Samurai Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

Because I keep forgetting how to make these:

 Samurai Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

1 lb-ish cooked and shreeded chicken breast
1 can green chiles
1/2 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese divided (1/2 cup and 1 1/2 cup)
6-8 oz  softened cream cheese
Salt  and Cayenne to taste
Chopped green onions (optional)
1 package flour tortillas
1 jar Salsa Verde

Filling:
Mix shredded chicken, cream cheese, Cream of Chicken soup, chiles, sour cream. 1/2 cup shredded cheese, green onions, cayenne and salt

spread filling down the middle of the tortillas and roll, place in 9x13 baking dish seam side down.  Pour the salsa verde over the top of the enchiladas and then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.  Bake for 25-30 min in a 375 degree oven.

5 out of 5 can't be wrong

Here I am dusting of the old blogging fingers...

For about 5 days I have been craving Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup.  My sudden desire was sparked when I watched Gordon Ramsay save a Parisian vegetarian bistro single handedly by serving the same.

Inspired by Ramsay and remembering a favorite Alton Brown recipe I set forth last night with a box of the best tomato soup you can buy in a store.
Trader Joe's Organic Creamy Tomato Soup.

I heated up my Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan and my Pampered Chef Rectangular Pan in the oven while I sliced a loaf of rustic bread.  Then I buttered one side of each piece and grated the cheddar cheese and sliced the Brie.

I made all different sandwiches because I wanted everyone to have a chance of liking something.   I made Brie with apricot jam, cheddar with nothing else, cheddar with Dijon mustard, cheddar with brown spicy mustard and one Croque Monsieur (that means grilled cheese with ham) with brown mustard.

When the stoneware pans were piping hot I took out the bar pan and laid all of the sandwiches on the pan then I put it back in the oven, took out the rectangular pan flipped it upside down and laid it on top of all the sandwiches in the pan.  This allowed the sandwiches to cook on both sides and the weight of .  the pan kept them flat and delicious.

I don't remember how long I cooked them, I just checked every once in a while by lifting up the top pan to see how the cheese was melting.  When the cheese was melted the bread was pleasantly browned.  Perfect!  I cut the sandwiches in half so that everyone could try them and served up the soup,

This was a hit.  EVERYONE in our family loved it.  Eddy liked it so much he said it was the best dinner ever.  This never happens. all of the sandwiches were eaten, though I was the only one who tried the Brie and apricot (so sad, I had to eat it all by myself.)

hors d'oevres

This is a delicious spread inspired by a tea sandwich I had in Seattle on Bettysday. I call it Bettysday Spread.

I have a recipe for you, but you know how I am, I don't measure when I cook I just cook by feel.  I don't have a photo because I ate all the spread BEFORE I thought to post the recipe.

When I make this I just  carve out a hunk of cream cheese add the ingredients and call it good.  I will attempt to give you some actual measurements.

Bettysday Spread
1 package of Cream Cheese
4 oz crumbled Blue Cheese
1/4 cup Pecans chopped very fine (this might be too much put in as much as you like)
Several dashes of Nutmeg
Sea Salt to taste

Mix together and spread on bread or crackers top with thin slices of apples or use as a dip for fruit.  This goes well with pears and apples and probably would be nice with grapes.

My friend Kristin does not like blue cheese but she loves this.

Salmon en Crote avec les Police

Otherwise entitled "How fulfilling my 2011 goals ended in a visit from the sheriff."
Monday was a busy day. I babysat in the morning and then set out with 3  kids in tow to do the bi-monthly grocery and sundries shopping trip.  When I got home I hustled to make a pumpkin pie from scratch and make dinner before friends arrived for games and dessert (see pumpkin pie above, and fulfillment of 2011 goal "socials" and continuation of 2010 goal "Find a Friend for Boba Fett.")


Pie:  There wasn't quite enough time to bake a pie and let it cool before our guests arrived so I ended up serving warm pumpkin pie.


Dinner:  On the menu was Salmon en Croute from Jamie's Food Revolution.

  I am really keen on this book not because I don't know how to cook but because I am serious in my kitchen laziness.  I want delicious healthy food fast with little trouble or clean up.  I am going to share the recipe/process with you here because the point of this book is to SHARE the recipes with friends.


First a little olive oil on the pan.


Then roll 2 sheets of puff pastry out together to fit the pan.


Next a little more olive oil and a salmon fillet on top.
I used a much smaller piece of salmon than I usually use for a salmon meal for my family.  I was pretty concerned about it but it turned out fine and I even had leftovers.


Then spread a bit of black olive tapenade over the salmon. 
I couldn't find a black olive tapenade and I know that I don't care for other tapenades; I was going to skip this step all together but I felt that there should be some sort of zing to the recipe so I added about 2 tsp of mayonnaise mixed with lemon juice for an impromptu ailoi sauce and spread that on the salmon. 


