Salsa Chicken Burritos

I guess I've really been on a Mexican kick lately, with my guacamole, salsa, and quesadillas. Get ready for one more - time for a chicken burrito. And then I will move on to Italian. I can't believe that hubby has been gone for several weeks now and I haven't made pasta yet. Pasta, that thing which I love and he thinks is boring as hell (unless it has meatballs or Italian sausage in it). Why oh why haven't I attempted pesto or a sun-dried tomato sauce or something? I have certainly been slacking on my opportunity to make it when he's not around, so I'll do that soon. For today, though, back to the Mexican theme.



I don't quite remember how I stumbled across this recipe, but I think it had something to do with looking for recipes that involved salsa, since I had so much already made. I think it was also the fact that a reviewer said something about making a bunch of burritos and freezing them for later meals that appealed to me, too.

Whatever it was, I decided to make it.



I started off with some chicken breasts in tomato sauce on medium-high. The recipe said to use 2 breasts and a 4 ounce can of tomato sauce, but I increased it to 3 breasts and almost a whole 15 ounce can. I've seen those little teeny-tiny cans at the store, but I've never bought one because until now, I'd never seen a recipe that called for such a silly amount of tomato sauce. Regardless, the recipe said that I should boil the chicken in the sauce, and I wasn't exactly sure how to accomplish that with only a half cup of sauce, so upping the amount seemed a good idea to me. Anyway, cutting back too much would just mean dumping the rest of the can down the drain, and that seemed a shame.

After it came to a boil, I added some of my homemade salsa, a package of taco seasoning, cumin, garlic, and chili powder and let it simmer for a while.



Mmmm it was starting to look yummy.



The next step was using a fork to shred the chicken. I had a hard time with this because I refused to let the tines of either fork (I used two) touch the pan, as it has a beautiful non-stick surface, but I eventually came up with this.



I added a bit of hot sauce and then let it simmer for another 10 minutes or so, then transferred it to a plastic bowl and continued shredding it.

And with that, it was ready to be stuffed into burritos! I warmed up a few flour tortillas, spooned the filling into it, topped with some shredded Colby Jack cheese, and wrapped it up. With a little homemade salsa and some more cheese, it was good to go!



To be completely honest, even as I was preparing the burritos, I wasn't super excited about the food. It smelled yummy, but there was something odd about the chicken-simmered-in-tomato-sauce thing. I don't know WHY that was weird, as I use enchilada sauce all the time, and isn't that pretty much the same thing? And what about chicken parmesan? Even so, it did seem strange to me. But then, I tasted it. It was...

*tries to think of words besides "delicious," "yummy," "flavorful," and "so good!"*

... definitely a pleasant surprise! It was hearty, gooey, warm, enticing. Gratifying, slightly spicy, and simply perfect. In fact, as soon as I finished burrito #1, I went back up to the counter and made #2. I made four more to freeze for lunches, too.

The next night, I used the little bit of filling that was left to top some crumbled tortilla chips, topped with more salsa and cheese, and had the best taco salad that I have had in ages.



Excellent. Recipe is in my TasteBook - click on the widget to see. :)

Tomorrow morning, I am flying to Atlanta for a week-long school shindig, so you won't see another post for a little while. I promise to return!

Chicken Quesadillas

Who doesn't like quesadillas? They're kid-friendly and a nice lunchtime meal or appetizers for us grown-ups, too. They're easy to put together, popular at parties, and just plain yummy. I suppose they're quite versatile, too, and open to tweaking if you feel like being adventurous.

I start off with a flour tortilla on a greased cookie sheet, topped with a bit of my homemade salsa.



Season a chicken breast or two with some chili powder, cumin, paprika, and whatever else you feel like adding, pan fry it, and then slice or shred it.



Place the chicken on top of the salsa and top with cheese.



Top with another flour tortilla and pop it into the oven to broil for a few minutes on each side. Cut it into wedges and serve with a dollop of sour cream and a bit more salsa, and you're good to go. Quick, easy, and very satisfying. If I had kids, I'd totally make this a lunchtime project for them.



The recipe is in my TasteBook.

Glazed Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken

Last week, I got a text from an old friend, saying she was in town with friends and would like to get together for dinner. I couldn't go anywhere because I was expecting a plumber to come fix my leaky sink (though in the end, he stood me up), but I did offer to make them dinner if they could come to me. And come they did.

