Cassie's AWESOMESAUCE Feista Chicken Enchiladas

This one is the FIRST!!! recipe that has come to me through our Simple Cooking Group . One of my best friends, Cassie posted this. Now growing up I never liked the way my parents made enchiladas, but when I read Cassie's recipe I just had to give it a try since it was so different from what I am used to. It was so amazing! Its just... all I can say is you can't understand till you try it for yourself! So with a large THANK YOU to Cassie, we dive right in!

Ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped ( or how ever fine you wants it )

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb chicken breast chopped ( i use 2 breasts from a bag of frozen breasts. we have done strips, corsely and finely chopped. it all depends on the size ou want to bite into )

1 cup salsa, divided  ( THIS  is your real deciding factor of how spicy and the base of the flavor. I probably use about 2 or 3 cups in total. )

4 oz cream cheese ( if you cut it up it melt quicker and spreads nicely )

1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup shredded cheese  (what ever you like. i usually use coby jack cheese and probably use about 2 cups.... )

8 tortillas

Alright so this is the list as Cassie posted it. I highlighted the first two in red as I did not use them, since I had plenty of onion and garlic in my salsa. FOR the salsa, I used the fresh from scratch stuff I made in my previous entry. 

Alright so lets start cooking!

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees
2. In a larger sauce pan heat it up on low with either oil or butter, however you prefer it. Chop up your chicken and toss it in.
3. As the meat starts to slowly cook, add in your onion and garlic. (Like I said I didn't do this due to my salsa.) saute it a bit.
4. Add in a cup of the salsa.
5. If you ought your cream cheese in bar form, it's only half a bar that you need. I cut that up into 8ths so it would melt faster and spread it around the entire pan. 
6. When its about half melted, add in the cilantro, (see previous entry on how to cut up easily) and the cumin. I actually added a ton of the cumin, as I just really really love the flavor. It wasn't too strong just right, mmm yummie!
7. As it all melts down and starts to come together, you'll find it becoming very sauce like all on it's own accord. this is good, we want that. just be sure you're checking your chicken to know it's cooking through all the way. Once the chicken is done, add in your shredded cheese to goo-a-fy!

Alright so now that we're all cooked up, its time for the baking pan. A larger casserole dish is best but I didn't have one so I had to make due.

If you have more salsa, lay it out on the bottom of the dish.

Next, lay out a tortilla. and scoop some of the dish onto it. You can do this one of two ways. You can double the tortilla shells and put the sauce in there with the rest of it. Or you can use one shell and strain the sauce back into the pan. If you use only one tortilla and the sauce it will rip through and it really isn't fun to deal with that. I learned it the hard way. That's when I started to strain out the chicken and sauce.

Wrap it up burrito style or however you like, and lay it seam down in the baking dish. Rinse and repeat, you know how it is, till you baking dish is all filled up.

Alright, so now you should have a lot of leftover sauce with some chicken. Get a spoon or measuring cup or something and drizzle it all over the top of the shells, covering them completely. There may or may not be chicken int he sauce, that's just fine. The more chicken the merrier! After that, if you have any more cheese, just lay it out on top. You can never....NEVER have too much cheese!

Now we bake! Put it in the now hot oven for about 15-20 min. Any longer and the edges of our tortillas will may burn. Mine were only in for 15 and it smelled like they'd burned. Luckily they didn't. Once it's all melty and hot you can take it out of the oven.

Now I actually had to use two spatulas to get these out, they were THAT full, and they still broke up on me! HAHAH! Once you have the enchilada onto the plate, use what's left of the salsa to top it off.

There is SO much food there it's insane! But OH! So mouth watering delicious! I water just thinking about it, this is my new favorite meal, I kid you not.

That's all there is for this super easy!

Who will like this: Adults, especially if you like Mexican food. Children might if you make a smaller one for them, and also if they aren't picky about "foreign objects" I.E.: the weird red or green things. Also depending on the spice level of the salsa that you use, people may not enjoy it if they aren't big on spicy foods. My version in pretty mild, as I didn't make a very spicy salsa for it at all.

LEFTOVERS!!!! We had tons of left overs. They were really good fresh and cold form the fridge the next morning for breakfast. May sound odd but everything you should have for your first meal is right there wrapped up in a nice shell. It's hard from cold and since you wrap the end up, nothing falls out and you can eat on the go if you need to!

That's all for Simple Cooking tonight, you got two entries for the price of one! Enjoy the Enchiladas and let me and Cassie know exactly what you think of them over at the Simple Cooking Group or right here in the comments for Simple Cooking.

Until next time. I love you all, and remember to love yourselves too!

~Alex~

Orange Chicken

This is one of my favorite recipes it takes maybe 20-30 minuets to make, and most of that is the actual cutting up and initial cooking of the chicken itself. Now I know that Orange Chicken is breaded and I will include the breading at the end of this post, but I personally do not use it. I tried to the first two times I made it and we wound up eating more breading than chicken! Anyway, I prefer to just put the sauce directly onto my chicken and my family and friends agree it is better that way. So lets scrub our hands and get cooking!

