Super Bowl Grub

 I roasted a chicken last night for dinner. Bob wanted it and I told him that I had no problem with it but we were going to use the leftovers to make his Super Bowl dinner. I'm not a football fan. I don't watch the game at all. I wouldn't know a quarterback from a linebacker, nor do I care to. I do like to make Bob a good dinner, though, and I'll use anything as an excuse to do so.

I got online and did a Google search and found a collection of like 125 recipes that use leftover chicken. I found one for Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese. It sounded good. I had everything on hand to make it. I did cut the recipe in half because, as written, it just made way too much for the two of us.
I also found a recipe for Mexican Street Corn Casserole. Again, I had all the ingredients on hand and it sounded good and I've been meaning to make some Mexican street corn and haven't quite gotten around to it yet. So, I figured tonight would be the night to do that.

Any good mac & cheese recipe starts out with a boatload of shredded cheese. This one is no different. Do yourself a favor and do not buy pre-shredded cheese. This is extra sharp cheddar and mozzarella. I froze the leftover cheese for another time.

It's amazing, to me, that I had some fresh cilantro on hand. I chopped this up for the corn recipe.

The mac and cheese starts out with the typical roux. The different thing about this recipe is that the macaroni noodles are cooked in the sauce rather than cooked separately in salted, boiling water.

The sauce for the mac and cheese has all the components as buffalo chicken: buffalo sauce and ranch dressing.

This Mexican Street Corn Casserole was delicious. There's no two ways about it. I did add a can of rinsed black beans to it because I thought they would taste good. It didn't disappoint. I'll make this recipe in the future.

What I like about the Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese is that it's a one -pot, stove top recipe. It worked out well because I had the corn casserole in the oven while I was making this recipe on the stove.

Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese. I'll make this recipe again, with some tweaks. First, I'll leave out the cream cheese. It wasn't needed, in my opinion. I'll cook the noodles separately, as well. I'll cut back the cheese to 1 cup total. I'll up the blue cheese (I used gorganzola) to 1 cup and I'll melt that into the sauce that coats the noodles. I'll also leave out the bacon. It wasn't needed. As written, the recipe is roughly 3.2 stars out of 5. I made this recipe exactly as written except I cut it in half.

Mexican Street Corn Casserole. This is going into my regular recipe rotation. I like my addition of black beans. I'll leave that in there. This recipe was 4.1 stars out of 5.

Here is a photo of our Super Bowl dinner tonight.
Bob said he hopes the Eagles win. Me? I don't really care, but I'll say the Eagles, too, because we're going to see the band The Eagles in a week. The tickets were our Christmas present to ourselves. I'm super excited about that.

Chicken-Green Chili Enchiladas

 Since Bob had all of his teeth pulled, it's been a struggle to find foods that he can eat because he has the added problem of having scar tissue in his throat, from the radiation treatments when he had throat cancer. He has to eat softer foods because he can't chew it up and certain things will hang up on that scar tissue and choke him. His medications do that to him all the time.
Anyhow, I digress.

We ordered some Mexican delivery for dinner the other night and Bob decided to give enchiladas a whirl. He ate them. He enjoyed them. I'll make enchiladas for him.

One thing that I think we're going to do more of, simply because it's cheaper for us to do so, is buying rotisserie chickens from the supermarket. There is a supermarket, here in town where the majority of the shoppers wear masks, that I will venture into. They sell their rotisserie chickens for like $6.50 or something. I cannot buy a whole chicken for that price very often. This week is one of those weeks, but I haven't placed my grocery order yet. I sent Bob for a chicken and some corn tortillas. 

Now, this rotisserie chicken is going to make 4 meals for us, 2 meals of enchiladas and 2 meals of what I'm going to make a blog post about tomorrow...5 if you count the chicken stock that I'll cook down, but I'm using that for meals 3 and 4, so I'm not counting it. We'll have enchiladas again on Sunday.
I pulled the meat off half of the chicken and cut it all super small for Bob. Next, it's as easy as opening a can of enchilada sauce, a can of green chilis and opening up a package of shredded Mexican blend cheese. 

Now before anyone goes off about these not being "from scratch", let me just say that I realize that. I'm working with a food budget and I try to stretch my dollars so that I can get a bit more of food put up so that we can enjoy the summer flavors this winter. My thinking is that the more economical I can make our dinners, the more of my budget I can spend on fruits and veggies to can up. I am tossing all of my previously canned up goods. Our shed had gotten rats in it and with those boxes of jars stacked on each other, I don't feel safe consuming any of it.

But I did feel entirely safe consuming these! Bob bought the street taco sized tortillas. At first, I thought that they would be WAY too small, but they were perfect sized. I made us each 3 enchiladas. I have enough filling, cheese and tortillas for another batch on Sunday and all we need to purchase is a 15-ounce can of enchilada sauce.

So, this may not be all from scratch, but it is delicious and it's economical and, all together, it will make 4 servings of 3 enchiladas each. 