Next layer some fresh basil leaves over the salmon.


Then crumble a generous amount of fresh mozzarella cheese over the leaves.


Then lay out sliced tomatoes on the cheese.


Salt and pepper the cheese and tomato layers.


The final step is to pull up and pinch the puff pastry around the sides of the fish like a fish baby in a blanket.  I thought it looked so cute.


Bake in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes
I had a pie in the oven so I had to bake it at 350 and that was unfortunate as we shall see.

The Review:
This was delicious!  Moose liked it, I liked it, Camrock liked it.  Boba Fett and Nutmeg thought that they would rather die than eat it, but they did eat it and they didn't die.


As any mom knows 3 out of 5 is a win!


The consensus was that it would have been much better if the pastry had been cooked at a hotter temperature it would have been crispier.  It was a bit doughy on the bottom which makes sense considering it was cooked 50 degrees too low.
 
I was also fairly inexpensive.  As I mentioned I usually use twice as much salmon for a meal for our family so this was half the salmon price plus a box of puff pastry which wasn't bad.  The mozzarella wasn't too pricey, and if you have basil or tomatoes from the garden...
It was a very posh feeling meal for so little effort.


The Gathering:
Our guests arrived just as dinner was put away and the pie came out of the oven.
We played games and had a good time while the boys ran around the house being boys.  We ate warm pie, it was good.


The Police:
Just as we were finishing up our pie one of the boys said that Boba Fett had called 911.  Just as we turned to look at Boba Fett the newly-installed-in-the-library-that-very-afternoon phone rang.


Boba Fett's face turned to one of despair as he cried "I thought it was a fake phone!"  Moose answered and told the nice 911 operator that it was a mistake and got the lecture and he hung up.


Our guests were packing up to leave when there was a bang-bang-bang on the side door.  It was the sheriff's deputy he had been wandering around the house looking for the front door.  He didn't find it.  When Moose showed him into the dining room Boba Fett hid under the table crying.


It was chaos.


I hope our guest will come back again sometime.


Dinner was good.

Peril and Easy Cooking

The other day we were locked out of Starlings for an hour. I went out to the Laundry Room and the door locked behind me. At that moment we were all out of the house and I didn't have any shoes on.
Luckily we had access to the garage. After several failed attempts at picking the locks we admitted sadly that all of those hours watching MacGuyver were wasted.

Finally, we got inside, it involved a ladder and choosing which of my children to endanger. They all wanted to be in peril. I chose Camrock because I have had him the longest and also because he is the tallest.

In other news I have been infatuated with my sandwich maker. I "invented" triplets which are only pancake batter cooked in the sandwich maker, but don't tell that to the kids who don't like pancakes but DO like triplets.
My breakfasts have been dominated by sandwiches with a filling of fresh mozzarella, basil and tomatoes from the garden. Yum

The best part is that there is hardly any dishes to clean when I use the sandwich maker.

The camera is still broken.

I'll Start

It is that time of year again, the time where I stop cooking meals for my family from lack of interest. All of my meals seem ho-hum and nothing sounds good. We start subsisting on toast and chips and salsa. It has become pretty bleak. Today I managed to rally and prepare dinner.

I thought I would share my recipe with you and in return you can share a recipe with me. Here are the criteria It needs to be a recipe that you come back to over and over again, a meal that has become a staple in your meal rotation, it needs to be healthy-ish (whole food not processed junk) it is easy to make and 2/3 of your family will eat it. I am deferring to the realist in me I don't ask for 100% I know that the only meal that makes everyone happy is Pizza.
Post the recipe in the comments of this post OR post a link to your post with a recipe on your blog.

Samurai Mom's Enchiladas or Almost Everything Came from Trader Joe's Enchiladas.
1 Package Flour tortillas
1 lb Ground meat ( I use Buffalo you can use beef or elk or whatever)
1 16 oz can of refried beans ( I am particular about my frijoles refritos and use Rosarita No Fat Traditional and will continue until I find something that tastes the same or better.)
1 small can sliced olives (optional)
1 jar Salsa Verde (Trader Joe's but I am sure any brand will do.)
1 Jar Trader Joe's Enchilada Sauce (red)
Cheese

First, cook up the buffalo. I always add dried onions to my meat and then set half of the meat mix aside on a container to use for another day. Second, dump in the refried beans and 1/2 to 1 whole jar of salsa verde. Stir and add olives if desired.

Then slap a spoon or two of the filling into a tortilla and roll it up and place it in a 9x11 baking dish. Repeat for until tortillas or filling are used up. Usually this is the right amount to fill all 10 tortillas in the Trader Joes Flour Tortilla package.

Pour the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle cheese on top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 min or so.

