"Ben-chiladas"

These "enchiladas" have been floating around on a lot of the blogs I read, and EVERYONE has enjoyed them!

We gave them a shot as well, and found them to be delicious. They reeeeeeeeeally aren't enchiladas...I'm not sure they have a single authentic ingredient...but they're still amazing.

This recipe also makes a lot more food than it looks. We had ben-chiladas for dinner three times, and poor DH ate some for lunches as well! We enjoyed them plain the first night, but found on subsequent re-heating nights that the filling kind of congeals...so we added some canned enchilada sauce to our leftovers and it was delicious all over again!

To reheat, Annie recommends 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes

Ben-chiladas

(Annie's Eats)

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

8 oz. reduced fat sour cream

8 oz. ranch salad dressing

flour tortillas (10-15)

jar of salsa (i used fresh)

shredded mexican cheese blend (as much as you want...anywhere from 2-4 cups!)

Directions

- Cook chicken breasts by preferred method, set aside to cool. When cool, shred or cube chicken (I skipped this step by baking my chicken and shredding it a few days before I made them)

- In a large mixing bowl, combine half the sour cream, and half the ranch dressing

- In a small bowl, combine the rest of the sour cream and the rest of the ranch dressing

- Stir both until well combined, then add shredded or cubed chicken to the large mixing bowl and mix well

- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and grease a 9"x13" pan (and possibly another, smaller pan if needed -- it was needed for us)

- Take 1 tortilla and top with a little less than 1 tbsp of the sauce from the small bowl; spreading over the tortillas in an even layer

- Add some of the chicken mixture to the center of the tortilla, and top with salsa and cheese to taste

- Roll up the tortilla and place it seam-side down in your prepared baking dish

- Repeat until all ingredients are used up (Mine made 12 bursting-at-the-seams enchiladas on 10" tortillas with 4 chicken breasts)

- Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes (30 for a crispier tortilla)

- Allow to cool a few minutes before serving

Cafe Rio Pork

*Ignore the pot it's in -- I had DH remove it from the crockpot early, and was just heating it up on the stovetop!

I've never been to Utah. I'd never even heard of Cafe Rio until I started reading LeighAnne's blog.

But she talked about how delicious their food was so often, that when she finally posted a recipe for the pork they serve at the restaurant, I decided I had to try it (and the fact that it was a crockpot meal with only 3 ingredients didn't hurt either!)

This pork is the most amazing and delicious pork I think I've ever eaten. It's good plain, on salads, in quesedillas, in tacos, in burritos, on nachos -- just about anything you can think of.

This pork is THAT good.

Now, admittedly, I'm not really a pork-in-my-mexican-food kind of girl. I know its relatively common in REAL mexican, but I tend to stick to chicken and beef in my kind.

No longer. Now, it's this pork or nothing!

I honestly can't wait to make it again!!

Cafe Rio Pork

(your home based mom)

1-2 lb. pork tenderloin (I used just a standard pork roast. Really, it doesn't matter what you use -- the crockpot will make the meat juicy and tender anyway)
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups fresh salsa

Directions
- Mix sugar and salsa, pour over pork.

- Cook in crock pot for 8 hrs. on low.

- When done shred with two forks and return to juice in crock pot and allow liquid to absorb.

- Serve with tortillas and all the fixins!

King Ranch Chicken

Once again -- casseroles and delicious things never photograph well. And this recipe is both, so that should explain the pictures!

This was tasty, though -- I think DH liked it more than me, because I find the Rotel Tomato/Chilis mixture to be too spicy for my liking.

King Ranch Chicken

(I can't remember where I found it!)

1/4 cup butter
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can (10 oz.) ROTEL Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
12 corn tortillas, torn into bite-sized pieces
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

- In a large saucepan, cook pepper and onion in melted margarine until tender, about 5 minutes. - Add soups, ROTEL and chicken, stirring until well blended.

- In a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan, alternately layer tortillas, soup mixture and cheese, repeating for three layers.

- Bake 30 minutes or until hot and bubbling.

Serves 8

Note: Not sure what the idea was behind making the tortillas bite-sized, but I think it would hold together better for cutting/serving if you left the tortillas whole.

Chicken, Rice, and Black Bean Salad

I am -- ashamedly -- a member of the Lean Cuisine lunches club. For some reason, my biggest temptation to overeat is lunchtime, and those darn handy little meals prevent me from doing it!

Every once in awhile, I feel guilty about eating all the nastiness in those meals, and I make myself something at home. It's always tasty -- but unfortunately, the frozen meals continue to provide me with more variety than I can afford to provide myself during the week for lunches!

This salad is delicious and it's a total meal in one package. I'm labelling it Mexican, but like Liz before me...well..it isn't really mexican, per se. It's just darn tasty!