Chicken-Green Chili Enchiladas
Makes 4 servings

1/2 of rotisserie chicken, chopped
2 tablespoons minced sweet onion
1 4-oz. can mild green chilis, drained
1 15-oz. can red enchilada sauce, use 1/4 cup on a deep plate to dip tortillas in, use 1/3 cup in the chicken mixture and use the rest add a thin layer of sauce to the bottom of the baking dish and to pour over the top of the enchiladas
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese (or cheddar)
2 green onions, chopped
12 street taco size corn tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Shred chicken, put in a bowl and mix with onion, chilis, sour cream and 1/3 cup enchilada sauce.
Pour 1/4 cup enchilada sauce into a deep plate or pie dish. Dip each tortilla into the sauce, coating both sides, sprinkle a small pinch of cheese down the center of the tortilla, add a few spoonfuls of the chicken-green chili filling, top with another pinch of cheese, roll up and put in a baking dish that has a thin layer of enchilada sauce in the bottom. Place seam-side down.  Repeat for all the tortillas.
Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas in the baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and green onions.
Bake 30 minutes, uncovered.
Remove from oven, let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

*You can assemble these and freeze. Use within 3 months. The leftover filling will last for 3 days in the refrigerator.
*I wore disposable gloves while I assembled this dish.

Tex Mex Chicken & Rice

 There is just something about the flavors of Mexico. I don't think I can recall one single person that I've ever met, over the course of my lifetime (suffice it to say that is over half a decade), who didn't/doesn't like Mexican food.
Tonight, I had leftover rotisserie chicken to use up. We buy whole chickens when they are cheap and stick them in the freezer and, when the urge strikes, we stick one on our rotisserie on our BBQ grill. We rotisserie'd one up for dinner last night. So this recipe utilizes leftovers and on-hand pantry stock items for me. I love it when I can do this!

I used a Walla Walla sweet onion in this dish. You, of course, don't have to use this type. You can use whatever you have on hand. I live in Washington state, I have Walla Walla sweets.
As with any delicious recipe, it starts out with onion and garlic. 

The onion gets sauteed in olive oil. The great thing is that this is a one-pot dish!

I removed the skin, chucked the bones (no room in the fridge today to be able to make broth) and cubed up the meat. 

You'll also need rice. I used what I have on hand and that's basmati. Plain ol' white rice would work perfectly. I wouldn't use Minute Rice. I don't think you'll be impressed with the results. The seasonings are simple: ground cumin, salt and pepper. This recipe also uses canned diced tomatoes, canned diced green chiles and a can of red enchilada sauce. 

After you've sauteed the onion for a few minutes, add in the rice and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. 

Add in the canned ingredients and the water, bring to a boil, pop a lid on the pan, turn heat to as low as your stove will go and set a timer for 20 minutes. 

I topped with some chopped heirloom tomato and...

chopped avocado. This is a perfect pantry 30-minute meal!

Enjoy!

 

Tex Mex Chicken & Rice

 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 of medium Walla Walla sweet onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon French grey salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup basmati rice

1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce

1 (15-ounce) can no-salt added diced tomatoes

1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles

1 cup water

1-1/2 cups cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces

Garnishes (optional): diced avocado, chopped tomato, sour cream, cilantro

In a large pot, with a lid, saute onion in olive oil, over medium heat,  until soft, about 3-4 minutes. Add rice and garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add spices, cook 30 seconds.
Add all the canned ingredients, along with the water. Then add chicken. Stir to combine. Bring up to a boil, turn heat on stove to as low as it can go. Cover. Cook for exactly 20 minutes. Turn off heat. Let set for 10 minutes. Top with garnishes.

Charro Beans with Garlic Scapes

I'm not sure what it is about food that takes a long time to cook, but I love it. If I don't have to dig out anything other than a large pot, I love it even better. If I can utilize something out of my garden, I love it even more. And, if it contains, not only bacon, but Mexican chorizo and ham...well, there's not enough words to describe how much I love it!

Garlic scapes. These are beyond delicious!!

 I harvested my garlic scapes and I didn't want to do the traditional compound butter with them. I wanted something a bit different. I've been saying, for the past week, that I wanted to make Charro Beans. I used the YouTube channel Views From The Road version as my base recipe. You should hit their subscribe button. They are a YouTube treasure.

Bacon, ham and chorizo all combine together to make something that is just amazing, as far as flavor goes.

This is making the entire fifth wheel smell delicious!

No. I am not digging out my Ninja Foodi. I'm not cooking the bacon separately in a frying pan. I cooked everything together in the same pot after soaking the beans overnight. This just gets cooked, on the stove top, over low heat.
The knobs on these propane stoves have a purpose and don't be scared to cook over propane. I'll have a hard time ever using an electric stove again, for sure!

Charro Beans with Garlic Scapes

1 pound soaked pinto beans, rinsed and drained
6 slices of bacon, thinly sliced
1 pound Mexican chorizo
1 cup cubed ham
1 yellow onion, diced small
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced
1/2 pound chopped garlic scapes (reserve flower pods for something else)
2 large chopped tomatoes
1 half bunch roughly chopped cilantro (including stems)
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder
1 teaspoon chicken bouillion powder
1 cup chicken stock
1 bay leaf
Salt & pepper, to taste
8-9 cups water

Soak beans overnight in water, salted (1 teaspoon), that covers beans by 2 inches. Rinse well, drain and set aside.

In a big pot, over low heat, cook bacon until fat is rendered, but the bacon is not crisp. Add in chorizo (I used the beef type, but pork would work just fine), cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add onion and jalapenos along the garlic scapes. Cook for 4-5 minutes. Add tomatoes and spices with chicken stock. Add enough water to cover, around 8-9 cups. Cook, over low heat, simmering, for about 2-3 hours, or until beans are soft. Taste for salt and pepper. Add cilantro in and cook for another 15-20 minutes.
Serve with tortillas or corn bread.