Sunday, January 1, 2012

Welcome Mr. New Year...can't wait to get to know you better.

First let me start by saying Happy NEW year! Y'all I just love a new year. It's all fresh and exciting and filled with possibilities. It's just great.
Today my girls and I went to Starbucks and as we were pulling out of the drive thru my youngest says "wait, hold on...let's make a toast" oh. my. gosh she is just so precious sometimes I want to just squeeze her. She went on to say "here is to a a great new year, not just financially but better all the way around, here is to seeing all of our friends and family in California and to happiness" she went on a little longer but I can't remember everything she said. It doesn't matter. It was just real cute.
We are not big New Year's party people, we always keep it pretty mellow. I mean some years he level of mellow is a little ridiculous, like last year in Virginia when we huddled together in the basement and fell asleep long before the ball dropped...but most years we get together with a few friends and play games. This year our new friends had the same idea and I was so glad they did. I should probably stop referring to them as our new friends, especially since this particular couple that we were with last night have felt like 'old friends' since the day we met them. They have been so good about including us in everything and making us feel right at home here in South Carolina. They are both natives and we just love hanging out with them and learning about our 'new' home state.
I asked my girlfriend what she wanted me to bring and she said she didn't care, whatever I wanted to make. At first I was going to make a cowboy casserole since it is one our very favorites but then I thought I should make my chicken enchiladas since I have been wanting to write a blog post and include the recipe anyway...see there-two birds, one stone.
My mom taught me how to make these enchiladas many, many years ago. They are always a big hit and many friends have asked for the recipe, so here it goes.
The stuff you'll need to gather together-
4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts (wash, dry and pound them)
1 large (24 oz) container sour cream
1 large (family size) can cream of chicken soup
3 cans chopped green chiles
2 large blocks of cheese, one cheddar and one jack
1 pack of corn tortillas (30-36 is good)

here is the visual of your supplies, just in case I forgot something...which I have been known to do
oh except the chicken isn't pictured here, it was over on the other counter recovering from the beating I had just given it.

Before you do anything, make sure you pound out your chicken and season it. Like I have said before I like my chicken seasoned, you could boil your chicken for these but that just doesn't sound too appetizing to me. I used "Monterey Chicken" and a little bit of cumin on mine. 
After your chicken is all seasoned, cover it with foil and put it back in the fridge while you complete the next several steps. This is when you will grate your cheese...which let me tell y'all that my life was changed yesterday when I got to this step. For Christmas my in laws got me a food processor. It has a cheese grating attachment. Ummm...awesome. I will never ever use an old fashioned cheese grater again. This bad boy whipped through those two blocks of cheese like a wood chipper through a maple. (I have no idea how fast a wood chipper goes but I thought it was kind of a country reference and I like to pretend I am country)

I mean come on, that is super cool.
After your cheese is grated you can make your sauce. It is so simple it's silly. Spoon your soup, the sour cream and the three cans of chiles into a medium sized sauce pan. Stir it all together real well and leave on low heat to simmer until you need it.
Now here is the ONLY tricky part of this recipe. The tortillas. It is important that you get this step right. You will take your tortillas one at a time and heat them in a little bit of oil. You aren't going to fry them like a tostada shell but just kind of heat them up so that when you bake them the edges will get crispy.
I took a picture of how much oil I put in the pan and I also timed it and you will start out doing this at about 20 seconds on each side, as the oil gets hotter you will only need to do it for about 10 seconds. You just want your tortilla to get a little bubbly and golden brown.

As you go through the tortillas place them on a stack of paper towels to get the excess oil off. I also blot the top of them as I stack them so as not to have any extra oil pooling on the tortillas.
Now I pull the chicken out of the fridge and cook the chicken. When the weather is nicer and I am not out of propane for the grill I usually just grill them out on the barbecue. But alas, we keep forgetting to fill the tank so I just cooked them on the stove top. I didn't put any oil in the pan, just sprayed it with Pam.
By the way, I think it's worth mentioning at this point, these are a little bit of work for your typical week night meal, but no worries- there are a couple of short cuts. I have used Costco rotisserie chicken many times and pre-grated cheese also. This cuts your time down and they are still very tasty. I just prefer the way freshly grated cheese melts and when I am making these for a crowd I like to cook my own chicken.
After it is all cooked you will want to chop it up.
Now you are ready to assemble these bad boys. I set everything up on the counter like this-
This is the order of ingredients that I go in-
After you are all ready your lined cookie sheet will look like this-
Put them in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes and when they are all bubbly and golden brown they will look like this-
Don't those just look yummy?
While I was at the store yesterday buying the ingredients for the enchiladas I decided I wanted to try to make my own homemade salsa. I bought a bunch of tomatoes, cilantro, a few peppers and an onion.
Don't those ingredients just say 'fresh'. I just love fresh homemade salsa. The only problem is, I have tried to make it before and it hasn't worked real well. So when I got home I went to Pinterest (of course) and searched salsa. I found this recipe. In the future I will make sure that I search Pinterest BEFORE going to the store, because of course I didn't have all the ingredients that this particular recipe called for but I loved the idea of roasting the veggies first. I just went ahead and used what I had and followed the directions of the recipe I had pinned.
This is what the veggies looked like after I roasted them at 375 for about 40 minutes. I threw them all into my new favorite kitchen appliance and this is what it looked like after I added the cilantro too.
The only thing I would do different next time is maybe add a few more tomatoes and a little more salt.
I just tasted some right now and it is better today than it was yesterday.
Well this post has gotten real lengthy...I want to leave you with just a few more pics of our New Year's celebration and the wish for a wonderful, prosperous, healthy 2012.

Last but not least our fireworks...these are not from the city or an amusement park...these are the kind they shoot off at HOME here in South Carolina. Oh people, have I mentioned how much I love being a southerner?

3 comments:

  1. It's 9:45 p.m.
    Is that too late for me to make a batch of those enchiladas?
    Oh, do they look tasty!

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  2. These look super yummy and I will definitely have to make them. I am new follower. Saw the recipe on Made By You Mondays, couldn't resist. Please come by my blog anytime and join if you'd like!

    Happy New Year,
    Annamaria

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