Category: International - Simple Everyday Food

crockpot cilantro lime chicken tacos

Posted by :Amy On : May 5, 2013

Tags:chicken, crockpot, meats, mexican, tacos

It’s midquarter already – that means there’s only about 5 more weeks of class until summer. But it also means that there’s only 5 weeks left until all 5 of my projects are due.

Well, since it’s the weekend and it’s the perfect time to catch up on homework, what better meals to prepare than something in a Crockpot? Something simple, something healthy, and something tasty. Then I won’t have to slave in the kitchen for hours prepping and cooking.

crockpot cilantro lime chicken tacos

2013-05-05 20:46:21

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Ingredients

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
Juice from 2 limes
1/2 cup of cilantro
1 packet of taco seasoning
1/4 cup diced onions
1/2 cup of water
Salt & pepper
Taco tortillas

Instructions

In a 3-5 quart Crockpot, combine everything except the chicken. Stir well, then add the chicken.
Cook on low for about 4-6 hours or until the chicken is tender enough to shred with a fork.
Take the chicken out and place on a plate. Shred, then drizzle some of the remaining sauce over the chicken to keep it moist.
Spoon the chicken mixture into soft taco tortillas. Top with your favorite toppings.

Notes

We cooked the chicken for about 8 hours and it turned out a tad on the dry side. It was already very tender at about the 4-6 hour mark, so next time we'll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it stays juicy.

By Simple Everyday Food

Adapted from The Vintage Grove

Simple Everyday Food https://www.simpleeverydayfood.com/

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Another bonus of making Crockpot meals – not a whole lot of dishes to clean up in the end!

Oh hey, just in time for Cinco de Mayo!

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from The Vintage Grove

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deconstructed enchilada casserole

Posted by :Amy On : April 6, 2013

Category: International, Pasta

Tags:enchiladas, mexican, Pasta

Last night while I took a break from studying, I decided to do a little meal planning for the weekend.

You see, when we get to have the weekend off together, I spend Thursday nights planning on what we should have for our weekend dinners, usually along with some sort of munchies or dessert.

Well, what I originally planned to be a quick 30 minute break turned out to be a 3 hour break – surfing the Internet, searching for new fun recipes to try, and this is one of them I was quite excited to try right away.

Other than burritos, enchiladas are probably one of my favorite Mexican dishes. I’ve made stacked enchiladas a few weeks back, and I also have a recipe somewhere for some yummy traditional enchiladas as well. Since it’s Friday night and I really don’t want to slave over the stove for hours making a meal, this enchilada casserole sounded like the perfect idea.

Simply put, this dish is basically a deconstructed enchilada with everything mixed together, minus the tortilla.

Meat – check.

Enchilada sauce – check.

Sour cream – check.

Diced chiles – check.

Cheese – check.

Trust me, if you’re short on time but want something the whole family would like, this is definitely worth a try. The hubs loved it so much that he suggested to put this recipe into our “repeat” box.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 pound ground turkey
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
4 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
10-oz can red enchilada sauce
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese, divided
1 cup frozen corn kernels
4 oz canned diced green chiles
12 ounces egg noodles
Salt & pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large pot, cook egg noodles according to package instructions.
In a super large skillet (or as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I love using woks, so I used a wok instead), brown the ground turkey, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Drain excess fat, and add in the chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper. Stir to combine.
Add in the cream cheese. Stir until cream cheese is melted and thoroughly combined.
In a medium sized bowl, combine the sour cream, enchilada sauce, half of the two cheeses, corn, and green chiles. Stir to combine.
Add the sauce mixture to the meat mixture. Stir. Let simmer for a few minutes.

Being in the healthcare field, I could come up with a few things this mixture reminded me of… but don’t let that deter you! I promise it smells AND tastes delicious, and it will look a lot more appealing in the end!

When the pasta is done, drain the pasta, then add it to the beef mixture. Make sure you give it a good toss to make sure all the egg noodles are all evenly coated with the sauce.
Pour in the pasta mixture into a large casserole dish and top with the remaining cheeses.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cheese has completely melted.

