Salsa Verde Chicken

Another great recipe I found on Facebook. The website I found it on is called kevinandamanda.com but I think it was posted by a food blogger I follow. It is a nice change from Italian pasta flavors and I throw it in the mix once in a while.

THE INGREDIENTS

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup salsa verde
1 cup heavy cream
3 cups dry penne pasta
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups shredded monterrey jack cheese (or pepper jack)

Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and cook in olive oil until golden. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add broth, salsa, cream, pasta and seasoning to pot and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Turn off the heat and add chicken plus one cup of cheese to the pasta and sauce. Stir until smooth and creamy. Top with remaining cheese and serve!

Fiesta Ranch Chicken

This one is a post I saw on Facebook. I have no idea where it came from originally but I am ever thankful for whoever that was!

INGREDIENTS:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or equivalent)
1 packet Fiesta Ranch seasoning mix
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can Rotel
1 can corn
1 8 oz block of cream cheese

Place all ingredients into the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours.

When finished, shred the chicken and mix together to combine. We like to eat this in tortillas or with rice or both!

Crockpot Chicken Chili

I love a good throw-it-in-the-crockpot-and-go-about-your-day recipe, don't you? This one was so delicious that I didn't even get a picture of it when it was done! I will remedy that next time I make it.

INGREDIENTS:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed (or equivalent amount of chicken)
2 (15 oz) cans white beans
1(4 oz) can green chilies, drained and chopped
3 cups chicken broth
1 white onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Season chicken cubes with salt and pepper and place in slow cooker.

Add broth, beans, onions and green chilies.

Add in remaining seasonings and stir.

Cook on low for 8 hours stirring at the halfway point!

Guacamole a la Wendy

Welcome back, challenge recipes!! I know this is kind of lame to call guacamole a challenge recipe but I have honestly never tried to make it before so it was a challenge for me! My sister-in-law made some at Easter and I got a huge craving for it last weekend so I asked her how she does it. She wrote me a list and I threw this together. I am not so great at picking out avocados evidently because the first ones I grabbed were too hard so I had to go back for others. First, I googled how to pick good, ripes ones and I found a tip about how to tell if they are too ripe. At the stem end, take off the last little stem button. If it is kind of green there, it is a good one. If that part has turned dry and brown, the inside is too far gone. You're welcome!
Now guacamole is very easy to throw together in any case but Wendy's trick is using fresh salsa from your grocer's deli/produce section. You could use fresh pico de gallo too. Here's what I picked up at my store:

 

3 - 4 ripe avocados

1 - 2 limes

garlic salt

fresh salsa or pic de gallo

Cholula (or your favorite brand) hot sauce

Then I had to go back for more avocados and went straight to a party where I actually made the guac and forgot to take any pictures. but really, it is so easy. I ended up using three avocados. Split, pit and mash them all up together. Then add the salsa by spoonfuls and stir until it looks right. Squeeze in the juice of one of the limes, sprinkle in the garlic salt and Cholula. Give it a taste, enlist others to help. Add more of whatever you think it needs. I added more garlic salt a couple times, then it was perfection. Open up the chips and get some while you can because it will not last long!

Burrito Bake

I bet you thought I was never coming back, huh? It HAS been a long time since I posted anything new here. I haven't been trying out new recipes every week like I thought I would be this summer. I have been sticking to the known. Last night I was making an old recipe of ours and I realized I had never blogged it! So here it is.
The Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef or turkey

1/2 diced onion

1 pkg taco seasoning

3/4 cup water

12 tortillas

1 can refried beans

1 cup shredded colby jack cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown meat and onion in a skillet.



Drain any fat and add taco seasoning and water.

Heat to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in beans.

In a pie pan sprayed with cooking spray, place 4 tortillas overlapping edges to cover the bottom completely.

Top with half the meat mixture.

And half the cheese.



Repeat layers once and finish with the last 4 tortillas on the top.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes to heat through.

Cut into wedges and serve.

You can top this with anything you would put on a taco or burrito. It's really tasty!

Chicken Picante with Rice Tutorial

I have had this recipe for a long time and I am not quite sure where it came from. I think I got it off the Pace Picante Sauce jar to be totally honest. I just know it's one of our favorites!
The Ingredients

1 1/2 cups picante sauce
3 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (I actually use a homemade Bourbon mustard)
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3 cups cooked, hot rice**

Mix picante sauce, brown sugar, and mustard together in a small bowl.

Place chicken in a shallow baking dish.

Pour sauce mix over chicken.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until chicken is done.

Serve over rice. Simple, easy and deelish!!

** A note on cooking rice. I was surprised at how many people I know who claim they can't cook good rice. It is one of the only things I could make when I got married so I will share my method for anyone who is curious.
The Ingredients

4 cups water
2 cups uncooked rice
2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
This will make 4 cups of rice. Basically for the amount of cooked rice you want you use the following formula: for every cup of cooked rice = 1 cup water + 1/2 cup uncooked rice + 1/2 tsp salt + 1 Tbsp butter
Bring water to a boil. Add the rice, salt and butter.
Simmer with the cover on for 20 minutes. NO PEEKING!!
Take off the lid, fluff the rice with a fork and serve.

Crockpot Fajitas

I came across a recipe the other day for chicken fajitas from the crockpot. I can't find the actual recipe I saw though!! It wasn't in the cookbook I thought it was in, so I googled it and found one on a food blog I love so I based these on it.
The Ingredients:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used frozen ones)

you could also use beef cut into strips

1 medium onion, cut into strips

1 green pepper, cut into strips

1 packet fajita seasoning

1/2 cup water

Put the chicken, onion and green pepper in the crockpot. Mix the seasoning with the water and pour over meat and veggies.

Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6 - 8 hours.

Serve on warm tortillas with whatever fixin's you like. I made mine with cheese, spinach and green sauce.

Clay had his with cheese and taco sauce.

Raley opted for cheese, picante and jalapenos.

Casa Ole Green Sauce Copycat

I used to love eating at Casa Ole. When we lived near Fort Hood there was was very close to our house right at the edge of town. I always ordered the same thing: Shrimp Fajita Quesadillas. Then I would gorge myself on chips and green sauce until they got to the table then I would use more green sauce to dip the quesadillas in. Then we moved to Chaosville and the nearest Casa Ole is pretty far from our house. Still every once in a while we would drive over for a meal. Then they changed the shrimp fajita quesadillas. They started putting spinach and mushrooms in them. Not-so-good! And there's a really great Mexican place in our town so we eat there when the mood strikes us. But they don't have green sauce...or shrimp fajita quesadillas :(
After my success with Google helping me find a copycat for Chuy's Creamy Jalapeno Dip, I decided to google Casa Ole Green Sauce and looky what I found!
The ingredients:
4 avocados
1 (16 oz) container sour cream
1 can Rotel
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 (4 oz) can green chiles
2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
3 oz cream cheese

Mix and blend all ingredients until smooth. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow flavors to fully blend. Serve with chips, or quesadillas!!
I put the avocados and all the other ingredients except the sour cream in my food processor and blended them together. It pretty much filled up my machine. So I put the blend in a large bowl and then added the sour cream with a whisk. Turned out great and it was a big hit at our party.

Easy Chili and Chicken Chili

For our big gathering this past weekend, I made two kinds of chili to feed the crowds.** They are quick and easy and turned out great! Here are the recipes:
Quick and Easy Chili--

1 pound ground meat (this time I used ground sirloin but I have made this with ground turkey and deer meat too)

2 cans Ranch Style beans

1 medium onion, diced

1 can chili ready tomatoes

Brown meat and onion in large saucepan or skillet.

When meat is cooked through, drain fat and add remaining ingredients.

Heat through. Serve with cornbread, Fritos, sour cream, cheese, jalapenos or whatever else your little heart desires. You can spice this up in any number of ways. you could use plain tomatoes and a packet of chili seasoning mix. You could use the Ranch Style Beans with Jalapenos in them. I make mine this way because I am not big on spicy stuff and my Daddy was here to eat and he can't handle the hot stuff either; except for Momma but that's another story for another time...

Now for the Chicken Chili:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, diced

1 can diced tomatoes with garlic and onion

1 pkg chili seasoning mix

1 can whole kernel sweet corn

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

Combine chicken, tomatoes and seasoning in a saucepan or skillet.

Cook over medium heat until chicken is cooked through.

Add corn and beans.

Simmer 5 minutes or until heated through.

Again, yes, it is just that easy! This is great with chips, cheese and sour cream. Jalapenos if you must!

**The ingredient quantities listed are for a regular recipe. All pictures show a double recipe cooking. We fed 9 adults and 5 children until they were stuffed and had lots of leftovers for the week. Both of these freeze well and are excellent on camping trips!

Beef Taco Skillet

This is one of the wonderful recipes from the nice folks over at Campbell's Soup. It's very fast and easy and (most importantly) delicious. My 3 kids eat it up. In fact, tonight they each ate a second helping!
The Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef (or in my case, turkey)

1 can tomato soup

1/2 cup water

1 cup picante sauce

1 cup shredded cheese

8 flour tortillas

Brown meat in a large skillet or stock pot. Since I double the recipe, I use my big stockpot. Drain off any fat.

While the meat browns, shred your cheese and cut up the tortillas into bite sized pieces.

Add the soup, picante, water, tortillas and half the cheese to the meat.

Bring to a boil; reduce heat to simmer, cover and heat through about 5 minutes. Serve with more shredded cheese, jalapenos, sour cream and any other toppings you may like.

Or with a nice glass of wine!

Chuy's Creamy Jalapeno Dressing/Dip

There's a Mexican restaurant chain that I have never been to but I love. It's called Chuy's and the reason I love it is they have a heavenly concoction called Creamy Jalapeno Dip. It actually started out as a salad dressing and they noticed people would ask for it on the side and dip their chips in it so they made a good business decision and offered it as a dip. My mother-in-law brought it to a family gathering once and I was hooked. I am not usually a spicy food eater, but this stuff is like crack to me. I can't stop eating it. I searched for and found this recipe which is a little different than some of the others out there. Of course, this one purports to be from someone who used to work there and has inside knowledge. This is the only copycat recipe I have tried so I can't say which is best, but this one tastes like the real thing to me. You can adjust the heat in it too by increasing or decreasing the amount of jalapenos you add. I got to use my fresh-from-the-garden peppers this time!

Ingredients:

1 quart mayonnaise (the olive oil mayo is great in this!)

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup chopped jalapeno

1 cup green tomatillo sauce

1/2 bunch chopped cilantro

3 (1 oz) packets dry ranch dressing mix

Here are my lovely fresh jalapenos ready to get chopped up.

Then add everything but the ranch mix to your food processor or blender and blend until smooth.

Whisk in the ranch mix.

Chill and serve. I have used it for a dip and also as a topping for tacos. Super fast and yummalish!