Enchilada Casserole

Yummy Enchilada taste for a family without the fuss!  It seems that this casserole  fixes up a bit different each time because I often use up a few left over or lonely items that are nearing their life expectancy. ;)  It is ALWAYS good though and easy to do.   

Tonight I am using hamburger and black beans.  I usually use the burger, but sometimes the beans are kidney beans or small red beans... whatever I have on hand and catches my fancy when I'm cooking.   Tonight I used shredded cheddar cheese, but if I had some jack cheese or whatnot, I'd make a blend.  Right now my only variety to blend would be mozzarella and I have plans for that later this week.   It's easy to add in a few chopped veggies as well...  use your best judgement.... in addition to the onion I've enjoyed finely diced potato, summer squash, corn, and spinach or chard finely shredded.  Not all of those at once though - the kids get suspicious when they notice too many.  If you've got some leftover cooked rice - toss that into the filling!

You can prepare this a few hours before dinner time, or you could prepare it the night before and keep it in the refrigerator until you're ready to bake it.  Add just a few minutes to the bake time to balance out the colder temperature.  

Enchilada Casserole

 12-15 corn tortillas

1 lb hamburger (I prefer a really low fat burger - 93/7)

1 large onion

1 15 oz. can of black beans or kidney beans, drained

chopped green chili optional

 (any other chopped vegetables you want to put in - such as a finely diced potato or summer squash)

Brown hamburger, add in onion and the extra veggies and cook until onion is tender.   Mix in the beans.  Salt and pepper to taste.

1 large can enchilada sauce - OR make your own.  I love the one by Emeril found HERE. (although I do use 1 T. less chili powder than he calls for)

 3 C. shredded cheese

Grease a medium to large casserole dish. Spread 1/2 C. enchilada sauce  Tear 2-3 tortillas in chunks and lay across the bottom.  Spread half of the hamburger mixture, sprinkle 1 C. of the cheese, and drizzle 3/4 C. of enchilada sauce over that.  Repeat layers - tortilla's, hamburger mixture, 1 C. cheese, 1 C. enchilada sauce.  Top with one more layer of tortilla's, the rest of the cheese, and the rest of the enchilada sauce.  Cover with foil and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes.  If desired, serve with sour cream.

Joy's Notes:  This does freeze well for up to 3 months.  It would be very easy to split this into two smaller dishes and freeze one for later.  When you're ready to use, thaw in the fridge overnight and then bake as directed.  My "casserole dish" tonight was an extra large pie tin.  A 9x13 cake pan works too. 

 

Valentine Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I've been wanting to make cupcakes for a while now.  Seems like I think I have to wait for a special occasion for some silly reason.  My special occasion for these are twofold....  two of the sisters I visit teach have birthday's this week (Happy Birthday SteviKay and Lorraine!) AND Valentines Day is coming up next week.

I used a basic no egg cake recipe... it is more dense and holds up better with a load of frosting on top.  I used my Whacky Cake recipe.  For the frosting, I used the Creamy Chocolate Frosting recipe on my blog for the base under the yellow flower cupcakes, and a Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting for the Valentine cupcakes.  That's the recipe I'll post here.  I thought they turned out fairly tasty. :)  Wesley, who is 3, really loves them.  He only wants to eat half though..... the TOP half.  Funny boy.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

4 C. powdered sugar

1 C. softened butter

4 oz softened cream cheese

Mix until crumbly with a mixer.  Add 1/3 C. milk, 2 tsp. raspberry flavoring, 1 tsp. vanilla flavoring, and beat until light and fluffy.  It should be soft and fluffy, but stiff enough to hold its shape when piped onto the cupcake...  just check by pressing the back of a spoon into the frosting in the bowl, lift up to form a peak and see if that peak stays put fairly well.  If it doesn't - add up to 1/4 C. of powdered sugar and whip again.

Joy's Notes:  To decorate the cupcakes, I loaded the above frosting into a large decorator bag equipped with a size 12 tip.  Swirl from the outside in - EASY!  A few carefully placed Wilton heart shaped sprinkles finished these off.    The flower cupcakes I swirled chocolate icing on as a base, and then used a size 19 star tip to pull out petals.  A small swirl of chocolate again for the center.

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

 

Living in the middle of potato country, we eat a LOT of potatoes.  One of our favorite ways to eat them is mashed with gravy.  Once in a while we have leftover mashed potatoes.  I don't enjoy them reheated as much as fresh since they are often dry, but this recipe using leftover (or fresh) mashed potatoes is so tasty I purposely make extra mashed potatoes now so we can have this later in the week!  I love all the delicious toppings on a baked potato, and that is what I added to create this dish.  I think chives would be good on it as well - but we'll try that in the summer when my chives are growing and fresh.

