Creamy Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

I found this recipe soon after joining Pinterest. I even made it a few times before this post, but each time I was a little unhappy with it so I kept changing it until I found a version I wanted to share.

The original recipe is from Mel's Kitchen Cafe and was very good but a little too creamy for my taste. It also takes a while to make so I cut out a few steps.

What You Need:

3 cups cooked, shredded chicken

1 (7 ounce) can of diced green chiles

1/2 package of softened cream cheese (original uses a full pkg.)

1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (7 ounce) can of green enchilada sauce

6 oz Monterey Jack cheese

Medium Tortillas

Sour cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine softened cream cheese and green chiles. Then add the chicken and black beans.

Lightly grease a casserole dish and spread about 1/4 cup green enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan.

Fill each tortilla with bout 1/2 cup of the filling and a small amount of shredded cheese. Roll the tortilla up and place in the dish with the seam side down. Depending on the pan you use you can make anywhere from 8- 10 enchiladas. 

Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and top with shredded cheese. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the edges are lightly brown.   

In case you're feeling fancy here's the ingredients and directions for making the enchilada sauce a little more exciting. 

What You Need:

•               2 tablespoons butter

•               1/2 cup chopped onion 

•               2 tablespoons flour

•               1/3 cup chicken or vegetable broth

•               ¼ cup milk

•               ¼ teaspoon salt

•               ¼ teaspoon pepper

•               1 can (7 ounce) green chile enchilada sauce

In a large nonstick skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Then add the onion, stirring until the onion browns. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir well. It gets very lumpy.  Slowly whisk in the chicken or vegetable broth and milk. This helps to make the flour and onion mixture less lumpy. 

Continue cooking over medium heat until the mixture has thickened. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the enchilada sauce.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

In honor of St. Patrick's Day this year I treated my office to delicious Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. They were a huge hit.

The original post is from Gina's Skinny Recipes and for once I did everything the way they recipe said.  Shocking I know but I have never used beer in a cupcake before and I was afraid of messing it up.


What You Need:

5.5 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
4 tsp Bailey's Irish Cream
3/4 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
1 cup flour
7 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1/2 cup stout
4 oz unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp canola oil
Cooking spray


Directions:

Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and Bailey's in a medium bowl and mix until smooth with an electric mixer. Refrigerate until ready to frost cupcakes. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 12 liners in tin and lightly spray liners with oil so they don't stick to the liners. 


In a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Surprisingly, I don't have a sifter so I just combined the ingredients and I don't think it harmed the recipe. 


In a medium bowl combine the wet ingredients and beat until smooth.

With a mixer, slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour into cupcake liners and bake 30 minutes. 

• My only negative about this recipe are that the cupcakes didn't rise as much as they usually do so a few of mine didnt reach the top of the cupcake liner. So just fill yours up more than normal and you'll be set.

Crock-Pot Taco Chili

After an unusual spell of warm weather in Colorado we had a cold and rainy day that seemed the perfect day to have a crock pot of chili waiting at home.  Original recipe is from Skinny Taste and I stayed pretty true to it this time. The original recipe also has weight watchers points and nutritional info if your want it. 




What you need:


Crockpot (I used our bigger one)
1/2 chopped onion
2- 16 oz can black beans
1- 16 oz can kidney beans
1- 8 oz can tomato sauce
2- 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 package ground beef



Directions: 

Combine all ingredients except ground beef in the crock-pot. Since my ground beef was frozen I placed the whole thing in it on top. But if you have ground beef from the fridge you can cook it ahead of time and add it at the end or add it an hour or two before serving.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6-8 hours. 


The orginal recipe only used one can of black beans, but when I looked at the pot mid-day it looked like there were too many tomatoes for my taste so I added and extra can of black beans.  The orginal recipe also included frozen corn but I didn't have any so I skipped it. 

Healthy Egg Salad

My dad and I are huge fans of egg salad, so when I saw a recipe for egg salad with Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise I knew I had to try it.  My dad wasn't too convinced but still tried it and even liked it. You really can't tell there's yogurt instead of mayo.