I always put a few enchiladas in a separate dish and bake without cheese for Nutmeg since she can't have cheese. Sometimes her dish is a little dry and I put some salsa verde on top to moisten.

You can also cooka double batch and freeze the filling or the pan of enchiladas.

Easy, yes?

My Breadmaker is in Danger of Being Outsourced

A while back I read about this book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day on a blog. The title sounded interesting and I decided to request it at the library thinking it would be just another fancy cookbook that would be hopelessly out of my league. I was so wrong!

This book is awesome. If you like home made bread but don't have the time this is the book for you. The longest part of the process is the actual baking.

You mix the dough (enough for several loaves) let it rise for 2 hours and then put it into the fridge until you are ready to bake. Then you pull out a lump of dough, shape it and then bake it. That is it.

We have been baking 1-2 loaves a day and loving it. The bread is delicious. Get the book because there are several master recipes and many specialty recipes including pastries!

Samurai Mom's Salad

Using the Trader Joe's Mediterranean Feta Cheese with Herbs and Trader Joe's Sun Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil, mix a salad of greens. Sprinkle Feta cheese and Sun Dried Tomatoes. Then sprinkle some Trader Joe's Roasted and Salted Pepitas ( pumpkin seeds but really tasty) for a crunch and serve with Trader Joe's Goddess Dressing.

Pizza Kylene

Pizza Kylene is made on tortillas so they are individual sized
Ingredients:
Trader Joe's Flour Tortillas (handmade or regular)
Chicken from Trader Joe's Chipotle Chicken Skewers
baby spinach leaves (I don't always have spinach on hand and the pizza is fine without the spinach)
Garlic
Trader Joe's Crumbled Feta with Mediterranean Herbs
Trader Joe's Julienne Sliced Sun Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil
Coarse Salt

1.Use the Tortilla as the pizza dough and place on a pan or baking stone.
2.Spread garlic (roasted or crushed) lightly on the tortilla. (I used to add olive oil at this step, but there is olive oil in the tomatoes and it was becoming an oil slick pizza so now I leave it out.)
3. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
4. Add chopped chicken, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and feta cheese.
5. Place under broiler until edges are golden brown.

Voila!
-Tomorrow, a recipe using some of the same ingredients.


Also a fun tip: We use Trader Joe's Marinated Chipotle Chicken skewers for chicken tacos. With the leftover chicken I make Pizza Kylene.

That's a Crock Pot of Deliciousness!

The Lovely Mrs. Moss and Mr. Moss gave me a Crock Pot for Christmas. It has a removable crock. that's all I have to say about that. No more boiling water in the crock pot to clean it, no sir-ee. Dishwasher baby.

Also, while in Montana I was reading the Daily Interlake (which is a blog post in itself that I will relate one day remind me of the words "Law Enforcement Roundup) and saw a mini article about crock pots and this book that has recipes with out cans of cream o' something soup. I put it on hold at the library and picked it up yesterday. Last night I read the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Slow Cooker Cooking and picked out a few recipes.

Today I made Chicken Parprikash pg 195 (in the new pot) and Classic Creole Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce sans pecans pg 301 (in the old small pot.) I recommend using boneless chicken in the crock pot, we found that the chicken legs fell apart and we didn't know if each spoonful was full of delicious chicken and vegetables or cartilage and bones.

They both earned 4 thumbs up with Moose being the only dissenter but he doesn't like anything that does not involve processed cheese or steak so his objections were thrown out.

The book gets 5 out of 7 thimbles. It is easy to read and flip through but some of the recipes make me wonder why I am using a crock pot if I am doing ALL this prep or why am I using a crock pot if I am using all these dishes. See, for me Crock pots are about easy and minimal dishes.

And then Mommy Bee posted a link to A YEAR OF CROCKPOTTING and I learned of Stephanie who cooked in her crock pot everyday in 2008, I can't decide if I admire her, am jealous of her or afraid of her. Either way she certainly is a gal with follow through.

A Holiday Drink

I like to watch Martha on TV. I have noticed that she REALLY likes the parts when they make grown up beverages. She seems . . . extra animated. Even when a guest asks a question about an alcoholic beverage her eyes light up. Methinks Martha likes to hit the sauce from time to time.

Well I don't drink, and I don't think you should either so here is a fun and festive non alcoholic drink for you.

Take one pomegranate, roll it around on the counter squishing all the little seeds inside. Be careful not to split the skin. If you do split the skin just use that spot for the straw. Cut a hole for a straw, insert it into the pomegranate and enjoy fresh pomegranate juice. The end.

Boo!

