Tag Archives: Homemade

Easy Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

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Easy Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

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Hi All!!

With Thanksgiving coming up soon you will probably have a little extra turkey hanging out in your fridge 🙂  I love finding fun things to do with leftovers because we always seem to have so many each year. Last year we (my mom and I) made a turkey and pumpkin soup and it was delicious!!! Of course there is nothing wrong with cold turkey sandwiches also(personal fav). This recipe is very simple and takes almost no time at all to whip up, which is nice after slaving away for Thanksgiving. It’s also sort of refreshing that it’s a totally different taste combination than all of the traditional flavors we all will have just had! Hope you enjoy!!!

Ingredients

  • 1 can (19 oz) mild enchilada sauce
  • 4 cups shredded chicken(or leftover turkey)
  • 1 bag (8 oz) shredded Mexican cheese blend
  • 2/3 cup Neufchatel cheese (or 1/3-less-fat-cream cheese)
  • 10-15 small flour tortillas
  • Sliced fresh jalapeño peppers, fresh cilantro leaves and diced fresh tomato for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Coat one 4-quart or two 2-quart baking dishes with nonstick cooking spray. If using 1 dish, spread 1/3 cup of the enchilada sauce in bottom. If using 2 dishes, spread half of the 1/3 cup of the enchilada sauce in bottom of each dish.

2. In a bowl, combine chicken, 1 cup of the shredded cheese and 3/4 cup of the enchilada sauce.

3. Spread about 2 tsp of Neufchatel on a tortilla. Spoon 2 to 3 tbsp chicken mixture in a strip in center of tortilla. Roll up tightly to enclose filling; transfer to prepared dish(es). Repeat with remaining tortillas, cream cheese and chicken mixture to yield 16 enchiladas. I used toothpicks to secure each tortilla so that they stayed closed.

4. Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas, dividing evenly between dishes(if using two). Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Increase temperature to 400 degrees and bake an additional 5 minutes, until cheese begins to brown slightly. Garnish with whatever toppings you like: jalapeño slices, avocado, and cilantro. Enjoy!!!!

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Thanks for checking out my blog fellow foodies!

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Roasted Vegetable Stacked Enchiladas

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Roasted Vegetable Stacked Enchiladas

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Ingredients:

1 large red pepper, chopped, seeds removed
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium yellow squash, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 sweet potato chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups red enchilada sauce
9-10 small corn tortillas
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

*This is optional but I added the zest and juice of 1 lime to mine 🙂

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place red pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potato, and onion on a large baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and toss until vegetables are coated. Season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetables for 30-40 minutes, or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove vegetables from oven and let cool to room temperature. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F.

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2. Grease an 8×8 square baking pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine roasted vegetables, black beans, cumin, chili powder, garlic, jalapeño, lime zest and juice(if using) and cilantro. Stir and season with salt and pepper.

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3. Spread 1/4 cup of enchilada sauce into the bottom of the baking pan. Add a layer of tortillas, to completely cover the bottom of the pan(See my picture before for a trick!). Top with 1/3 of the vegetable/bean mixture and 1/3 of the cheese. Make a second layer of tortilla, enchilada sauce, vegetables/beans, and cheese. Top with with a layer of tortillas, enchilada sauce, vegetables/beans, and cheese. Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with cooking spray and cover the pan.

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My mom taught my this trick to cut off two sides of the round tortillas. This makes them fit perfectly in the corners of pans with minimal overlap so you have a perfectly even layer. She’s a genius 🙂

4. Bake enchiladas for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and the enchiladas are bubbling. Remove enchiladas from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Cut into squares and serve warm.

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This is another beautiful meal. I served this with some Salsa and chips and we had a delicious light meal. Hope you enjoy and of course thanks for reading my blog. I’m blown away at how many views and comments I get in a day. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that so many people would visit my site when I started this. Seriously you all make me so happy! 🙂

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Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

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Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Hi everyone! Ok I’ve been a busy cooking bee- but a lazy blogger. (for real it’s embarrassing how little I’ve blogged lately- there is reason for it but I’ll save that for a later post!)Needless to say,  I can’t wait to share some of my creations with you 🙂 This particular recipe is one of my favorite recent ones! So tasty, easy, and healthy. The perfect trio for an awesome recipe. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

