Pinteresting a Welcome Barbecue

Pin It It's been quite a while since I last blogged.  I don't know what happened to the past three weeks! Anyway, last week was definitely a hectic one as one of my best friends from the Philippines came over for a visit.  Naturally, because it is her first time in the US, she had to be taken on a whirlwind tour of NYC.  I'll save the tips on how we did it way under her budget for another post.

Ever since I got hooked on Pinterest, I had sworn that I would try to do as much of the pins as I can.  I found the perfect opportunity to do so when we had an intimate barbecue to welcome my friend to NY.  While I decided to keep it simple by having a salad, burgers and hotdogs for the main "entree", I (with a lot of help from our guest!) put a little more effort on the appetizers and dessert.

For starters, we had tuna ceviche (recipe in the next post), chips with mango salsa (recipe here), and my Pinterest-inspired mini tacos.  I topped off the mini tacos with mango salsa and they were incredibly easy to assemble and looked impressive on the table.  We made the taco-seasoned ground turkey and mango salsa a day before so we only needed to assemble it before the party.

Finally for dessert, we made what would be my third attempt at banana pudding pie, coconut cupcakes a la Ina Garten frosted via Pinterest instructions, and another Pinterest-inspired dessert of red velvet brownies.

The photo sucks... and so does my frosting skills.  But I imagine with practice and a little bit more generosity with the frosting, my cupcakes will be much prettier in time.

 I followed the red velvet brownie recipe to the letter, except I took them out of the oven about 5 minutes earlier because of the much warmer weather.  They were just fine.  Also, the recipe calls for a white chocolate frosting, which I'm not a big fan of because I find it way too sweet.  So I decided to use Ina Garten's cream cheese frosting, along with some changes as I wrote here.  I also used 1/3 less fat Philadelphia neufchatel cream cheese with no noticeable change in flavor.

All desserts, except for the banana pudding pie, were done ahead of the party so there really wasn't much to do on the day itself.  And most importantly, everybody seemed to enjoy our little gathering and we had an awesome time reminiscing about high school.

Frankenstein Enchiladas

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So it's turning out to be Mexican week.  Mostly because the ingredients were on sale at my grocery store.  And having made tacos last Sunday and chili burritos last week, I had some leftovers.  So to change it up a bit, I decided to put leftovers and extra ingredients from different dishes together in one dish--hence, the post title.  In my last post, I said the pulled chicken tacos were my new favorite Mexican dish to make. I change my mind.  THIS is my new favorite.  Best of all, it was made solely from ingredients that I already had.  One of the things I've learned from watching all these Chopped episodes is even if we're having leftovers, they can be transformed into a whole new dish.

Oh, and just a note, I am completely aware that what I call Mexican is far from authentic. So the recipes I have here are my take on easy homemade Mexican.

They don't look too pretty with my tortillas breaking, but they were GOOD!

leftover pulled chicken from the taco recipe
leftover turkey chili (will include the recipe below)
leftover corn tortillas
leftover sour cream (I use fat free)
leftover shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend, cheddar, and mozzarella)
fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 375-degrees.  Spread some sour cream over the each tortilla.  Add the pulled chicken and top with cheese.  Put just enough to still be able to roll the tortilla.  Place rolled tortilla flaps side down on a greased tray.  Use the turkey chili to top as the enchilada sauce.  Top with cheese.  Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese melts.  Serve with chopped fresh cilantro.

Turkey chili:

1 lb. ground turkey (I use lean--93/7)
about 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large can of tomato sauce (Depends on how thick or soupy you want this, actually)
1 medium onion, diced
chili powder
ground cumin
ground cayenne
ground paprika
1 tsp cocoa powder (I use dark cocoa powder)
salt
pepper

Sautee garlic and onion in a just enough oil to brown the meat (You really don't need a lot).  Add turkey and brown.  Transfer to a slow cooker.  Add tomato sauce, liberal amounts of spices and blackpepper, moderate amount of salt and cocoa powder.  Cook on low for at least three hours to develop the flavors.  Serve as a soup, over rice, in a burrito, or as an enchilada sauce substitute!

Post-Cinco de Mayo Celebration: Pulled Chicken Tacos

Pin It With my last (hopefully) CFA exam looming, I have been unable to find the time away from studying.  But in an effort to keep my hordes of readers (and by hordes, I mean, three) interested, I'm writing about my new favorite Mexican dish to make at home. I've made the barbecue pulled chicken from a recipe that I found on allrecipes.com (I can't seem to find it now, though).  I thought I'd put a Mexican twist by adding my standard spices. It was delicious!  And I made enough to do chicken and cheese enchiladas (along with some leftover turkey chili) tonight.  But that will be for another post.

