Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas

This is a combination of Nana and me getting a great recipe together for chicken enchiladas. Tried a little of this and that and came up with this:

 6-8 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 16-20 oz. Can Green Chiles (whole)
1 28 oz. Can Green Chili Sauce
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup
1 8 oz. Can El Pato Mexican Tomato Sauce
1 sm package frozen corn
3 Doz. Corn Tortillas
Mexican Blend of 4 cheeses or a blend of Monterey Jack and Longhorn (cheddar)
1 4 oz. Can Sliced Black Olives

Sour Cream with a dash of paprika for Garnish
1 Bunch Green Onion for Garnish

Grill or Boil chicken breasts and cube or shred. In a large bowl add the green chili sauce, soup, corn and el pato. Drain the green chiles and cut into chunks. If you can find 505 brand diced green chiles they are the best. Add them to the bowl and stir well. Spray a 9x13 casserole dish with non-stick spray. Ladel a small amount of sauce mixture into dish and spread thin. Take a tortilla and lay flat. Place some chicken, some cheese and a little sauce in the tortilla and roll up. Place fold-side down in the casserole dish and repeat until dish is full. Add any remaining sauce over the top and a layer of cheeses.Sprinkle the black olives evenly over top of cheeses and bake at 350º for about 45 minutes. Garnish with sour cream and chopped green onion. Serve with shredded lettuce and tomato, chips and salsa and even some Boracho or Refried Beans for a side.

No current pics, but will try and get some next time I make these wonderful enchiladas. I made several big pans of them along with several pans of beef enchiladas for a funeral a while back. Summer's friend Hope. Her mother passed away and their minister would not allow them to have the funeral in his church. So sad. We put together a nice service for Hope's Mom at our park (while we were still living in our Pomelo house) and our family did the dinner afterward. Kevin sang, the girls and I sang and there were some remarks from Grumpy. We have lost touch with Hope through the years, but we were happy to be of service to her in her time of need.

Stacked Beef Enchiladas

 Another dish from the kitchen of Gramma Dorothy. Our family has come to know and love enchiladas made this way and it is frequently requested for Christmas and birthday dinners. You can use any red enchilada sauce you prefer, I am still looking for the perfect one myself.

2# lean ground beef
2 lg. onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 8 oz. can El Pato Mexican Style tomato sauce
2-3 doz. corn tortillas
2 28 oz. cans red chili sauce or red enchilada sauce
1/2 C. butter
1/2 C. flour
1 sm. can sliced black olives
Mexican Four Cheese blend or a mix of Monterey Jack and Colby

Garnish:
Sour cream with a dash of paprika
Green onion for
Shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes

Dice the onion, but reserve half for assembling the enchiladas. In a skillet over med/hi heat brown half the diced onions, garlic and ground beef. When good and browned add in the el pato and mix in well. Remove from heat. In a saucepan add the red chili sauce. In a small mixing bowl melt the butter (in the microwave is fine) and whisk in the flour. Drizzle into sauce mixture and allow to thicken. If it gets thicker than you like, thin with more el pato or tomato sauce depending on how hot you like your sauce. Remove from heat. Place 4-6 tortillas in a quart size freezer zip lock. Leave it unzipped. Put in the microwave for about 40 seconds to soften tortillas. (You can also dip them in hot oil for a second or two, but this adds more calories and fat).

On an oven proof plate ladle a small amount of sauce. Maybe a couple tablespoons. Lay a tortilla flat on the sauce and add a thin layer of meat, more sauce, a layer of cheese and some diced onion. Repeat layers until the desired amount (per persons order) is achieved. Top layers with a corn tortilla, more sauce, cheese and a few olives. Put into a 350º oven to bake for about 10-15 minutes. You can stack on both oven racks. I sometimes put more diced onions on the tops of the people who like onions to distinguish those from the people who prefer no onion on their enchiladas before putting them in the oven. In New Mexico they add a fried egg to to the top, but I’ve never eaten them that way. Remove with hot pads and serve. I use cloth placemats to protect my table from the hot plate, but trivets, or dishtowels or even a hotpad under the plate would work too. 
Garnish with sour cream and chopped green onions, lettuce and tomato. Serve with chips and salsa and maybe a side of mexican corn.