Chicken, Rice, and Black Bean Salad

(Liz's Cooking Blog)

1 cup brown (or white) rice

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked with olive oil, kosher salt, and Adobo Seasoning, cooled and diced (I used 3 bone-in chicken breasts that I had in the freezer, and just removed the skins)

1 can (15 1/2 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained

2-4 on-the-vine tomatoes, seeded and diced

3-4 scallions, thinly sliced

1 jalapeno chili, seeds and ribs removed, minced

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

- Cook the rice according to package instructions. Cool completely.

- Place cooled rice in a large bowl; add chicken, beans, tomatoes, scallions, jalapeno, vinegar, oil, and cumin.

- Season with salt and pepper; toss to combine

- Serve immediately, or refridgerate, covered, up to 1 day (I kept mine refridgerated for about 3 days..and it was admittedly not holding up so well by that 3rd day!)

Fiesta Chicken and Spinach Enchiladas

First off, I love Picky Palate. Her stuff is so easy and delicious! And she takes such pretty pictures. Actually, her pretty pictures will come into play again here shortly.

I also loooooooove Mexican. Any form. My poor husband, who LIKES Mexican, often tells me I need to cool it a little on the Mexican menu items. But the fantastic pictures of enchiladas (see?! She even takes good pictures of enchiladas! It's amazing!) convinced my husband it was a good dinner to try...Mexican or not.

Now, here's the dilemma. I do not take pretty pictures. But I generally still try. I also apparently ended up with slightly stale, or perhaps just completely-and-totally-difficult, these-dang-things-are-too-small-to-roll corn tortillas (there was a lot of breakage action and selective swearing on my part). See, I'd never used corn at home, always flour. So I grabbed the first corn tortillas I saw...and that was a mistake.

Anyway...my enchiladas were...how do you say...totally NOT as pretty as Picky Palate. So bad, in fact, that I decided while making them there was no way I was getting good pictures.

So I have no pictures. But this IS a good recipe (and yes, it has cream of chicken in it). And if you want to see how pretty it can be, you can go here.

Fiesta Chicken and Spinach Enchiladas
(Picky Palate)

*This made 2 9"x13" pans full of enchiladas for me...or enough to feed my husband and I for 2 dinners, and a variety of lunches*

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
1 japaleno, minced (I removed seeds and ribs)
3 fresh cloves of garlic, minced (I used pre minced. I love that stuff)
10 oz. bag baby spinach leaves, chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I used 3 HUGE bone-in breasts that I had in the freezer)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt (I used garlic powder since we added salt above)
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin (DH felt this was a bit much cumin. I may cut back next time)
1-10 oz can Mild Rotel diced tomatoes with green chiles

Sauce
1 lb (large family size can) cream of chicken soup
1 cup red enchilada sauce
8 oz sour cream
1/2 cup milk
pinch of salt

Corn tortillas
2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese

Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place oil in a large skillet or dutch oven and heat over medium heat
- Add onion and jalapeno and saute until softened, about 5 minutes
- Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute
- Add chopped spinach and cook until wilted down
- Stir in chicken, salt, pepper, garlic salt, cumin and diced tomatoes
- Reduce heat to low and simmer

- Place cream of chicken soup, enchilada sauce, sour cream, milk and salt into a large saucepan over medium heat
- Stir until warmed through

- Ladle a small amount of sauce into the bottom of a large 9" x 13" pan (I used 2 that size) -- just enough to cover the bottom
- Place a spoonful of chicken mixture inside of the corn tortillas, roll up and place seam side down in the pan
- Fill tortillas until chicken filling is used up
- Top evenly with sauce from the saucepan and shredded cheese

- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Fiesta Rice

This rice dish looked like it was right up my alley -- unfortunately, I didn't particularly care for it.

I found it to be a little too spicy for my tastes (that could probably be remedied with a few ingredient changes, though!)

I may try it again...we'll see.

I served it as a side to some ground-turkey-taco's. THOSE were delicious! :-)

Fiesta Rice

(Misadventures with Tori)

*Warning: This recipe makes A LOT of rice -- Tori says 8 cups prepared -- so if you don't want leftovers, or aren't sure...I highly reccomend making half.

*Warning #2: Tori also says it took her forever to get her rice cooked. As I was short on time, I cooked up some quick-cooking (<10>

2 teaspoons olive oil (I omitted)

1 (10 oz.) package frozen whole-kernel corn, thawed (I omitted because of DH's aversion to corn as a filler in recipes)

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup chopped green onions

1 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice (I used half white and half brown quick-cooking rice)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 cups fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

dash of salt

1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes with chiles, undrained (I couldn't find that size, so I used 1.5 10 oz. cans)

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed (Tori recommends -- even if you halve the recipe -- keep the entire can of black beans. I agree!)

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Directions

- Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat

- Add corn to the pan, cook 10 minutes, or until corn starts to brown, stirring occassionally

- Remove from pan and set aside

- Melt butter in the pan, add onions and saute for 5 minutes or until tender

- Stir in rice, cumin, and garlic; cook 1 minute

- Add chicken broth, black pepper, salt, and diced tomatoes to pan; bring to a boil

- Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occassionally

- Remove from heat, stir in reserved corn and the black beans

- Cover and let stand 10 minutes

- Stir in cilantro and lime juice

Tortilla-Crusted Fish

The desire for this recipe actually originated with a Lean Cuisine meal. Yes, you read that right...there's actually a lean cuisine meal out there delicious enough that I attempted to re-create it for dinner.