 For the Chicken:

4 chicken breasts (can be frozen)
1/2 c molasses based barbecue sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's)
1/2 c Italian salad dressing
water
ground cumin
chili powder
onion powder
granulated garlic
ground paprika
ground cayenne (this is very spicy, so use according to your taste)
black pepper

Line the chicken breasts on the bottom of a slow cooker. Add barbecue sauce and Italian dressing.  To make sure there's sufficient liquid covering up to half the chicken breasts, add water.  Add seasonings. Basically, cover the exposed part of the chicken breast with the seasonings.  Use thongs to turn the chicken over to make sure that all sides get in contact with the sauce and seasoning.  Cover and cook on low for at least 3 hours if chicken is thawed and around 6 hours if frozen. Pull or shred the chicken and mix so that it absorbs the juices.  The chicken will be so tender, you will not have a hard time shredding it.  This, of course, can also be done on very low heat on the stove top as long as you're planning on staying inside the house for the duration of the cook time.

Taco:

soft corn tortilla (Love the flavor of this and I discovered they don't have as much sodium as the flour tortilla.  The ones I get actually had no sodium!)
greens (can be shredded cabbage or lettuce.  I used baby spinach just because it was all I had)
salsa (in this case, I used my ever dependable mango salsa.  Recipe in the burrito post.)
sour cream
shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend, but use any cheese you want.)

Warm the tortillas in a 300-degree oven for about 3 minutes on each side.  I like to layer my taco as such:  sour cream, greens, chicken, salsa, then cheese. We also like to add some Frank's Red Hot sauce for an extra punch. Serve and enjoy!

Lower Sodium, Low Fat Burrito

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This is seriously the most requested dish in our household.  We love Mexican food, but the yumminess has some unwanted health consequences.  So instead of getting Mexican food out, I've decided to find out how I can desalinate one of our favorite items on the menu--the burrito. So this is a much lighter version of what you might get at a restaurant.  Now, it does take some effort because of all the components but most of them can be made ahead. And a note, the salsa definitely makes it.

Below, "spice" means a mix of the following (I use dried spices.): cumin, chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper (optional... this is very spicy).  Also, although there are boxed Spanish rice that are easy to make, I found they had insane amounts of sodium. So I decided to make my own.

For the "Spanish" rice

spice mix above (Eyeball the amounts here based on which flavors you want. My general rule, if I can still smell the rice while it's cooking, then I didn't put enough spices.)

onions (1 small one)

tomato (1 will do)

1 1/2 cups uncooked rice

1 1/2 cups chicken stock (I use low sodium... no need for too much salt with all the spices)

In a pot, sautee onions in oil, then add tomatoes when onions are slightly translucent. Add the uncooked rice and season with the spice mix. Sautee a bit until rice is covered with the oil, spice mix, etc. Add chicken stock.  Bring to a boil then lower the heat. Stir occasionally to prevent rice from being sticky. If it's drying up but not yet cooked, add a bit more chicken stock.  You would rather have the rice a bit dry (but cooked!) than gummy. This will take around 20 minutes. Set aside.

For the salsa

2-3 tomatoes

1 onion (I like to use white.)

1 large slightly unripe mango (You want it to have a bit of a crispness, but slightly tangy and sweet)

fresh cilantro (depends how much u want)

salt and pepper

1/2 lemon (or lime or dayap, but lemon preferred)

Dice tomatoes, onions, and mangoes. Put all in a bowl.  Season salt and pepper.  Chiffonade fresh cilantro and add to salsa.  Finally, add the juice of the lemon. Toss all together (This is actually better if you let it sit for a few hours to allow flavors to blend well, so you can definitely make ahead.).

For the chicken

2 chicken breasts (Each sliced butterfly style for thinner cutlets.)

spice mix above

salt and pepper

Rub spice mix and salt and pepper onto the chicken.  Either bake this at 375-degrees F for 20 minutes or grill or cook in a bit of oil in pan (not really fry).  Let it rest about 5 minutes before slicing into strips so juices won't run out.

Optional substitute for the chicken

ground meat (turkey, beef or pork)

spice mix

garlic

onion

salt and pepper

Sautee garlic and onion.  Add and brown the meat.  Season with spice mix, salt, and pepper.

Building the Burrito

I use two large flour tortillas for each burrito. Overlap them like a Venn diagram. Spread sour cream, then the rice, chicken, salsa, and grated cheese (Mexican blend or cheddar).  You can add hot sauce for additional kick.  Wrap the burrito by closing the sides first, then bring the end closest to you towards the other end.

Put in the oven for about 10 mins at 350-deg. This crisps up the tortilla and melts the cheese.