This pic of Daron enjoying his enchiladas at the cabin seems to be the only pic I can find of this dish. I will try to remember to take pics next time I make it and update.

Costa Vida Sweet Pork

Sydney sent me her most wonderful how to for Costa Vida Sweet Pork. What a great way to make a fabulous dinner with food from your pantry. Everyone in my family loves the sweet pork from anywhere, but Costa Vida is a favorite!

Thanks Sydney.

Costa Vida Sweet Pork

Ingredients

• 2 quarts home pressure canned pork tenderloin, drain off and dispose of the liquid
• 1-(6oz) can tomato paste (I use Hunts 100% no salt added)
• 2-(7¾oz)cans Mexican hot style tomato sauce (El Pato in the yellow can)
• 2 cups brown sugar, packed

Directions

No need to break up the chunks of meat, just combine all in a crock-pot for 3-4 hours until flavors have blended. The meat will be tender, flavorful and will have broken up into shredded pork. This is so yummy served with beans on a bed of romaine lettuce. Tanner loves it with Texas Flour Tortillas.

Chicken Poblano Soup

Found this wonderful soup recipe on the LDS Living (Magazine) site. They do a contest every year for the best soup recipe and this year's winner is this tasty soup by Wendy Stock from New Mexico. I made the recipe as she wrote it and have put my ideas in as well.

Chicken Poblano Soup

The advance prep ingredients:
1 Roasted Chicken (I used 3 boneless, skinless breasts)
3 Poblano peppers, veined, seeded, and diced
2 cups cooked rice (I put a little chicken bouillon in with the water in my rice cooker)



Roasting the chiles in the oven on Broil-Hi (top rack about 4-6 inches from the top element). Turn the chiles over to ensure a good blistering on all sides. After roasting, pull the foil around to completely enclose and let sit for about an hour. This sweats the skins loose. I cut around the tops and pulled out the seed pod and veins. Then I hold the chile under cold running water and remove the blackened skins. Now they are ready for dicing. You can also roast them on a BBQ or gas stove burner. Just check the internet for how to roast chile peppers. These chiles are very mild. I will probably add in some green chiles for some more hot in the future. I like Hatch chiles too. The Orange Patch in Mesa gets them in once a year, already roasted and ready to skin. They freeze well and are wonderful.





I had chicken breasts, so I put them in the oven for 45 minutes covered and then took the foil off for 30 minutes so they would brown a little. Left-over Lipton chicken (I make that for dinner on Sundays often) would work well here, or even chicken bottled in the pantry. I'm going to try a rotisserie chicken next time.



The rice is in the rice cooker, and I assembled the rest of the ingredients. (not all pictured) Once the chicken, chiles and rice were done, the rest went pretty fast.

In a large saucepan, or a medium stock pot combine:

1/4 C. Olive Oil
1/2 t. Cumin
1/2 t. Thyme
1 T. Chicken Bouillon
salt and pepper to taste
Mix well.
Add:
1/2 Bunch Cilantro (pull off the leaves and discard the stems). Chop as fine as you like.
2 Cloves Garlic (minced)
1 Medium Onion (diced)
2 C. Carrots (diced or chopped) About 2 carrots depending on size.
The diced poblano chiles

Place pan over medium heat.
Stir often and cook until onions begin to carmelize and the carrots are tender.
(I had to add a tiny bit of water to allow the veggies to steam a little and not burn)



Next add:
3 Quarts Chicken Broth (or Chicken Stock)
1/4 C. Butter (1/2 a stick)
1/4 C. Flour
I mixed the flour with a little of the chicken broth so it wouldn't lump. You could also use cornstarch in place of the flour.
Stir all together.

With two forks pull the chicken into bite-size pieces and add to the soup.

Last, stir in:
2 C. Cooked Rice
1 sm. Bag Frozen Corn

The little tortilla strips available at most stores now would be good garnish. I will most likely use at least 1 more quart of chicken stock for a more brothy soup. So good. Grumpy and I had this last night and it was fabulous.

Robert's Mexican Lasagna

So I got creative the other day and decided to make dinner for the family. I have eaten Mexican Lasagna at Jennifer's house, so decided to give it a try. Everyone seemed to like it, and it turned out to be a collaborative effort, so here is what we did.