Who'd have thought.

I found a Tortilla-Crusted Tilapia recipe at recipezaar, and figured I'd give it a go!

I liked this recipe, but I think next time I'd use a different fish -- and I'd buy a food processor so I can break up my chips properly! (You'll see large pieces of chip because I got tired of trying to do it the way the recipe instructed -- with a blender!!)

All-in-all it was tasty...but it wasn't as good as Lean Cuisine's (must be all those chemicals they put in!), and I think DH loved it A LOT more than me.

Tortilla-Crusted Fish

(Recipezaar)

4 tilapia fillets (I used flounder because it was on sale)

6 corn tortillas, torn in pieces (I used corn tortilla chips)

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon lime juice

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon seasoning salt (I omitted)

1 egg, beaten

Directions

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F -- coat a baking sheet with cooking spray

- Place tortilla pieces, jalapeno, lime juice, cilantro, and spices in blender -- pulse until the mixture is uniform small crumbs. (Seriously? Use a food processor. All the blender did was make the ground stuff get stuck in the bottom) Spread on a plate

- Dip each fillet in egg, then in crumbs, patting crumbs to adhere, please on baking sheet

- Bake until fish flakes, about 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fillets

I served the fish with mexican sour cream rice, and broccoli

Mexican Sour Cream Rice

I saw this recipe at Brooke's website -- and I actually browsed on by. It had corn in it, and DH has an aversion to corn as a "filler" in foods.


But when we decided to make Tortilla Crusted Fish -- well, I wanted that sour cream-y rice! So I caved, and left the corn out.

Original recipe below. I thought it was only so-so (it bugged me that I could tell the chiles were canned), but DH said it's the best rice he's ever eaten, and he wants it again, immediately.



Mexican Sour Cream Rice
(Brooke's Blog)

1 cup uncooked long grain white rice ( I used a mix of white and brown rice)
1 (14 ounce) can chicken broth
1 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chile peppers
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided (I used a Mexican Blend because I had it on hand)
1 (8.75 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained (I omitted)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro (I used about 1/8 cup...DH was leery of it)
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions
- In a large pot, bring the rice and chicken broth to a boil -- reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F -- lightly grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish
- In the pot with the cooked rice, mix the sour cream, green chile peppers, 1/2 cup cheese, corn, and cilantro -- season with salt and pepper
- Transfer to the prepared casserole dish and top with remaining cheese
- Bake uncovered 30 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and lightly browned

I served it with broccoli and the tortilla-crusted fish

Beef & Bean Chimichangas

Mmm...chimichangas! This was my first attempt at them, actually. But when DH took the time to email me the recipe and say "Let's have this" --- well, I was so impressed he found a recipe, I HAD to make it!

These were actually quite tasty. The first time I make a recipe, I generally follow it to a "T" -- and decide what I'll change next time.

I provide the original recipe here, as well as some things I think I'll change next time.

Beef and Bean Chimichangas
(Original recipe from allrecipes.com)

Serves 8


1 pound lean ground beef
3/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/2 cups whole kernel corn
2 cups taco sauce
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
8 (12 inch) flour tortillas
1 (16 ounce) package shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 tablespoon butter, melted
shredded lettuce
1 tomato, diced

Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium-high heat. Drain excess grease, and add the onion, bell pepper, and corn. Cook for about 5 more minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
- Stir in the taco sauce, and season with chili powder, garlic salt and cumin, stirring until blended. - Cook until heated through, then remove from heat, and set aside.

- Open the can of beans, and spread a thin layer of beans onto each of the tortillas.
- Spoon the beef mixture down the center, and then top with as much shredded cheese as you like.
- Roll up the tortillas, and place them seam-side down onto a baking sheet.- Brush the tortillas with melted butter.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
- Serve with lettuce and tomato.

This is one of my chimichangas before I rolled it..

...and these are my chimi's, brushed with butter and ready to bake.

Voila! Finished chimichanga! With lettuce and tomato, as the original recipe said.

I also served a side of rice and black beans, per DH's request. This is just rice, black beans, salt, pepper, and a little cumin. Nothing fancy.

My Advice

First, you could totally make this recipe with ground turkey or chicken with no spice changes. The spices would be fine in any kind of ground meat.

Second, DH didn't like the corn in it...but I thought it was fantastic, so heck with it :-)

Third, I put these in a baking dish -- not on a baking sheet as the recipe requested...and there's totally a reason why you need a sheet. My chimi's didn't brown. So that was my mistake.

However -- here's what I'm thinking. If everything is mostly warm, why can't I bake for 15 minutes and pop it under the broiler for a minute to brown it?? So that's what I'll try next time.

Lastly -- buy sour cream. Even if it's the fat-free stuff. Trust me...you'll love the creamy smoothness with the spice!