I usually only make my egg salad with eggs, mayo, salt and pepper. The recipe I found had a few more ingredients and I branched out.  I never measure when I make egg salad but I'll put them here in case you don't know where to start.

What you need: 

6 eggs

1/4 cup 2% Greek yogurt

1/2 Tbsp Dijon Mustard

1/2 Tbsp Classic Mustard

1 Dill Pickle Spear (I love them in egg salad although not many people do)

Pepper and Salt

Buttermilk Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

For my Valentine's Day Soiree I decided to make heart shaped Buttermilk cupcakes and Nutella frosting.  So many of my pins on pinterest were helpful tips for making them, and I will definitely be using these tips for all my cupcakes in the future.


First here's the recipe for the cupcakes and the frosting originally from Krissy's Creations.

Buttermilk Cupcakes
What you need:

4 Eggs

2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

1 ¼ cups Buttermilk

3 cups Cake Flour

2 cups Sugar

3 ½ teaspoons Baking Powder

½ teaspoon Salt

1 cup (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened

Nutella Frosting
What you need:

1 ½ cups (3 Sticks) Unsalted Butter (Softened)

3 cups Confectioners Sugar

1/8 tsp. Salt

2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

1 cup Nutella

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2-3 cupcake pans with baking cups.  This recipe made a little bit more than 24 cupcakes, so you should have a third cupcake pan ready.

2.  In a small bowl whisk together the eggs, vanilla extract, and buttermilk.  Put it to the side for later.

3.  In a large bowl mix together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add the butter and beat until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.  Add the egg mixture in 3 additions.  

4.  Put the batter in the cake liners, being careful not to fill them more than half full. It rises a lot and will overflow if its 2/3 full like normal cupcakes. 

5.  Place the cupcakes in the middle rack of the oven and bake until a toothpick inserted into a few cupcakes comes out clean. The original post said 25 minutes but with the high altitude of Colorado 20 minutes was enough.   

6.  While the cupcakes are baking, make the nutella buttercream.  Cream the butter in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, about 5 minutes.  

7.  Add the confectioners sugar and salt and mix until the sugar is fully incorporated.  Add the vanilla and whisk until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, scraping the edges of the bowl.  

8.  Then add the nutella.  Beat until the nutella is fully incorporated and the buttercream is light and fluffy again.

Another Blogger had an ingenious idea for getting the batter into the cake liners so I had to try it. 

After the batter is ready,  put it in a Ziploc bag and cut the corner, like a make shift frosting bag. Since my mom was in the kitchen with my I had her hold the Ziploc bag but it could also work by lining a bowl or large cup with it. That way it has support. 

Then it's easy from there filling up the liners. I saved SO much time!

I found another Pin to make heart shaped cupcakes and decided to give it a try. All you do is put a marble on the outside of the cupcake liner in each tin.  You can also try rolling aluminum foil instead. 

I do't think my marbles were big enough though because my cupcakes didn't look like hearts. 

I followed the same idea with the cup to hold the bag for the frosting. Again such a time saver I will always do this.  

Paper Heart Wreath

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday just because everything is covered in hearts and PINK! Two of my favorite things.

So I decided to spend my Snow Day creating a paper heart wreath.  The original idea was from The Hybrid Chick.

I changed the directions just a little, like I always do :)

What you need: 
Two sided paper, at least 8 1/2 X 11, in pretty prints
     (I used 12 X 12 Scrapbook paper)
Glue dots or other strong adhesive
Ruler and scissors or paper cutter
Ribbon

Cut each paper into 2 inch strips. (Mine are 2 1/2" wide because I cut around the designs on one of my sheets)

Fold each strip in half. 

Add two or three glue dots to the outside of one of the strips.  

Then fold the the two end of the strip in to form a heart shape. 

After all the hearts are made put 2 glue dots one side of a heart and attach it to another.

Then I slid the ribbon between the two glue dots between two of the hearts. Once the end was on the inside of the wreath I tied a knot to hold it in place.  