I thought I'd give a recipe called Cream Cheese Chicken (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cream-Cheese-Chicken/Detail.aspx) a try. It was hailed as being a good company dinner, and I had all the ingredients, so why not?

[Image courtesy of SBLAES on allrecipes.com]

First, I pounded out some chicken breasts. Unfortunately, my meat pounder had a hard winter (hubby used it to chop ice on the deck, I believe), so it's missing the regular pounding side. Instead, I sliced the chicken breasts in half to get them thin and tenderized (and partially pulverized).



Next, I sauteed up some mushrooms, chopped spinach, and garlic in a bit of butter, though the original recipe didn't call for the spinach or garlic.



When the veggies were tender, I added ~6 oz of cream cheese and pushed it around until it melted and was creamy. Reviewers had cautioned against trying to stuff the chicken with this mixture while it was still warm, saying that it got impossibly messy and gooey, so I scraped it into a bowl and chilled it in the fridge for a while. When it had cooled down, I spread it onto my pounded and tenderized chicken breasts.



Turns out the chilling strategy was a good one, as I didn't have too much trouble rolling up the breasts. I did stick some toothpicks in, though, just in case they decided to unroll. The puppy supervised.



The glaze was a bit odd - lots of brown sugar and lots of Dijon mustard.



Spoon that onto the chicken breasts, top with some chopped walnuts, and you're good to go!



I regret to inform you that this was the final picture that I took of the chicken. Somehow, when I'm not alone in the kitchen, I get amnesia and totally forget that I'm supposed to document every step for the blog. You will just have to take my word for the fact that the chicken, once cooked, resembled the picture at the top of this post. Honest.

Now, the sleeper hit of this meal was something that I didn't even bother to take pictures of, except for when I pulled it out of the oven. I found a recipe for roasted potatoes that involved olive oil, salt, and pepper, and with a generous addition of garlic powder and dried parsley, it came out like this:



Mmmm and they were good. Along with the chicken and potatoes, I served a salad with my homemade Greek dressing, and I'm proud to say that there weren't any leftovers.



Bon appetit.

Recipe to appear in TasteBook shortly.

Chicken Salad

Back when we were doing Nutrisystem, one of the meals that Andy and I both actually really liked was the chicken salad. We'd open the foil pouch and spoon it onto 5-6 pieces of melba toast for a quick, finger-licking lunch. We're not doing Nutrisystem anymore (though my body has been hinting that maybe it's time to give it another run), but that doesn't mean I couldn't whip up some chicken salad of my own, does it?

I'd been waiting to try it until I happened to have leftover rotisserie chicken or something, but earlier this week I found myself with leftover chicken breasts, marinated in a garlic-herb sauce and grilled on the George Forman. I'd prepared them for Andy to eat for lunch at work, but with a trial going on at Fort McNair for a Sergeant Major who'd been accused of wearing unauthorized badges, he'd never gotten a chance to eat them.



I decided to use that chicken for chicken salad, since I knew I just wasn't going to eat it as-is. You'd be amazed at all the crazy chicken salad recipes floating around, with ingredients ranging from mango, to curry, to broccoli, to sunflower seed kernels, to feta cheese. All I wanted was something plain and simple. I chose a recipe that was highly-rated and seemed to be something more than just chicken + mayonnaise and got started.

Of course, I started off behind the curve because I didn't have celery, water chestnuts, or grapes (though I don't think I'd add the grapes even if I had them). Not much could be done about that, short of actually going to the store, and since that wasn't about to happen I didn't worry about it.

But I did have mayo (reduced fat), parsley, lemon juice, ground ginger, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.



I debated a bit about whether or not to add diced onions. I've always hated the texture of raw onions, particularly when they are surprising little chunks in sauces or salads or anything. But I knew they'd add a lot of flavor to the chicken salad, and maybe a little texture would be good, given the fact that I was omitting the celery and water chestnuts. I decided to go for it, albeit mincing the onion into the smallest pieces that I could possibly make.



This was the creamy dressing with all that added in:



Stir in 4 strips of crumbled bacon...


and the diced chicken...


... and this is what you get.


I toasted some wheat bread and made a sandwich, melting a slice of provolone on top of the chicken salad for good measure, and enjoyed a very flavorful dinner.



In fact, I liked it so much that I immediately stuffed a pita with it to have for lunch the next day.



