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! 

Dining In: Myrtle Beach - Landry's Happy Hour

The last beach trip of the year is always a sad time when you realize that the long summer days and backyard bbqs will end in a few months. Although with the heat wave in NC this year, I have to admit that I'm looking forward to fall. 

Myrtle Beach is a quick 3.5 hour drive and makes for a great weekend getaway. Not only that, it is in SC, which has entirely different happy hour laws (thank goodness). My friend had been talking about the Landry's happy hour for a while so we made a point to head there on Saturday evening. All the food is anywhere from $3-5 per portion and they have a generous list of beers and cocktails that also range from $3-5. 

If there is something to indulge in for an affordable price at the massive Broadwalk on the Beach in Myrtle, it would be this place. Bring some good company and enjoy the food and drinks from 4-7 pm. A three hour HH is what I'm talking about. 

Crawfish Queso (Oh, how I miss texas). 

Crab Stuffed Shrimp with Bacon.

Fish Tacos.

We also ordered Fried Sweet Pickles and several of their drinks, which all were quite good. I would recommend the Mango Mojito. If you are headed to Myrtle Beach any time soon, go take advantage of this gem, but get there early as the bar seating does tend to fill up quickly around HH. 

See ya Landry's until next summer! 

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! 

Beef Empanadas

Dough made in a food processor is something that I've seen on TV, but never tried on my own. After watching Rick Bayless make empanadas on America's Test Kitchen, I've been wanting to make them for myself. You can watch here! 

These were brought to a dinner party with many positive responses on Sunday. The recipe is actually a mash-up from 2 different sources.

The dough recipe came from Bitmann's "How to cook everything" mentioned several times before on my blog. I decided to go with this dough recipe since I didn't want to deep fry my empanadas. 

Empanada Dough

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup lard or vegetable oil

Less than 1/2 cup cold water

Directions 

1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in food processor for 5 seconds.

2. Add oil while food processor is spinning. Mix for 10 seconds.

3. Slowly add water until dough forms a ball. Do not add too much water as dough is supposed to be on the drier side. 

4. Remove from food processor. Knead for 1 minute and let rest for at least 20 minutes in a bowl covered with a damp towel. 

5. Knead dough again for 1 minute after rest period. Cut into 12 equal pieces and roll out on floured surface to a diameter of 6 inches. 

The recipe for the filling can be found here. Since a friend did not eat green bell peppers or cilantro, I left out the cilantro and substituted bell peppers with mushrooms. I also followed the advice of some reviewers and added some Sazon seasoning. 

6. Put a few tablespoons of filling in the middle of the circle and wet edge with water. Seal tightly and fold with a "rope" pattern. 

7. Bake in 450 degree oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. 

8. Enjoy hot or serve at room temperature. 

Of course you can put any combination of fillings - meat or veggie - that you'd like. These can be put in the freezer and saved for rainy days when you don't feel like cooking. They are also really good on-the-go snacks that you can grab and eat on your way out the door.

Have an adventurous Monday. :)

Dining In: Durham, NC - Toledo Carniceria

After Taqueria La Vaquita was written up in the NYTimes, The Husband said that the line at the little outdoor establishment instantly tripled. The hype of La Vaquita certainly overshadowed many other taco-focused joints in Durham, NC. So I wanted to pay homage to a taco place that we recently discovered and love: Toledo Carniceria aka Toledo Butcher Shop.

One of the best parts is that they have lengua, which is one of our favorite taco meats. Yep, you heard me correctly. Cow. Tongue.

Half of the taqueria is a butcher shop and grocery, which likely sources all the food. 

They let us try their delicious quesadilla cheese at $5.70 per pound. We'll definitely be back for this next time. 

Start off the meal with free chips and salsa!

They also add sour cream, queso fresco, and avocado slices for free. Just remember to ask. 

Good to the last bite! 

This place is definitely your local, hole-in-the-wall taqueria with no-nonsense food. Tacos at $1.65 a piece is not a bad deal in this economy. 

It's a Tamale Party!

This weekend, my neighbor hosted a homemade tamale-making party. The first time I had a tamale was shortly after I moved to Texas from Jersey and it was a frozen HEB kind. It was quite possibly one of my least favorite foods. Little did I know that homemade tamales could be quite delicious, which I discovered during a trip to Miami a few years later.

I don't have directions for how to make tamales because all the supplies were prepped the night before. So that's something I'll have to investigate and get back to you later. We made a combination of queso fresco, veggies, chicken, and mole sauce fillings.

We made over a 100 tamales, which we happily ate and packed for our freezers.

Know someone who can make tamales? Try hosting your own party!