I slid the other end of the ribbon between two hearts so there were three hearts in between the ribbon. 

Another Paper Heart Garland

This week I decided to continue my heart decoration theme for my upcoming Pre-Valentines party. It's another simple project that requires little explanation. The original idea came from Happy Clippings.

I used 12" by 12" cardstock paper, cut into 3/4" strips

Fold each strip in half

Then fold the two ends in towards the middle and either staple or glue them together.

For the next heart make sure one side of the strip is on the outside of the first heart and the other end of the strip goes through the heart. Then staple the ends together as before. 

Continue until the garland reaches your desired length. I copied the original poster and I am using it as a chandelier decoration. 

The original post also used two pieces of paper so the outside of each heart was a different color/ design. Just make sure the outside strip is longer than the inside one. 

Buffalo Chicken Goodness

Week two of my Pinterest journey brought a delicious new recipe I will be making often. Mostly because it's so easy. I like meals I don't have to cook when I get home.

I originally found this post on My Kitchen Apron. But I changed the recipe a little.

What you need:

1- 3 lb. of frozen chicken breasts
1- bottle of Franks Wings buffalo sauce
1- packet of ranch seasoning

Put the frozen chicken, wings sauce and ranch packet into the crock pot. The original recipe used the whole bottle but since I don’t have a whole family to feed I used a few pieces of the chicken and only half of the bottle of wings sauce.

Leave the Crockpot on low for at least 6 or 7 hours. Since I did this on a day I worked the chicken sat in the Crockpot for almost 9 hours and was fine.

Then take the chicken out and shred it on a plate. If you leave it in as long as I did you don’t even have to take it out of the pot, it will just fall apart.

Put the shredded chicken back in the Crockpot for another hour to soak up the rest of the wings sauce.

The original recipe said to put have the chicken as a sandwich with pepper-jack cheese but I thought a wrap with lettuce and sour cream, and tomatoes for those who like them, was better.

I am also going to try putting on nachos, on a salad, and as a sandwich.


Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken

3 lb. bag of frozen chicken breasts
1 bottle Frank's Wings Buffalo Sauce
1 packet Ranch Dip Mix
• Put frozen chicken, wing sauce, and ranch dip mix into Crockpot.
• Cook on low at least 6 to 7 hours
• Shred chicken & return to Crockpot.
• Cook on low for an additional hour.

My First Pinterest Craft

I’m off to a good start. This week is the first Pinterest craft, of many to come. In honor of Valentine’s Day I chose to make a paper heart chain.  The picture I pinned is linked to a site in another language. Thankfully the picture is pretty self-explanatory.  Also good because I don’t need to put directions for it on my blog, only pretty pictures.

My Garland for my Valentine's Party

A New Goal for a New Year

I've never been good at sticking to one hobby or activity.  I think I've always had a kind of ADD when it comes to that.  When I was little I tried a season or two of every sport before moving on to a more exciting one.  I couldn't even stay in one club during high school for more than a year.  

So now, a grown up in the working world; I am determined to have a hobby and stick with it for at least a year. Given my track record, my best chance at making it work is to keep it interesting.  Something that is hard to do with one hobby. Enter my newest addiction: Pinterest. 

After two co-workers told me about an addicting new website I had to see it for myself.  I knew it had to be something great when I had to request to join the site.  Luckily my co-workers invited me to join and I was pinning to my hearts content in a few short days. 

I was spending a good hour almost everyday looking at anything and everything that had been pinned. But what good was all this pinning if that is all I did. I started feeling like a hypocrite; saying I was a crafter and a baker but not actually doing any of the things I thought were so ingenious. 

So with my almost 200 pins on my boards I figure I have plenty of crafts to make and recipes to try and a new blog to document my successes and failures at being a world class crafter, baker, chef and organizer. 

So at least one day every week I am going to do something I have pinned and post it on my blog. Hopefully at the end of the year I'll have a collection of crafts, a stockpile of recipes and an attention span lasting longer than the dog from UP!