For a pan size of 12 x 16 (lasagna size)

Meat sauce:
4 lbs. lean ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 large onion
2 packages of McCormick's taco seasoning
2-10 oz. cans Rotel (diced tomatoes and green chiles)
Brown meat with onion and garlic. When good and brown, drain about half the grease and add taco seasoning. When well mixed, add Rotel, or diced tomatoes and green chiles. Turn down to low heat, cover and simmer.

flour tortillas (corn is optional) Tear into strips to cover pan.

Bean Mix:
3-14 oz cans refried beans
1 C. shredded cheese
splash of milk
1 sm. can diced green chiles
Combine all ingredients into mixing bowl. Adjust quantities to taste.

Cheese Mix:
1 1/2 C. ricotta cheese
1 1/2 C. cottege cheese
1 1/2 C. Pace Picante Medium Salsa
1/4 C. Parmesan
2 eggs (beaten)
Combine all ingredients into mixing bowl. Adjust quantities to taste. Salt and pepper to taste.

Layer into pan:
Tortillas to cover pan
Layer cheese mixture
Layer of meat mixture
Layer of bean mixture

Repeat Layers one more time
Add a sprinkling of grated cheese on top
Add 1 can sliced black olives



Bake at 350º for 30 minutes
Remove and top with
1 C. crushed corn chips
Place oven rack one step up and turn oven to broil.
Place pan back into oven and broil until the chips begin to brown.
Remove and serve with:

shredded lettuce
diced tomatoes
sour cream
guacamole
salsa
or whatever else you may like

This Green Chile is the best!

Chickie’s Mexican Cafe is one of the things I remember most about the family farming out in Queen Creek. She was a little mexican woman that really had great food in her small restaurant. Nana loved talking to her about her recipes and they had a nice friendship. Eventually Chickie gave Nana this wonderful recipe for green chile. We put it in tortillas, combine it with other stuff, and sometimes just eat it like a stew. I can’t even think about dishes like this and not remember eating at Chickies with Aunts, Uncles, cousins and friends - and of course grading potatoes every summer on the graders in the sheds. I’m glad I got to experience that and am thankful for the memories I have because of those years.

Sherry Kanaga Harmon

If you are just making this for your family, the half recipe quantities below should be plenty. I use the whole recipe for larger groups and for canning. Our family loves this recipe and its a crowd pleaser for sure. It's good in a tortilla, or in a bowl garnished the way you like.

Half Recipe:
2 1/2# lean beef/and or pork, cubed
1 lg onion, diced (Sherry’s variation)
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 to 8 green New Mexico chiles, roasted, peeled and cut into thin strips
2 to 3 Yellow hot chiles roasted, peeled and diced
1-28 oz. Can Whole Tomatoes (drained) Cut into chunks
1 1/2 T. flour
1/2 C. water* (or) stock (pork or beef)
1 1/2 t. pepper (Sherry omits this)
1/2 t. salt

(if you are in a hurry substitute the following for green chiles):
1-16oz. can whole green chiles sliced into thin strips

Whole Recipe:**
5# lean beef/and or pork, cubed
2 lg onion, diced (Sherry’s variation)
4 garlic cloves, minced
12 to 14 green New Mexico chiles, roasted, peeled and cut into thin strips
5 to 7 Yellow hot chiles roasted, peeled and diced
1 #10 Can Whole Tomatoes (drained) Cut into chunks
1/4 C. flour
1 C. water* (or) stock (pork or beef)
3 t. pepper (Sherry omits this)
1 T. salt

(if you are in a hurry substitute the following for green chiles):
1-28 oz. can whole green chiles sliced into thin strips

In a large skillet brown meat. When well browned, transfer to a large stockpot. In the same skillet brown the onions and garlic - add a little vegetable oil if needed. When the onions are golden brown add to the meat in the stockpot.
Add the broth or water to the skillet, raise the heat and deglaze the skillet being sure to scrape all the bits and pieces from the sides and bottom. Pour this into the stockpot.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the stockpot and raise to just below boiling. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 to 1 -1/2 hours, or until the meat is very tender and starts to fall apart.

* More stock or water can be added depending on how thick you want your green chile.
** The whole recipe is ideal for large gatherings as well canning into jars for enjoying at a later time. Just follow the guideline for canning ground beef and put some on your pantry shelf.