Enjoy!

Deconstructed Enchilada Casserole

2013-04-06 08:42:20

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Ingredients

1 pound ground turkey
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
4 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
10-oz can red enchilada sauce
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese, divided
1 cup frozen corn kernels
4 oz canned diced green chiles
12 ounces egg noodles
Salt & pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large pot, cook egg noodles according to package instructions.
In a super large skillet (or as I've mentioned in previous posts, I love using woks, so I used a wok instead), brown the ground turkey, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Drain excess fat, and add in the chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper. Stir to combine.
Add in the cream cheese. Stir until cream cheese is melted and thoroughly combined.
In a medium sized bowl, combine the sour cream, enchilada sauce, half of the two cheeses, corn, and green chiles. Stir to combine.
Add the sauce mixture to the meat mixture. Stir. Let simmer for a few minutes.
When the pasta is done, drain the pasta, then add it to the beef mixture. Make sure you give it a good toss to make sure all the egg noodles are all evenly coated with the sauce.
Pour in the pasta mixture into a large casserole dish and top with the remaining cheeses.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cheese has completely melted.

By Simple Everyday Food

Adapted from Table for Two

Simple Everyday Food https://www.simpleeverydayfood.com/

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Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Recipe adapted from Table for Two

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crockpot carnitas

Posted by :Amy On : March 25, 2013

Category: International, Meat/Poultry

Tags:crockpot, meats, mexican, pork

Chipotle is perhaps my favorite fast-food restaurant. Their food is light, not greasy, fast, and it’s relatively healthy compared to other fast food restaurants.

It also has a special place in my heart. Back in my skating days, me and my skating buddies would always stop by Chipotle afterwards to grab a bite to eat before going home. In the winter, we would go to the one a few blocks away from the Metrodome; in the summer, we’d stop by the one right by Lake Calhoun, sit outside, and enjoy the warm summer sun.

I may be a small petite, 96-pound lady, but when it comes to eating Chipotle burritos, my stomach always seem to expand to twice its size. Instead of explaining further, let me just include a picture of my burrito compared to the hubs from a while back (mine is the one on the right):

All I put on mine are rice, carnitas, pico de gallo, extra corn, and lettuce. No beans, no sour cream, and no cheese. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but somehow when you pile everything up on a flour tortilla, they always have problems wrapping it together…

Since the hubs and I are still on the “healthy, no eating out” diet, I decided to make Chipotle at home, and made some carnitas in the crockpot. This recipe is super easy (just like most crockpot recipes), and the carnitas turned out to be super tender and flavorful as well.

Ingredients:

3-4 pound pork shoulder, with most of the fat trimmed off
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 salsa – I used a non-chunky kind

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine the salt, cumin, chili powder, black pepper, oregano, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper.

In a separate bowl, combine the lime juice, orange juice, and salsa.

Rub garlic onto the pork shoulder, and place into slow cooker. Then rub all the spices evenly onto the meat. Add the juice/salsa mixture. Cover and cook for 7-8 hours.

Preheat the broiler. Meanwhile, take the meat out of the crockpot and place onto a oven-safe dish (I used a casserole dish). Shred meat with two forks. Ladle in about 2-3 cups of the cooking liquid into the casserole dish and broil for 5-10 minutes until the edges are brown on the pork.

Serve on rice or tortillas with any toppings of your choice (hot sauce, sour cream, cheese, etc).

I made some cilantro lime rice (from a post a few weeks back), pico de gallo, corn salsa, and some shredded lettuce to go with our Mexican dinner. Instead of regular flour tortillas, we brought some jalapeno cheddar wraps to spice it up a bit.

Enjoy and have a great week, folks!

Recipe adapted from Pinch of Yum

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shrimp fried rice

Posted by :Amy On : March 11, 2013

Category: International

Tags:asian, rice, shrimp

Being Asian and growing up eating authentic Asian food, I’m always searching for good restaurants and recipes that bring back childhood memories.

