutting down the 3 1/2 pound roast into cubes. Coincidentally, this occurred during Maryland’s nail biter against Virgina Tech and provided him with a good outlet for all that anxious energy. Maryland won by the way!
We used the dutch oven again for the chili, like we did with the Cincinnati Style Chili we made several weeks ago. For this chili version, start off by browning the meat on the stove top and drain the excess liquid.
It does not have to be cooked all the way through at this point, because it will go in the oven for another 3+ hours. However, once you get a nice brown coating, add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.
At this point it is pretty chunky, but it will cook down over the next few hours and each part will be rather indistinguishable.
Before three plus hours in the oven (above) and after (below).
It thickened up quite a bit and all of the bug chunks of meat cooked down and became much smaller with an almost shredded like consistency.Similarly, most of the other ingredients (tomatoes, onions, peppers) also cooked down and created a thick sauce like texture.
We topped it with some shredded cheddar cheese, raw yellow onion, and avocado. YUM!
Chili is so good for leftovers too! Hope you like it!
I have been making this dish for several years now and it’s always been a big hit. I have made it with different fillings, different sauces, different tortillas- but all in all, I am almost always happy with the way it turns out. For this go-round, I decided to stick with the basics, chicken and cheese with easy, store-bought sauce and lots of cheddar cheese. I did experiment with one thing though- the tortillas. I made half of the enchiladas with whole wheat, low-carb tortillas (5 grams of carbs per tortilla) and half with regular tortillas. I was really happy with the low-carb tortillas and did not feel that the dish suffered at all with them and whole wheat is always a good alternative!
I started off by poaching the chicken in water and chipotle seasoning. I boiled the whole package of chicken breasts (one of those large packages from Giant) and saved about half of them for tomorrow’s dinner. I shredded the remaining chicken for the filling. You could also chop them, but shredding is more palatable for this dish and is not that much more labor intensive than chopping.
I filled a 13×9 dish with shredded chicken.
Also, I cut up some fresh jalapeno for the filling as well. I considered sauteing the jalapeno first to soften the texture and pull out some of the heat- but didn’t end up doing it.
When making enchiladas, I find it a good practice to be prepared and ready to make them all at once. It’s messy and you will probably need a helping hand if one is available. There really is no other way to do this other than rolling them by hand. You want the dish to be saucy so don’t be hesitant to get down and dirty for this! It will be worth it, trust me!
“Line” the baking dish with a 1/8 inch thick layer of sauce.
You also want to put a layer of sauce down on a plate. You will be dipping each tortilla into the sauce first, before filling and rolling. This is to prevent the tortilla from cracking and it will keep them moist when they cook. You don’t want to soak up too much sauce, but just a little dunk on each side is all you need.
Then you just fill each one with the amount of filling you like. I try to really stuff them as full as possible.
Roll ’em tightly and place in the baking dish. One after the next, until the baking dish is full.
Cover with the remaining sauce and cheese.
Ok now it’s time to bake! It needs about 20 minutes in the oven and then another 5 under the broiler.
Let it sit for 5 minutes (or longer- I have no patience when it comes to this!) before you cut it.
Top with some green onion and serve with sour cream.
Try this dish- it is SO good and everyone always likes it!
On Saturday, it snowed more than the predicted 1-inch and we were semi-snowed in for the night. I think we ended up getting closer to six inches, which was a pleasant surprise. Though this ruined our plans to head into DC for the night, we reconciled by making a sinfully delicious taco dip and purchasing a rather large bottle of Crown Royal. All was good…
The making of the dip- all 8 layers:
1.
da beans
2.
no, this is not icing
3.
3.a,b,c
4 & 5.
meat/peppers/onions
6.
7.
8.
those are jalepenos on the right side
You can’t really go wrong with any of these ingredients individually let alone when combined into a super-dip! We served it with some tostitos chips and happily munched away. This dish is straight up junk food at it’s finest. Mmm…
This recipe is really easy!
the peppers and onions should be sauteed until soft
We tried to add avocado but the one we had just wasn’t ripe enough 😦 I topped this with a salsa ranch dressing we had in the fridge but you can have it with sour cream, guacamole, or any other dressing you like. Simple, but good.
Starving Kitten 