I didn't review this recipe on allrecipes.com because I'm pretty sure that marinating the chicken and skipping the water chestnuts, celery, and grapes changed the recipe pretty dramatically. That being said, I will definitely make it again. It's hard to say how much of the flavor is due to the marinade and how much was due to the dressing that I made, but either way, it worked. I ate a sandwich made with this every day until it was gone, and it's the kind of thing that is fantastic for quickly putting together a lunch while you're still trying to wake up in the morning and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet. And I am glad that I added the onion, though also glad that I made each piece tiny.

I will be posting the recipe in my TasteBook so if you feel inclined to try it yourself, please do (and let me know how it went!).

Mac & Cheese

Allrecipes.com sends me daily suggestions for things to make. Often, I delete the recipe, but sometimes they send me something that sparks my interest. A week or so, they sent me an article about mac and cheese with links to their best recipes. Once I got the idea in my head, it wouldn't leave me alone.

I had never successfully made home-style macaroni and cheese before. I'd tried melting Velveeta and pouring it over cooked pasta, and that was incredibly disappointing. I'd tried making a sauce with melted cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese and milk, but it's always had that grainy, unpleasant texture that melted cheddar gets. I guess this is an example of why I shouldn't cook without a recipe in front of me.

I played around on the website until I found a recipe that looked good to me, and decided to check it out one evening after work. Not surprisingly, it had me start off with a bit of melted butter and flour, stirred to make a paste. This is the basic white roux for a lot of sauces, so it looked familiar to me.



Once it's a paste, pour in the milk, salt, and pepper. Also, I was intrigued by the instructions to add Dijon mustard and, strangely enough, cream cheese. Cream cheese, my favorite secret ingredient, in mac & cheese? A bit skeptical because I don't want my mac & cheese to taste like cream cheese, I went for it anyway. But I also used reduced fat cream cheese, in an effort to make this slightly less unhealthy.



Meanwhile, start cooking up some pasta. I managed to find "macaroni style" pasta at the store, with the bonus being that it is quick-cook.



I'm not sure what makes "macaroni style" different from just plain macaroni, but I went with it. Also, while waiting for the sauce to get sufficiently creamy, I grated some cheddar cheese.



And once the sauce looked like this...


... I stirred in the macaroni and the cheddar cheese until it looked like this:


In a small bowl, I added a bit of butter to some Italian-seasoned bread crumbs (I didn't have regular) and dried parsley, and used my pastry blender to make a streusel-like topping.



Put macaroni in a casserole dish, top with the bread crumb mixture, and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Voila!


Wow. I am no longer afraid of attempting home style mac & cheese! I wasn't sure how the flavors would blend, and I was afraid that it would be bland (reviewers suggested adding onion powder, garlic powder, and crumbled bacon or chopped ham), but this pretty much tasted how I would expect mac & cheese at a restaurant to taste. It was creamy and I was glad that I'd added only skim milk, not half-and-half as some reviewers suggested, as that would have been too much. The hint of Dijon really gave it a good flavor without being overpowering.

Definitely a keeper, and definitely something that I will make for Andy when he gets home. I brought it in to work and shared it with Kanchana, and even when eating microwaved leftovers out of a solo cup with a plastic fork, she said it was delicious. That's all I need to know. I will be posting this recipe in that tastebook ASAP.

Hummus

Back in July, we moved from a townhouse to a condo about 5 miles away. In doing so, we switched grocery stores. Ever since then, I have been trying to find the tahini in my new grocery store so that I could make hummus. I do have a tahini-free hummus recipe, but it's not quite as good when you leave it out, so I kept looking. I have looked with the peanut butter (that's where it was in my old store), in the "ethnic foods" section, in the condiments aisle, and pretty much everywhere. But I couldn't find it.

Recently, while searching for raw sugar in the organic/ health food section, I finally found it!



No choice of brands or packaging, of course, but this would have to do!

Hummus is basically mashed up chickpeas with tahini (sesame seed paste) for flavor and consistency, along with whatever extras you add - I use lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and cumin. To get the consistency right, I always reserve the juice from the canned chickpeas and add it gradually to the mixture until it's creamy enough.



This is such a fast and healthy snack. Throw everything in the food processor until it's smooth, and you're good to go. I like to put it in a gladware container so I can keep it in the fridge when I'm not snacking on it, and I'll add a dribble of olive oil and sprinkle of paprika on top just to make it look fancy.



