I find it easy to stick stuff INTO the freezer sometimes and harder to remember to use it up, so since it’s just me tonight this is perfect!

And this time I have some tortilla chips to go with it!  I also have a bit of avocado left so am adding that once the soup warms up. If avocado goes great with chicken tortilla soup, I’m thinking it will add a nice cool bit to taco soup too.

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2-3 cloves chopped garlic (about 2 tsp)
• 1 Tbs chopped jalapeno pepper (I had some in the freezer)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 Tbs tomato paste (freeze leftovers in spoonfuls on wax paper)
• 6 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 cups cooked diced or shredded chicken
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 1 avocado, peeled and chopped
• sour cream at the table

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

I’ve always loved chicken enchiladas with a green sauce at Mexican restaurants and was hoping this would be a good substitute!

I found them lacking something, although my children enjoyed them. I think it was onions I was missing. But if I’d added them that might have meant the children did not like them, as they’re not big fans.  So if you’re looking for a mild chicken enchilada type recipe, you might like this.  Personally, I liked these green enchiladas with the store-bought sauce better so I need to experiment a bit to find a good green sauce. I already have found a good red enchilada sauce recipe.

But if you tend to like blander foods, I think you’ll like it. I took the basis from The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook: 200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare and it was good, just not quite as “sharp” somehow as what I was thinking. Or maybe it need some tomatillo sauce.

I served this with rice and beans so cut her recipe in half  to try to fill a 9×9 pan instead of a 9×13.  This made 6 enchiladas but the last two were a bit stuffed so you could easily make it 8 I think and add a bit more cheese. Oh, I also put some cheese inside each one rather than having it all on the top.

• 8 ounces sour cream (I always use light)
• 1 6 oz can chopped green chilies
• 1/2 cup or so homemade chicken stock
• 1 cup shredded or diced cooked chicken
• salt and pepper to taste
• 6 corn tortillas
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese or a Mexican mix

In a skillet, heat the sour cream, chilies and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Stir as you heat it. If it seems too thick, add a bit more chicken broth (or water if you used frozen broth and 1/2 cup is all you’ve got!).

Remove 1/2 cup or so of the sauce at this point and set aside to top the enchiladas.

Add the chicken and stir in, then simmer 15 minutes or so to blend the flavors.  Add salt and pepper to taste, which will depend heavily on how seasoned your broth was.

Preheat the oven to 350 F while your chicken mix is simmering.

When it’s close to the 15 minutes, heat your corn tortillas so they’ll be more pliable. I have a Styrofoam tortilla warmer that goes in the microwave that I picked up for $1 at the grocery store years ago.

Lay a tortilla on your cutting board or on a plate, place some of the chicken mix in the middle  in a row across the tortilla, then add a small bit of grated cheese, then roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in a small baking dish. Repeat until all the chicken sauce is used up. Top with the 1/2 cup of sauce that you pulled out earlier. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

Bake uncovered at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

In terms of timing, if you’re serving rice and beans, canned (or precooked) refried beans will take just a few minutes in the microwave so I would do those after the enchiladas come out of the oven.

If you’re cooking rice in a rice cooker, like my Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 5-1/2-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Warmer, Premium White, just start it when you first start dinner and the rice will be ready and waiting! I do love the rice cookers for that “keep warm” feature. In fact, today with a sick child at home, I made some rice at lunch because the doctor recommended plain white rice as her first solid food after the stomach flu. She ate some and I left the rest on the “keep warm” setting until dinner, 6 hours later. It was still perfect! If you cook rice on the stovetop, just allow about 30 minutes, so start it while the sauce is simmering.

Chicken was on sale here for 77 cents a pound, so I spent $4.70 for a chicken that made the broth and provided two or three times as much chicken as I used here in this recipe.   I’ll use up some of the rest in the next day or two and freeze the rest of the cooked chicken and broth (separately) for various dishes.  She calculated the cost for a double of this recipe as $4.75 total (to feed four people) but that included $1 for corn that I didn’t use, but would cover a can of refried beans easily enough. I’ve fed two of us and easily have another two servings so think that’s pretty accurate.  I haven’t ever calculated the average cost of rice per serving but will try to do that at some point.  For us, 1/3 cup of cooked rice per serving is adequate and that can’t add much.

Cheese Quesadillas

I like to pan fry my quesadillas rather than microwave so they get a bit crispy on the outside.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Butter one side of a tortilla and lay it butter side down. Sprinkle grated cheese (Cheddar, Jack, Colby or a Mexican blend) to lightly cover.