Just a little background info: about 99% of Asian moms like my mother cook without using a recipe book. They don’t use measuring cups, they don’t use measuring spoons, and they don’t have recipe books. The next generation learns to cook from watching their mothers in the kitchen. Everything is cooked using the “guess-timate” technique. If something didn’t have enough salt, just add a little bit more in there and taste it again. Still not enough? Add some more until it tastes good.

How much salt total did that dish just take?

Yep, since everything is based on the “taste test”, I’ve never gotten any written recipes from my mom. Everything that I try to recreate is based on memories.

That being said, I love fried rice. And me being a fan of seafood, I’m a really big fan of shrimp fried rice. The flavors of fried rice in Taiwan is something that the Chinese-American restaurants just couldn’t recreate (at least I haven’t found a place here in the Twin Cities that can). I’m not saying this recipe is 100% authentic, but it’s pretty tasty, and I guess that’s all it matters.

Ingredients:

2 eggs, beaten
A bunch of scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
Salt and pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveind
1 cup shredded carrots
3 cups cooked rice – I used brown rice to make it a little healthier
1.5 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon water

Directions:

In a large skillet, scramble the eggs with the scallion whites with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
In the same skillet over medium heat, cook the shrimp with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then transfer to the plate with the eggs and set aside.
In the same skillet (again), slightly cook the carrots with the scallion greens until it’s no longer crunchy – I like my carrots cooked well, not raw and crunchy.

In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, and water.
In the skillet (if you have a wok, a wok would be better), heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add the rice and soy sauce mixture and stir until warmed through. Then add the eggs, shrimp, and carrots. Toss until everything is evenly mixed.

Enjoy!

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stacked enchiladas with cilantro lime rice

Posted by :Amy On : February 24, 2013

Category: International

Tags:chicken, enchiladas, mexican, rice

Well, the weekend’s coming to an end, and tomorrow’s everyone’s favorite day of the week: Monday. In our household, every other weekend are the only days my husband and I get to spend quality time with each other – this usually means doing homework together, running errands together, and cooking together (and making enough so we’ve got plenty of leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch). We like to try new recipes, and deciding whether we should add them to our “remake”or “meh I didn’t really care for it” recipe box.

The stacked enchiladas we made tonight are a twist on regular enchiladas. Instead of serving them like they traditionally do, we stacked them, turning them into a “enchilada lasagna”.

What else goes well with enchiladas?

Rice. Cilantro lime rice. The kind they have at Chipotle – my favorite Mexican joint. Next time I’m making some carnitas and making my own burrito!

First, enchiladas…

Ingredients:

1 green pepper, chopped
2 teaspoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1.5-2 cups shredded chicken – we roasted a chicken last night so we used the leftovers
1/3 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup enchilada sauce
1/2 cup picante sauce
4 8″ corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cheese
other toppings of your choice – sour cream, shredded lettuce…

Note: if you like black beans in your enchiladas, you can also add one cup of canned black beans as well.

Directions:

Preheat oven at 350 degrees
Grease a 9″ pie plate, set aside.
In a large skillet, saute the green pepper in the oil for about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until the green pepper is crisp-tender.
Stir in the chicken, green onions (and black beans if desired), cook for another minute. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

In the same skillet, combine the enchilada sauce and picante sauce. Coat both sides of a tortilla with the sauce mixture, then place it in the pie plate. Top with 1/3 of the chicken mixture and 1/4 cup of cheese.

Repeat the layers twice. Top with remaining tortilla, sauce, and cheese.
Bake at 20-22 minutes or until heated through. Cut into wedges and serve with sour cream or lettuce if desired.

Now, for the rice….

Ingredients:

1 cup basmati rice
2 cups water
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1/2 a lime
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
1 tablespoon oil

Directions:

In a large pot, saute the rice in the oil for about a minute. Add the water and bay leaf, bring to a boil.
Once the water boils, turn heat down, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove from heat while still keeping the cover on the pot. Let stand for about 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf, then transfer rice to a large mixing bowl.
In the meantime, combine the salt and lime juice in a small bowl. Whisk until all the salt is dissolved, then add in the cilantro.