When I'm feeling indulgent, I'll pick up some pitas, cut them up, and zap them in the microwave until they're warm. I'd do this if I were serving the hummus as an appetizer for company.



On a daily basis, though, I use it as a dip for my baby carrots and any other fresh vegetables that I'm snacking on. So delicious, and so much cheaper than store-bought hummus.

Someday I will teach myself to roast a red pepper and add that to the mixture. Until then, though, this is my healthy snack.

I've already had this recipe printed so I'm not going to add it to my recipe book in the widget on the right, but I'll share it with you if you send me your email address.

Edna's Comforting Chicken

On Sunday morning, my husband left for a 5-week training course 3 hours away. I feel a bit guilty when I tell people about being lonely without him, because let's face it: we're both pretty lucky he's in Virginia, not Afghanistan or Iraq. I miss him like crazy, but at least I don't have to fear for his life. I guess I'm luckier than the other army wives in that regard.

Even so, I do miss him like crazy. It's hard to be alone at night when you're used to being around someone. I am hoping he'll be able to get weekend passes to come home here and there, but at this point it's not looking too likely, so it's going to be a lonely month for me.



Comfort cooking, for me, means making something warm and gooey. I've made a chicken and rice casserole called "Comforting Chicken" before, and it's always been a winner - even Andy likes it, and that's saying something. The name is incredibly lame, true, but for me it brings to mind a mental picture of a slightly overweight woman in her 60s cooking for her husband, adult children, and possibly even a few young grandchildren. It makes me think of the giant wooden spoon and fork on the wall of Marie's kitchen in "Everybody Loves Raymond," of a warm and worn dining room table that has witnessed innumerable family moments, of kids chasing each other through the house while giggling like hyenas. I guess it's not a surprise to learn that the name of the recipe's submitter on allrecipes.com is Edna, from Illinois. I think I like that as much as the lameness of the recipe title itself.

Because I've made this dish before, I didn't feel the need to measure anything other than the spices. For me, this is HUGE! Because I don't trust my own judgment, I normally follow recipes to the letter except for deliberate changes that I decide to make, but this time I just didn't have the time or energy so I threw stuff together. Here's what may or may not be a half-cup each of onion and green pepper...



I sauteed those veggies with cubed chicken breast and some sliced mushrooms, though those aren't in the original recipe, just because I like mushrooms.



When that's ready, mix in a can of cream of mushroom soup, water, chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, and uncooked rice.



I suppose I should mention that I whipped up this meal in record time. I was making it for the ooey-gooey comfort, not for the pleasure of cooking, simply because I was pressed for time between a workout, picking up the dogs, and doing homework. Luckily, it took only a few minutes to get this far and to put everything in the dish.



Cover it with foil and bake for an hour, sprinkling with cheese in the last few minutes, and behold:



I've attempted other chicken and rice casseroles before and have been told that they're bland. This one has a good blend of chili powder, paprika, and salt and pepper, not to mention the sauteed onion and green pepper, so it is flavorful without any one flavor standing out. And it doesn't make enough for an army, which is nice when you're just cooking for one or two.

In general, it's pretty much exactly what I needed at the end of my first full day without hubby being home. Thanks, Edna from Illinois.

I won't be posting the recipe to this in my recipe book because I've already had it printed, but if you send me your email address, I will send it to you.

The Recipes

My method of storing recipes when I lived in my little Pennsylvania apartment consisted of pinning them to a bulletin board in my kitchen. When I moved out, a friend gave me a recipe binder with plastic sleeves to slip all the scraps of paper in. Over the years, I consistently added to that binder with printouts from allrecipes.com, covered in handwritten notes and alterations, until it was bursting.

To preserve the recipes I liked and to make room for new ones in my trusty green binder, I used Tastebook.com. They provide professionally-printed recipes, either your own uploaded ones or some from on the site. So, I was able to remove most of my printouts and start over.

A bit of honesty here: I am not going to share the first book that I made, simply because I liberally "borrowed" images for my recipes without giving due credit. I never intended for it to see public use, so I didn't bother. I am, however, willing to share it with any readers who request it (send me your email address and I'll send you an invitation).

But I recently completed that book, and since I liked the quality of it so much, I have started a second one. I am willing to share this one, since I will only use my own images for the recipes. I generally upload the recipes that I've posted here several days later. As I write this post, the book is empty, but it will soon have my salsa recipe. As I continue to post in this blog, I will continue to upload new recipes to that book, unless it's a recipe that I've already had printed. This will solve my issue of whether or not to post recipes to the blog itself.