Ingredients:

• 2lbs of boneless chicken breast. (obviously more if you're cooking for more people)
• Sesame cooking oil or Olive oil (Sesame oil is pricey and really only for more traditional flavoring. Regular olive oil is what I use)
• Rice wine (This too is pricy, and you do not need a lot of it, this will last over the next several times you make this meal. Also, Rice Wine Vinagre is NOT the same thing, do not try to use it trust me I learned that the hard way. You may have to ask a store employee where this is becasue it's in a different location in every store)
• Dried red pepper flakes
• Green onion
• Ginger
• Minced garlic (you can use the pre chopped stuff in a jar if you like or fresh it's up to you as long as it's not dried you want it moist and seemingly fresh :) )
• Soysauce

Alright so lets start to dig in. Go on and pre heat your cooking pan on low and add in a little olive oil just to get it going. It can heat up slowly while you're cutting up the chicken. All you need to do is cut the chicken up into bite sized pieces, small and quick to cook through. Once it's all cut up, toss it in the pan, turn the heat up and saute the chicken till all the pieces are cooked through. If you're unsure, cut open one of the bigger pieces and see if all the pink is gone or not. 

While it's cooking, you can rinse the green onion and use a scissors to cut it up into small pieces. You'll be able to get everything else set up and ready for the next part too.

Once it's all cooked through, put the chicken into a bowl and clean the pan out. Add more olive oil get it medium hot again and add the olive oil once more. Now the fun starts! All of this is to taste there are very few exact measurements here on out.

1. You want to put a good deal of powdered ginger into the pan estimated 2-3 teaspoons
2. Add in roughly 1 teaspoon of the minced ginger and use your spatula to mix it together really well. It'll only take about 15 second before it starts to burn down so mix it quick.
3. Sprinkle in about a handful of red pepper flakes and another handful of the cut up green onion. Mix it all together. It's going to start smelling really good right about now. And this is the trickiest part next.
4. Pour in exactly 1 tablespoon of Rice win... any more and you have to try and counter it's taste...which is really gross in when too much is present.
5. Add in a splash or two of soy sauce
6. Slowly mix it all together in the pan, and  as you do this pour in about 1/4 cup water a VERY little at a time mixing it all together. The goal here is to let it all cook down, you may have to add more ginger to the mix to help thicken it. I personally like a lot of the ginger and that's the main flavor in my Orange Chicken.
7. When the yummie sauce is nice and thick, go on and add in the chicken once more. Push it all over and around, making sure every piece is covered. Once it is all covered in the sauce, and hot again, it's ready to serve!

HELPFUL SUGGESTION!!!: If you're cooking for more people I like to add the chicken little by little, get a small amount covered thickly, place it in a new bowl, make more sauce and coat more chicken. I personally do not mind doing this as it assures all the chicken is coated thickly with lots of flavor. And really it doesn't take any longer than if you were to do it all at once. :)

GREAT MEAL IDEA!!!: Feel like Asian food? Serve this dish up with some rice which is nice and filling, and a big glass of cold milk and you've got a GREAT filling meal.

LEFTOVERS!!!: I have always been in the habit of cooking a ton of food even when I'm not cooking for a lot of people. The Orange Chicken I just "made" is a WONDERFUL leftover! In my opinion, it probably taste better as a next day or two left over, cold from the refrigerator! Mouth watering in my opinion!

Who will like this:

• Children: The pieces are fun and bite sized. They can't really taste the onions or garlic if made correctly and it's not spicy, the pepper just adds flavor! It's small, colorful, and a new way to get them interested in chicken!
• Adults: Adults who are new to Asian food but want to try something will enjoy this. There is no intimidation at all. It's something they're totally familiar with with ingredients they have eaten their whole life! It's a great way to introduce you, your family, or anyone to Asian food!
• Anyone who already enjoys Asian food or even new foods, in general will like this. It's a great twist, a totally new way to serve a classic dish!

Alright as promised here is the things you'll need for breading the chicken if you so choose to do so :)

Ingredients:

• Egg
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Cornstarch
• Flour

Before cooking the chicken, put the cut up chicken into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the egg, a dash of salt, pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil. Add in 1/2 cup of cornstarch and a 1/4 cup of flour. Go through the rest of the recipe as is above, except when you're mixing the chicken and sauce, add in a little water to the four and cornstarch mixture, about 1/4 of a cup should work, then slowly mix it in with the sauce and the chicken so it all thickens and breads up and gets covered in sauce. And that's how you bread the chicken :)

That's it for my AWESOMESAUCE Orange Chicken! I hope you all enjoy it! Let me know how it turned out for you or any suggestions you've got!

~Alex~