Tonight was the 2nd Annual Spooky Story and Caramel Apple Night here at Samurai Mom's house. It started innocently last year when I gave in to weeks of pleas for caramel apples. Our friend happened to be over and we ate caramel apples told tales in a dark living room with only the glow of the fire and a flashlight.
The friend has been asking all year long when we are going to do it again. So last week I decreed it would happen tonight. This year we served bite sized apples by taking a melon baller to the apples and sticking them on tooth picks. It is the perfect apple to caramel ratio and you don't have wasted apples or sticky faces. We had trouble with the caramel sticking to the wax paper though.
This year we invited a few more friends and I think people were scared because everyone was holding on to someone else and there were a lot of scared squeals.
The boys told tales involving chopped off body parts, Nutmeg declared that everything was "Not scary, just a story about skeletons." I told the ever popular cautionary tale of the Owl Witch. I WANTED to tell this story. The Old Nurse's Story a gothic story by Elizabeth Gaskell. But it was too long and having only read it once I couldn't condense it easily. HERE is a link to the Librivox recording if you want to have it read to you, in the dark, with the sound of the wind howling outside.

Eureka! (or more appropriately) Tiffin!

The date: October 12, 1997. The setting: the Bath Autumn Fayre. The cast: Myself (many years younger and dumpier) Katherine (just as lovely as always) and the ladies who hosted the Bath Autumn Fayre. The objects purchased: a hand knit (and in retrospect ugly) knit wool cap and a delightful confection that I immediately forgot the name of and have not been able to recall these 11 years.

I have found it and it is called Tiffin, here is a recipe. Digestive biscuits are a key ingredient. Digestive biscuits are a delight. Digestive biscuits are how I kept my baby fat and Freshman 15 (or so) while walking several miles a day. Digestive biscuits and Cadbury Dairy milk with caramel.

My favorite part of Bath apart from the Autumn Fayre is the bridge in the picture. There are shops all along the bridge and if you go downstairs in the shops you find yourself inside the bridge itself looking out the window.

It's Official

For years each time I have eaten Hamburger Stroganoff or Potato Casserole I say, "Mmmm, this is so good. I can't decide if this is my favorite or (insert the other here.)"

Well the question has been answered. The last time I made Stroganoff I was a little disappointed. Last night, Potato Casserole and it was delicious.
And in honor of a decision I give you the recipe for Potato Casserole which is more commonly known as Shepherd's Pie, but for some reason I never call it Shepherd's Pie.

Brown 1lb Hamburger with some onions (fresh or dried) add some salt and put in the bottom of vintage casserole dish.
Open and strain a can of french cut green beans. Put beans in vintage casserole dish to form the second layer.
Open a can of tomato juice and pour it all over the the beans.
Make enough mashed potatoes (real or instant) (don't forget the salt) to make a third layer in the vintage casserole dish - the thickness of the layer depends on how much you like potatoes. As you spread the potatoes make sure they meet the edges of the dish.
Grate enough cheese to cover the potatoes, sprinkle it on top.
Add an optional sprinkle of paprika.
Bake in a 350 degree oven until hot throughout.
Serve.
There is a rule: you are not allowed to skim the baked cheese off the top, if you want more cheese you must eat the corresponding potatoes, beans and meat. Trust me this rule is necessary.

October Means Pumpkins

I just love October, the crisp fall air, the leaves turning colors, apples, costumes, wearing your cute fall clothes, knitting season and of course pumpkins.

We eat a lot of pumpkin around here. I usually buy about 10 sugar pie pumpkins and make my own puree, one day I will can the puree instead of freezing it. We like my special Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin chili, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread and as of yesterday, pumpkin muffins. (Sorry Keira I don't think you can have any.)
We tried this recipe from Granola Mom over at Natural Mommy.
I think she left out the ginger on the ingredient list so add some ginger. Boba Fett noticed that they would go nice with milk and now insists on having milk with each muffin, so stock up on the milk.
Pumpkin Muffins
INGREDIENTS
1 (15 ounce) can 100% pure pumpkin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup dark brown sugar (use your sweetener of choice - I used organic cane brown sugar)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (I used 2 T. Ground Flax and 6 T. hot water to replace)
2 cups flour of choice (I used 1 1/2 Cup Gluten-Free Flour Blend and 1/2 Rice Bran- let me know if you want a recipe for the GF Flour Blend)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

DIRECTIONS
Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 425 degrees (350 for large muffins). Spray 36 mini-muffin cups with vegetable cooking spray (Or large Muffins cups).
Bring pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon and cloves to a simmer in a medium saucepan until puree thickens enough to start sticking to pan bottom, 6 to 8 minutes. Turn hot puree into a bowl. Whisk in brown sugar and oil, then slowly beat in eggs.
Meanwhile, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; whisk into pumpkin mixture until just combined.
Divide batter among the muffin cups and bake until golden and cooked through, about 10 minutes for mini - 15-25 for Large Muffins (the tops should be cracking a bit). Let stand a few minutes, then transfer mini-muffins to a wire rack to cool.