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Gorgeous right?!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked quinoa
  • 1 (4-ounce) can green chiles
  • 1 cup corn kernels
  • 1 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 cup diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (I love cilantro so I always add more)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion or garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, or more to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon smokey paprika, or more to taste
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 6 bell peppers, tops cut, stemmed and seeded

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13 baking dish with tin foil.
  2. In a large bowl, combine quinoa, green chiles, corn, beans, tomatoes, cheeses, cilantro, cumin, garlic, onion and chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper, to taste.
  3. Spoon the filling each each bell pepper cavity. Place in prepared baking dish, cavity side up, and bake until the peppers are tender and the filling is heated through, about 25-30 minutes.
  4. Serve immediately and enjoy!  🙂
  5. PS. I only cooked 4 peppers since there fewer people I was feeding but then I put the extra quinoa mix in a baking dish, topped with a little more cheese and baked along with the peppers. This was great for lunch throughout the week 🙂 As you can see there was quite a bit of extra “stuffing” so I think you could do more than 6…but experiment! 🙂

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I just love how pretty this dish is! So colorful and fresh looking and not to mention out of this world delicious. This is a recipe you could seriously have so much fun with and experiment with different flavor combinations and ingredients. Also easily could be vegan with some small adjustments. Please stop back and share your own concoctions 🙂

As always, thanks for stopping by!

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Stuffed Green Peppers

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My first food post! ♥

I made stuffed green peppers. The recipe I adapted it from was for 8-10 peppers, and as it is just me and Jake I cut it in half for 4-5 so we could each have one and then another one for leftovers sometime. Well there was actually way too much stuffing for just 4 peppers…this recipe is definitely enough for about 6 peppers. (depending slightly on pepper size obviously).

Here is what ingredients you will need:

– Peppers(*helpful tip is to make sure that they are stable enough on the bottom to ‘sit up’ on their own so you don’t have spilling peppers! 🙂

– Small/medium onion

– Can of DICED tomatoes(yes the picture is of stewed tomatoes, thats what the recipe called for, but I had to spend time cutting them into smaller pieces and so next time I’ll be using diced)

– 1 can of corn

– 1 pound of ground beef

– 1 cup of rice

-Chili powder, and I threw in some chipotle powder too

– Ketchup

– Cheese to sprinkle on top

What do do:

  • Cook your rice and set aside.  * Look at the bottom of this post for a rice cooking tutorial 🙂
  • Cut the tops off of your peppers and clean. Set aside
  • Chop your onion and the tops of the peppers into a small dice
  • Bring a large pot of water to a boil and boil the peppers for 3-4 minutes until they softened a little bit (as pictured)

  • Take them out and run under cold water for a second or two and then set aside.
  • Turn on oven to 350 degrees
  • Start browning beef, once brown add the onions and pepper pieces until soft
  • Add corn, tomatoes, 1 -2 tsps of chili powder/ chipotle powder or whatever seasoning you choose.
  • Add ketchup, about 5 tablespoons-more or less- just to get a ‘stewier’ consistency
  • Mix in your rice and stir entire mixture together
Here is what my pepper stuffing looked like after I was done:

  • Pack each pepper tightly with the stuffing and place in a tin foil lined baking dish
  • Sprinkle the tops with cheese
  • Bake for 10-15 minutes (I finished with a broil to get a pretty brown color 🙂 )
Here is the finished product:

VOILA! I served this with some biscuits I had left over from another recipe- but would be good with a salad too!
Hope you enjoy &  please share with me if you adapt and experiment with this and come up with your own tasty creations!
xoxo
-G
Rice tutorial:
White rice is a 2:1 ratio and brown rice is 1.5:1, so two cups of water for every one cup of white rice and 1.5 cups of water for every cup of brown rice. 
-I always rinse my rice before I cook it- particularly for white rice. Usually 5-10 rinses or until the water is no longer cloudy. 
-Combine the correct amounts of rice and water in a saucepan(you can add a little bit of oil (canola,veggie,olive or whatever you choose)) bring to a boil with the lid OFF.
-A soon as the water starts to boil, turn the burner to low and place the lid on the pot
-Simmer the rice for 17-20 minutes and ta-da! super simple. 
*for brown rice after the 20 minutes is up I remove the pot from the burner but continue to let the rice sit for another 15 minutes before I serve- not sure why but it always turns out better when I do 🙂 
easy peasy!