Easiest Chicken Enchiladas

I have always felt somewhat ambivalent about enchiladas. In my mind they felt like tacos smothered in sauce and cheese, which felt undeniably "tex-mexy." Since Tex-Mex is not really one of my favorites, I had little motivation to make enchiladas. However, The Husband occasionally bought frozen enchiladas from Trader Joe's for easy lunches and I often thought to myself, "I can totally make that." 

So then I did. And he liked them. And so did I! 

This recipe is adapted from this one from Serious Eats. However, I only followed the recipe for the sauce, which is the only part I've include here. 

Chicken Enchiladas

4-6 servings

Ingredients for Sauce

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 onion, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons chili powder

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons sugar

2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

Remaining Ingredients

12 corn tortillas

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 can black beans

Shredded cheese of your choice

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion and salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chili powder, garlic, cumin, and sugar. Cook until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Stir in the tomato sauce and water. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

2. Cook chicken as you like it. I seasoned the chicken with garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper and grilled on my George Foreman grill. Chop into bite sized pieces when cooled. Mix with black beans and 2 handfuls of cheese. 

3. Pour some sauce on the bottom of the casserole dish.  

4. Heat/microwave tortillas until soft and pliable. Fill with chicken, beans, and cheese mixture. Roll tortillas and arrange in casserole dish. 

5. Pour remaining sauce all over enchiladas and cover with cheese. 

6. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes until cheese is browned and gooey. 

You can serve with lime wedges, sour cream, etc if you'd like. We like it as is. These are particularly good reheated later in the week for lunch and can be easily frozen for later. 

Have a eventful Wednesday! 

Lobster Orzo "Mac N Cheese"

In addition to the Banana Cream Pie, The Husband requested Lobster Orzo Mac and Cheese for his birthday dinner last week. This was somewhat difficult since I've never had this dish before. After scouring the internet for recipes, I settled on a combination of these two, one from the Food Network and one from Epicurious. (I basically followed the Food Network recipe until I finished the roux and mixed in the cheese. Then I followed the Epicurious recipe by tossing the pasta in with the cheese mixture instead of baking with bread crumbs as the Food Network recipe suggests.)

What I loved about the Food Network recipe was that you had to make a lobster stock from the lobster shells that was then used to make the roux in the mac and cheese. Brilliant! And the smell of shallots, garlic, and peppercorns with milk in a pot is simply amazing. 

The roux: flour + butter. 

Adding the 3 cheeses: Gruyere, Emmentaler, and Fontina. 

The finished product with lobster pieces, basil, and S+P to taste. 

This dish was quite amazing. The creamy cheese and aromatic lobster broth created a gooey mac and cheese with the orzo pasta. This one is definitely a decadent treat to make for a special night. 

Have a great Monday! 

Durham Food Trucks: Part 3

The Husband found a deal for Slippin Sliders, which is a food truck that occasionally parks in Durham near Fullsteam and MotorCo on Rigsbee. We found them on a hot afternoon next to Fullsteam, just as they were opening for the night. 

We got everything on the menu except the Teriyaki: 4 sliders for $10.

The Diablo. 

The West Coast. 

The Texas. 

The Turkey Apple Jack. 

Overall consensus was that the sliders with bacon were quite good. They also had some pretty tasty aiolis and remoulades. The bun is quite soft and the meat is thin so every bite is a little mushy with all of the sauces and veggies. My favorite was the Texas (naturally) and the West Coast had a great sauce. 

While I understand that sliders are "mini" burgers, I'm just not quite a fan yet because if I wanted to eat a great burger, why would I want it to be "petite-sized"? At $10 for 4 sliders, it's not a bad deal if you find a coupon or a daily deal. Unfortunately, I'm still not quite convinced that the genre of sliders is a bona fide food category. 

I hope Durham continues to attract food trucks, as it's great to see this movement growing in the midst of the locavore, foodie crowd in the area. 

May your food truck trekking continue this week! 

Bulgar Stuffed Poblano Peppers

My initial thought after purchasing poblano peppers from our local mexican mart was to make chile rellenos, until I read the actual recipe for Rick Bayless's chile rellenos. While the recipe looks delicious, I couldn't find the time to make this recipe nor could I get myself to fry these in our kitchen since our last potato chip adventure left an oily odor in our house for days. 

So, I decided to use what I had to make the best Thursday night dinner I could think of. The bulgar was something that I had on hand and I just made this recipe up, so measurements are estimates. 

Bulgar Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Ingredients

4-5 poblano peppers, roasted in the oven until blackened

1 sweet long red pepper, roasted until blackened

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 lb of your favorite sausage or ground pork

1/2 cup of corn

1 cup of bulgar

1 3/4 cup of chicken stock or water 

Taco seasoning to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place poblano and red peppers in the oven under the broil setting, approximately 6-8 minutes on each side until fully blackened. Then place peppers in a bowl of water or in a brown paper bag to allow the steam to loosen the skin from the meat of the pepper. 

2. Heat chicken stock until at full boil, then pour in bulgar and turn heat to lowest setting. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for another 15 minutes. 

