Lazy persons chicken enchiladas

Have husband cook black beans at work.
Buy rotisserie chicken.
Buy organic green chile sauce. 3 cups or make your own (a lot of work but much better)
1 small diced onion
1 large can whole green chiles
2 cups shredded cheese
12-14 corn tortillas
1 can diced tomatoes 14 oz

Pick meat off chicken and add to saucepan with onion, green chile sauce, diced tomatoes and 1 cup of water bring to boil and simmer approximately 15 minutes. In a baking dish place 1/3 of the sauce, then 4 corn tortillas, layer of whole green chilis, 1/3 of the cheese repeat until all your ingredients are gone.
Bake at 400F until hot and bubbly.
Serve with black beans. You can top with sour cream, black olives and green onions.

Cooking In January

When I set out with this personal challenge I was very apprehensive about finding the time to cook. I now know the time is there but I need to organize my days better. I still have not taken Sunday for a planning day which I think is necessary to make this a successful cooking year. Things I learned so far.

1. Making dinner 5 days a week is not fun.
2. Planning in advance is the key.
3. Making dinner for a friend makes cooking more fun.
4. I have a lot more respect for my mom who made it look so easy.
5. When I am in the middle of cooking I still enjoy it.

Chicken Curry

Although I love Indian food, I usually don't cook it. There are too many good Indian restaurants around and my kitchen is not equipped with all the spices, etc. that make Indian food so good. One exception is this chicken curry I make. It is very Americanized but tastes good. Based on the Silver Palate's recipe for chicken curry soup I slowly cook onions and diced chicken breasts in butter and mild Madras curry spice until chicken is firm. Then I add flour to the curried butter to make a roux. This is cooked for five minutes to bring out more of the curry spice and to cook the flour taste out of the roux. I then add chicken stock. When soup/stew is thickened to your preference finish with cream and fresh vegetables such as thinly sliced zucchini, shredded carrots and peas. A few more minutes to cook the zucchini and carrots and its done. Served with brown rice it makes a very complete meal.It could also be made hotter with the addition of dried hot peppers. I think this could be made very successfully as a vegetarian entree. I might add apples to the onions and curry and definately eggplant for the texture. Great meal for yet another cold Colorado January day.

Gelato

we just stopped by at a neighborhood coffee house we've been hearing a lot about to discover they also make amazing gelato...oh no...it's really good, so good that I'm nervous about how close they are to the house. The owner was nice enough to let us sample many flavors...In Italy my rule was to not let a day end without eating gelato...my favorite flavors pistachio and cherry.

A Thank You Dinner For A Friend

Lower in fat AND very good

Ground Turkey Lasagna with Wild Mushrooms
Mesclun Greens with Cassis Vinaigrette, goat cheese and sweet and spicy pecans
Toasted Garlic Baguette with fresh basil and olive oil


I should have taken a picture of this because it was really good and looked good too.
Next time.

Tonight I felt like experimenting and it was a challenge to make this lasagna taste really good with very little fat. I based this on Cook's Country magazines recipe for turkey lasagna. Basically its lean ground turkey slow cooked with lots of diced mushrooms, 2% milk to tenderize the meat, tomatoes, tomato paste, carrots, onions and garlic slow cooked for about an hour, and then layered with whole wheat no boil pasta sheets and topped with a white sauce/no butter and thickened with Parmesan cheese. I think this could easily be made vegetarian subbing the turkey with eggplant. I added lots more herbs, oregano, fresh basil and spiced it up. Also wild mushrooms gave it a lot of depth.

I will definately make this again...experimenting with the veggie version.

managing dinner

Due to family obligations, I still have not had the Sunday planning day to make dinners easy. So Monday it was again a mad dash to the supermarket after the gym to find something somewhat healthy, cheap and fast.

Ground Lamb (on sale) Burgers with feta, grilled onions and sauteed mushrooms
served on Toasted Baguette with horseradish, dijon mustard spread

Mixed green salad

After eating in Iowa for a week I find that I am craving lots of fresh vegetables so salads will definately play a part in this weeks meals

Spice Rubs

Even though I accomplished my goal last week of making dinner 5 days, I am finding it difficult to blog while adding shopping, planning and cooking to my day. I'm hoping in the next few weeks to find a format I can stick to. Some highlights of the week were finding these rubs that I used for a quick dinner on Wednesday of Steak and Eggplant Kabobs, the Bengal Masala rub is especially good.

Broiled Salmon with Mustard Glaze

Day 2 Dinner

Menu: Broiled Salmon with Mustard Glaze
Baked Sweet Potato
Mixed Green Salad with chevre, toasted pine nuts and raspberry vinaigrette

It's only day 2 and I notice I start thinking about dinner in the morning instead of at 7:00 p.m. when I'm leaving the gym. This menu was based on a catering recipe for a many mustards chicken. I believe that recipe was 4 different mustards, whole mustard seeds and some apple cider. I just mixed whole grain mustard with dijon mustard, added some dried herbs, lemon juice,olive oil, salt and pepper. From start to finish the whole dinner took about 25 minutes. Other than the baking time of the potato. I broiled the salmon for 5 minutes with a little olive oil, salt and pepper then topped it with mustard sauce and broiled for about 7 minutes more. I served the salmon over the salad.The contrast of color, flavors and textures was REALLY FANTASTIC. and Heart healthy. I like adding a little bit of fat with chevre and pine nuts, just enough for flavor but not too much to take away the health benefits of the greens, sweet potato and the salmon.

January 1-Dinner

After recovering from my great New Year's I was not anticipating making dinner even though it's my first day of my personal challenge. It was a really simple dinner but tasted great after the New Year's Eve indulgences.

Menu:Grilled cheese and Roasted Red Pepper Bisque.

The Roasted Red Pepper Bisque was definitely one of the best soups I had ever made. It's really pretty simple too. Not too many ingredients just a lot of cooking time. I simmered shredded carrots, an onion and garlic in a little bit of butter with one large can of drained roasted peppers. I let that cook on low for about 40 minutes and then added vegetable stock, herbs De Provence, thyme and salt and pepper.Let that simmer until reduced in half.On low it took about 1 1/2 hours. Pureed and then finished with 1/2 cup of half and half and some bourbon. This really is a versatile soup it would also be good with pasta as a sauce.