Spread butter on one side of another tortilla and place it butter side UP. Cook a few minutes, till lightly browned on the bottom, then gently flip over with a spatula.

When the cheese is all melted, put it on a cutting board and cut into wedges.

Want less? Butter a single tortilla, start it cooking, spread the grated cheese over half the tortilla, then fold the tortilla in half. Flip when browned on one side, cook a few more minutes, slide out onto a cutting board and cut into wedges.

For a breakfast quesadilla, add applesauce and sprinkle with cinnamon, then add the cheese.

• 1 Tbs oil
• 3-4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut in bite-sized pieces
• a smattering of taco seasoning
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 6-7 flour tortillas
• 1 Tbs butter, melted
• 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese (or a Mexican blend)
• salsa verde or tomato salsa at the table
• sour cream at the table (optional)

Cooking chicken for chimchangas

Heat the oil in a cast iron or other heavy skillet and add half the chopped chicken. Brown a bit, and sprinkle with some taco seasoning. Cook until done. When it’s done, you can easily cut a piece in half with a wooden spoon. Remove to a bowl, then add the other half of the chicken, season again with the taco seasoning and cook through. Put the first batch of chicken back in the pan, sprinkle with the cumin, garlic powder, salt, pepper and oregano, stirring to heat through and distribute the spices. Turn the heat off.

Rolling chicken chimichangas

Heat the flour tortillas in a microwave or over a dry cast iron skillet to make them more flexible. (This tip was NOT in the book but is something I always do or the tortillas tend to tear.)

Place a  tortilla on a plate or cutting board. Add some chicken, green onions and cheese.  Fold the ends over, then roll up the tortilla and place it seam side down in a lightly oiled baking dish.

Chicken Chimichangas

Melt the butter, brush across the tops of the tortillas and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so. In the meantime, you can heat up a can of refried beans.

Serve with extra grated cheese, any leftover chopped green onions, red or green salsa and/or sour cream at the table.

These are lightly crispy, not like the fried version (and so much more healthy!).  We ate just one each with a side of refried beans but heartier eaters will want to. You could extend the meal with some Mexican Rice as well and/or a salad.

I somehow neglected to take a picture after they were baked but both my girls liked them and one is looking forward to taking one for lunch tomorrow. I frozen the leftovers so I could pull one out at a time.  Family Feasts says put one in the microwave for 2 minutes to reheat.  Sounds like a good freezer stash to me!

NOTE: If you have already cooked chicken in the freezer, just heat it up with a bit of water and the seasonings. You could also leave out the taco seasoning OR the other spices for a plainer version. You could also put salsa into the chimichangas before rolling but my girls prefer to have the salsa outside and it’s easy enough for me to dump it on top so that’s how I made them.  You could also easily substitute ground beef for the chicken.

HONEY- LIME DRESSING:

• 1/4 cup lime juice (I used bottled)
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs fresh cilantro (or more to taste)
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 a jalapeño pepper

I mixed it all up in my small Magic Bullet Express blender. My girls love it for making smoothies and my youngest likes to whip various home spa conconctions in it, but I do like it for quick salad dressings and marinades.

If you don’t have a blender or food processor, I would mince it all up as fine as possible and whisk together.

Put this on a salad of chopped romaine lettuce, sliced olives, halved grape tomatoes and sliced carrots.  Perfect light compliment to the carne asada burritos I made.  And I think tomorrow my lunch will be a nice steak salad with the rest of the dressing!

• 1/2 cup of cilantro, leaves and stem
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4  yellow onion
• 1/2  jalapeño pepper
• 1/8 cup lime juice
• 1/8 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp corriander seeds
• 1/4 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar

As you can see, I left out a few things and didn’t cut the recipe down exactly in proportion. I would have put the paprika in but just forgot it.  I had no orange juice, so left that out, but think it would taste good!  I grow jalapenos, so had those, as well as fresh lemon and garlic. The lime juice was bottled.

I only marinated this an hour or so. I put the thin slices of meat in a glass dish and salted and peppered them, then poured on the marinade, turning to cover the meat thoroughly. Covered with plastic wrap and let sit a room temperature an hour while I fixed up a salad, made a bit of guacamole, mixed up some dressing, etc.  I also opened a can of refried beans and heated that, put a bowl of grated cheese and some sour cream on the table.

These grilled fairly quickly as they were very thin, maybe 1-2 minutes per side at the most. I let them sit an minute and then sliced them thinly. They were quite good!