To access it, just click on the "Kitchen Experiments" widget on the right sidebar. You shouldn't have to buy anything, though the option will be there if you'd like to. And if you have any problems accessing the collection, please send me a note to let me know.

Happy cooking.

Homemade Salsa

Growing up in Buffalo, NY, my family didn't exactly frequent Mexican restaurants. There was one place called "Chi Chis" (the translation of which made my school friends giggle), but my recollections of being taken there by my parents are marked by the feeling that there was nothing "good" on the menu. This can probably be chalked up to my refusal to eat beans or most vegetables. I grew out of that phase eventually but was still never exposed to Mexican food very often. I think I ate at a Mexican place during college only once or twice, and after I finished college, I moved to a small town in rural Pennsylvania where there certainly wasn't any Mexican restaurants.



It wasn't until I met Andy that I started eating Mexican food regularly, since Mexican food is a way of life for him, having grown up in the South. Currently living in Maryland, near Washington, D.C., he had access to every conceivable type of cuisine: Persian, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Indian, Mexican, Italian, Greek, Burmese, etc. We began frequenting a Mexican restaurant near where he lived, despite getting absolutely terrible service every time, simply because the food was phenomenal. When that restaurant was replaced by another, we became regulars there, too. When we don't want to deal with the traffic involved in getting there, we settle for a mediocre restaurant near us, and we've branched out to other Mexican restaurants in neighborhoods that we pass through.

"Get to the point, Jolie." Okay, I'm getting there. Anyway, in the nearly four years that I have known Andy, we have eaten at Mexican restaurants (i.e. On the Border, Mi Rancho, Guapo's, Chevy's, and Uncle Julio's) more times than I can count. Each time, we have been served a small dish of salsa with tortilla chips, and each time, I have thought to myself, "I really should learn to make salsa." I said it out loud every time for a while, but I think Andy found that pretty annoying, so I stopped. But I usually still think it.

Recently, I found myself with too many canned tomatoes in my pantry (I accidentally stocked up at the grocery store recently, forgetting that I'd already stocked up), fresh cilantro in my fridge begging to be used, leftover tortilla chips from my guacamole last weekend, and sinus congestion that leaves me absolutely dying for something spicy. I decided to take this as a sign that it was finally time to make that salsa that I'd been talking about making for 4 years.

Several things that I knew I wanted:

Spice. Mild salsa doesn't do anything for me.

Relative smoothness. I don't mind small tomato chunks, but I just don't like huge chunks of raw onion in my salsa and will always eat around those. Plus, I am having a love affair with my food processor/ blender and jump at the opportunity to use it.

Simplicity. I don't want to go to the grocery store and buy any obscure peppers, random fruits like mangos or strawberries, or spices. I don't even want to buy a million tomatoes. I have one on my counter and many cans in the cabinet, and that's going to have to work.

Luckily, I found a recipe that accommodates all of these.

These are my ingredients. The recipe called for 2 cans of regular diced tomatoes and 1 can diced tomatoes with green chili peppers, but instead I used 3 cans of regular diced tomatoes and 1 can of chopped chilies. Also, lime juice, jalapeno pepper, fresh cilantro, onion, garlic, salt, and cumin.



The recipe said "1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped." I didn't have fresh, just the stuff from a jar. Not knowing how many rings constitute 1 pepper, I just scooped out a bunch and chopped them up.



And I simply can't resist taking pictures of my cilantro-chopping process. It just looks so green and nice! Honestly, I'm just glad for the opportunity to use more of it up before the bunch goes bad. I wish they sold it in smaller bunches.



Anyway, I threw all the ingredients in the blender...



Mixed it around a good bunch without completely liquefying it:



And ended up with that chunky/ smooth texture that I've only ever seen in salsa served at Mexican restaurants.



I had included probably more chili peppers than was intended, but omitted "3 drops hot pepper sauce" because the only hot sauce I have is Frank's Buffalo Wing sauce and that didn't seem appropriate for salsa. Either way, this salsa did come out with a good amount of spice - not too little, but also not too much.

And it made a LOT! Anyone know if salsa freezes well?

Looks like I'm going to the grocery store, after all. I'm going to need more tortilla chips to go with my delicious homemade salsa.