3. Loosen the skin of the peppers. For the poblano peppers, cut a slit in the skin and remove all the seeds. Deseed and chop the roasted red pepper. 

4. Saute onions until tender then add the sausage. Add the corn, roasted red pepper and taco seasoning. Include additional salt, pepper, or cumin to taste. 

5. Add the cooked bulgar to the onion, corn, and peppers. Season again based on your preference. 

6. Fill the poblano peppers with the bulgar mixture. You may need to use a toothpick to secure the pepper if it is too tender, which happened to me. 

7. When ready to eat, top the peppers off with cheese and place under the broiler for 7-10 minutes, until the cheese is browned and boiling. I wrapped each pepper in foil because I was worried that they might burst open and the bulgar would pour out, which was not a problem at all. 

8. Serve with refried beans, cheese, or salsa of your choice.  

Certainly not the same as a fried, stuffed chile, but this was otherwise healthy and the flavors packed quite a punch given that the poblano peppers have some heat as well. The Husband and Sister cleared their plates in a few minutes and wanted more. 

For as picky as these two are, you can't complain about that. :)

Have a great weekend and some delicious weekend meals! 

Durham Food Trucks: Part 1

I've been hoping to try some of the Durham food trucks for months now, but never had the time to track them down. Since then, I've been stalking Pie Pushers on twitter and we finally found them on Saturday night in front of Fullsteam Brewery. 

The Husband called it a "perfect symbiotic relationship" between this new brewery and the pizza trucks. 

I had been reading about the potato, bacon, and brussels sprout pizza, but they ran out by the time we arrived. Instead, I had the Pacecar and The Husband had the Sausage and Mushroom.

The Verdict: The Husband is very particular about pizza crust even though he's from Texas. He pines after a pizzeria in Austin, TX with thin, crispy yet chewy crust. After taking his first bite, he looked at me with satisfaction and said, "This is it." The Sausage and Mushroom was delicious. The Pacecar was missing some salt and could use some additional flavor, but again the crust was super good. 

Of course, nothing goes better with pizza than beer. Fullsteam's Sweet Potato Brew. Yum. 

Klausie's pizza truck was right outside of Fullsteam and since we only had a slice each of Pie Pushers we decided to give them a try as well. This is of the "pan pizza" style. Imagine farm fresh toppings, homemade sauce, and generous portions of cheese, all sitting upon a thick, foccacia-style bread. 

The Husband had the "The Meat" and I had "The Greek." They were fabulous. The sauce was super flavorful with hints of garlic, onion, and herbs. The crust was thick and chewy smothered with sauce and cheese. The overall reaction was "OMG." 

We overheard the owner saying that he is currently trying to source some local bacon. We'll definitely be back. 

Overall, we found some of our favorite food truck eats this weekend. Can't wait to return to Pie Pushers for the brussels sprout pizza! To locate these two roaming trucks, follow them on twitter and you'll be able to track them down. 

Have a great Monday! 

Momma P's Polish Perogies

A friend's mother came to visit this past weekend and I got to learn how to make traditional polish perogies with them. Polish food is something I still don't quite understand just because I've never really had much of it. But nothing beats homemade polish food from your friend's momma.

Ingredients:
4 cups of flour, unsifted
6 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
5 tablespoons melted butter/margarine

Filling:
Cottage cheese
Shreaded Velveeta cheese or mild cheddar
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Mix all perogie skin ingredients together either by hand until formed into a ball or with a stand mixer with a dough hook.

2. Roll flat and fill with cottage cheese mixture. You can make the perogies as large or small as you'd like.

3. Fold skin over.  We used a cup to cut the shapes into the half moon perogies.

4. Use the prongs of the fork to make pretty hash marks. Make sure they are tightly sealed otherwise the cheese will try to escape.

5. Boil perogies for 10 minutes.

6. When ready to eat, perogies are cooked in a pan with some butter and sliced onions.

7. Remaining boiled perogies can be packed and frozen for future meals.

The filling was cheesy, but mild and creamy. The skin was chewy, but tender. Pretty good for a polish food novice.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Shiitake Mushroom and Arugula Pizza

Monday nights are my least favorite nights to cook because over the weekend we've made all our fun stuff and we have random bits and pieces of leftover ingredients. Here is a dish you can put together with very little time and is perfect for the after-work meal. It was inspired by my trip to ATL where we had the Nucci pizza at Varasano's Pizzeria, which is to die for.

Ingredients:
Trader Joes Naan bread
Basil pesto (premade)
Shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
Mozzarella cheese (in our case we used left over queso asadero)
Sliced proscuitto
Baby arugula, washed and dried

Directions:

1. Bake the frozen naan bread until dry and the outside feels somewhat crisp.

2. Spread basil pesto on the naan and top with shiitakes and cheese. Bake until cheese is melted. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt.

3. Top with proscuitto and arugula right before serving.

Serve with salad and this could be your simple Monday dinner.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Just food. Enough said.

Bacon wrapped colossal shrimp + lobster tail + ciabatta and triple cream soft cheese + fresh made pasta + french berry lemonade = deliciousness and food coma.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

ps: Future post on pasta makers and making homemade pasta to come.