Pictures to follow as soon as my daughter emails me her pictures. My camera’s batteries needed recharging.

Tostada with Ground Beef and Fixings

My youngest has a new friend spending the night and asked for tostados for dinner, a perfect request since we had a perfect ripe avocado. I pulled some ground turkey from the freezer and cooked it up with some taco seasonings.  A while back I bought a container of taco seasoning but I actually prefer this recipe with onions and tomato sauce and cumin.  But sometimes you’re in a hurry and the mixes aren’t all that bad.   You could also make up your own taco seasoning packets if you’d like.

While the meat was cooking, I served up small dishes of grated cheese, sour cream, lettuce, sliced olives, diced avocados, diced tomatoes and got out some bottled green salsa and hot sauce.  I also heated up a can of refried beans.

Tostado Fixings

When the meat was done, I removed it to a serving dish and covered it to keep warm, rinsed out the cast iron skillet I was using, then put in a small amount of canola oil and fried up some corn tortillas for the base of the tostados.

Leftovers will make a great taco salad or soft tacos.

<edited later to add pictures!>

Mexican Inspired Chicken Soup

I wanted some soup for lunches later in the week so cooked this up to go with the carne asada soft tacos I was making for dinner. I wanted something Mexican oriented and with some vegetables so played around a bit and came up with this soup. I used some corn I had frozen after we had leftover corn on the cob. I just sliced it off the cob and froze it. I liked it in the soup because it was larger chunks of corn rather than just individual kernels.

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 tsp taco seasoning (optional)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt (depending on your broth)
• 6 cups homemade chicken broth
• 1 cup cooked chicken, diced
• 1 cup corn (I used frozen)
• 1 tomato, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

This could have gone any number of directions depending on what I had found while rooting through the freezer and vegetable bin.  If I’d wanted a lighter soup, I’d have left out the chicken but I was thinking this would make a nice lunch for me later. If I’d wanted a heavier soup I would have added some cooked beans and maybe some potatoes or rice. Also, if I’d had extra salsa without the avocados I would have added that instead of or in addition to the fresh tomato from my garden.

Heat the oil and cook the onion and celery until softened. Sprinkle with the taco seasoning, cumin and salt and cook a minute. Add the rest of the ingredient except for the fresh cilantro and simmer 30 minutes, stirring now and then. Garnish with the cilantro and serve.

Mmm!  Could also add some diced avocado, grated cheese and crushed tortilla chips if you wanted a heartier soup.

Carne Asada Soft Tacos

This is a good recipe from the November issue of Cooking Light magazine, (one year for $15 at Amazon).  I couldn’t find the skirt steak they recommended but used a thinly sliced package of beef round tips I saw on sale instead.   The steak came out a bit “limey” if you ate it plain, but in a taco it was fantastic!  So if you were going to adapt this for something else, you might want to cut back on the lime juice or cut it with some olive oil or something. But as I said, in the tacos it was fantastic. I served them to my youngest and her friend and her friend’s father. All thought they were quite tasty!  We did a mix of soft corn tortillas and crispy ones.

Carne Asada

Marinate the steak a few hours in:

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper  (recipe called for ground red pepper, I used black)

I mixed the marinade ingredients together in a shallow glass dish, then put the steak slices in and moved them around and turned them over until they were well coated, then covered the dish and refrigerated. I pulled the steak out while I started making the salsa.

When the salsa was ready, I heated a cast iron skillet on the stove and cooked each slice of steak a few minutes on each side, then removed to a plate while I cooked the rest. When they were all done, I sliced them into strips then cut the strips into smaller pieces, about 1/2″.

Avocado Pico del Gallo

Avocado Pico del Gallo

• 1 tomato, seeded and diced
• 1/4 cup diced yellow or white onion
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, diced
• 1/2 a jalapeno, seeded and diced (we’re wimpy. you might like more heat.)
• 1 Tbs lime juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 avocado, diced
• salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and let sit while you cook the steaks and heat the corn tortillas.

Putting It All Together

If you want soft tacos, you can heat the corn tortillas either directly over a gas burner, in a cast iron skillet, or in the microwave (either in a tortilla warmer or wrapped in some paper towels).

If you want crisp tacos you can buy the package of course. Or heat up some oil in a skillet and fry each tortilla, turning once, a few minutes on each side. Drain on a paper towel, folding the tortilla in half so it hardens in a half circle.

Serve with sour cream, grated cheese, and the pico de gallo salsa.