"Real" mashed potatoes are best.... but in a pinch you could use instant.  Here in Idaho it's just a shame to not use fresh potatoes though. 

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

3 C. mashed potatoes (leftover or freshly mashed)

1/4 C. melted butter

1 C. sour cream

1 1/2 C. shredded cheese, reserving 1/2 C.

1/4 C. fried & crumbled bacon, more if you want to use it for topping (I use the real bacon pieces already cooked and crumbled - otherwise it's about 4 slices of bacon)

1/4 C. sliced green onion

salt & pepper to taste

Mix potatoes, butter, and sour cream well. Add salt and pepper now.  Add  1 C. cheese, bacon, and onion, mixing well.  Pour into greased casserole dish, top with reserved cheese, more bacon bits if desired. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated through.

Joy's Notes:  If you're making this with freshly mashed potatoes, you can cut your baking time to 20 minutes.  This can be mixed up a day ahead and baked when you're ready to use it.  (I'll bet you could freeze it too but I haven't tried that yet.)  I buy the large (1 1/4 lb) bags of crumbled bacon at Costco.  I just keep that in the freezer and add a handful to all sorts of things... scrambled eggs, omelets, cream of potato soup, pizza, baked potatoes, all sorts of things!)

Enjoy!!!

Cream of Leek Soup

My Dad grows leeks in his garden.  I am a happy recipient of a few of those leeks!  Now I have to be honest with you, I doubt I would have seen these in the produce section of the store and longed to buy some... at least not until Mom brought me some of her Cream of Leek Soup!  YUM!  Today the family enjoyed this soup so much they suggested we grow our own leeks this year so we could have this soup more often!

In case you aren't already familiar with leeks, they are a member of the onion/garlic family.  They have a thick stalk and very little "bulb", unlike the large bulb and small top of a regular onion.  They have a very mild onion flavor.  

Cream of Leek Soup is a wonderful first course soup, or with a side of crusty bread, would be a nice main dish soup.

Cream of Leek Soup

4-6 medium leeks

6 T. margarine or butter

3 T. flour

2 tsp. chopped chives, optional

1/2 tsp. salt

6 C. milk or light cream

6 cubes or 6 tsp. of chicken bouillon 

Thinly slice leeks, discarding the top green portion. (You are really using just the white part and tossing a hefty portion - or the green part of the leek)  In a medium pan, saute' leek in butter 8-10 minutes or until tender.  Stir in flour, chives and salt.  Add milk and bouillon.  Cook over medium heat until simmering.  Stir occasionally.  Simmer 1-2 minutes.  If desired garnish with nutmeg.

Joy's Notes:  I've never used the chives, mainly because I didn't have them on hand.  I've also never tried the nutmeg, but I'll bet it gives a wonderful flavor.  I used all half & half today instead of cream or milk... with terrific results.

Chicken Alfredo Potato Bowl

We love Alfredo Sauce on noodles, however, right now I've got a bunch of potatoes stored that need to be used.  I figured we could do our usual alfredo sauce and some chicken tenders and settle that over some real mashed potatoes for a nice potato bowl.  It turned out terrific!

You could use a bottled alfredo sauce, but it's really pretty easy to make your own if you have the ingredients on hand.

Easy Alfredo Sauce

2 C. half & half or a mix of heavy cream and milk OR 2 C. of evaporated milk

1 C. milk

2 T. butter

3 T. flour

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/2 C. Parmesan cheese, grated

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the garlic in the 2 T. of butter until it softens.  Mix in flour and make a roux.  Add milk and cream slowly, stirring constantly over medium heat until all milk is added and sauce starts to thicken.  Add Parmesan cheese and stir until it's melted and blended in.  Salt and pepper to taste.  The sauce thickens as it cools.  If it's thicker than you'd like, add a bit of milk or cream until it's the consistency you desire.

To make the rest of this Chicken Alfredo potatoes:

Pan-fry chicken tenders or strips of boneless skinless chicken breast.  Season with salt and pepper.   (If you want to dirty fewer dishes, remove the chicken at this point and make the alfredo sauce in this pan)  Pour alfredo sauce over chicken.   Scoop mashed potatoes into single serving bowls, add a couple of strips of chicken and ladle sauce over all.  Sprinkle with paprika.  Enjoy!

Joy's Notes:   We MUCH prefer fresh mashed potatoes to instant... you could use instant, but there's just so much more texture and body in fresh mashed.