Chicken and cheese enchiladas

I love Mexican food. Love it, love it, love it. You'd think I'd be able to find decent Mexican food in my area (being in California and all...) but no. Sadly, all the good ones have shut down in the recession. Damn you, economy!

Regardless, I've drowned my sorrows in homemade enchiladas. Actually, I'm not really sad the restaurants are gone. My enchiladas are delicious. They just take a while (warning!), and they're definitely comfort food (code for "not healthy"). If you're imagining the wimpy enchiladas in the restaurants (you know, the ones that you can easily scarf down 3 or 4 of... don't lie, I'm watching you) then you are WRONG! The family calls these mini-burritos. I concur. I can normally take 1.5-2 each meal. :)

Side note: I just realized that my recipes- especially recent ones- usually serve 8-10. As you can tell, I usually make enough for dinner plus seconds (leftovers). Meh. The more the better.

Chicken and Chees

e Enchiladas (serves 8-10)

• • 4-5 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced (or if you're lazy like me, I buy pre-cooked, sliced chicken breasts from Costco that are ready to eat!)
• 1 chopped onion
• 1/2 cup non-fat sour cream
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 TB dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
• 1 TB chili powder
• 1 chopped bell pepper, green (or any color of your choice)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 10 flour tortillas
• 3/4 c shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 small jar enchilada sauce (notice I didn't add salt earlier. I get enough from the sauce, honestly)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Cook chicken in a skillet thoroughly (until meat is no longer pink and juices are clear) with 2

TB oil if using a non-stick pan. Drain the excess fat and liquid from the meat. Or if you're lazy,

like me, and used pre-cooked chicken slices, saute for a bit to warm them up. Return to heat and

add onions, sour cream, cheese, parsley, oregano, black pepper. Stir and heat until cheese melts

and the sauce combines.

3. Stir in tomato sauce, chili powder, green pepper, and garlic. Heat for a few minutes.

4. Prepare your 9x13 baking dish. For easy clean up, I line the dish with aluminum foil. From experience, the tortillas usually stick to the pan, so spray the dish with non-stick spray (or you can use some of the enchilada sauce and spread it out on the bottom before adding enchiladas).

5. Add even amounts of the mixture into the tortillas (typically 3/4 - 1cup??) and roll up tightly. Arrange them carefully in the dish. Pour enchilada sauce over the top and the cheese.

6. Bake uncovered in the oven for 20 minutes. Serve. Yum!

Curried Carrot Squash Soup

Happy 2010, everybody! Sorry for the delay. I realize I've already promised so much... oh the enchiladas, the soups, the cakes! To make up for it, I'm posting it all today so keep your eyes peeled =)

A soup that I've been making quite often lately is my favorite carrot soup... but with a kick. Spiced up with curry powder and combined with squash, this hearty soup is perfect for cold weather. With nothing but vegetables, broth, and milk (if you're feeling luxurious), it's healthy and delicious and INCREDIBLY easy to make. Most of the work is in the prep! I've seen recipes that call for yellow squash over zucchini. Honestly, I don't taste the difference, though yellow squash will probably have a more mellow flavor in the soup. I personally love using a combo of both yellow squash and zucchini, because zucchini leaves nice little specks of green color in your soup when you blend it. It's a beautiful sea of orange and green!

• 
  

Curried Carrot and Squash Soup (Serves 8-10)

• 2 TB EVOO
• 5-6 cloves garlic, roughly minced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6-7 whole carrots, peeled and thinly sliced (or 4-5 if big sized carrots)
• 3 yellow squash OR 3 zucchini OR 1 yellow squash + 2 zucchini (my favorite!), thinly sliced
• 1-1.5 tsp. curry powder (if you like your soup 'spicy', try 1.-2 tsp., but i prefer a nice kick and not too spicy)
• 1/4-1/2 tsp garam masala (optional - it rounds out the flavors)
• 3 14.5 oz cans of chicken broth
• salt and pepper to taste

This soup recipe is insanely good for you. Squashes have been found to have anti-cancer effects, while carrots are a great source of vitamin A and antioxidants. Overall, caloric estimation is less than 100 calories per serving (bowl size), even with the milk included!

1. Heat oil in a big pot over medium. Add your curry powder and garam masala to the oil and stir to cook for about 30 seconds. You want to heat up your spices so the flavors come out before you add everything else!

2. Add garlic and onions and cook until soft (but they don't need to be fully caramelized as they will continue cooking). About 3-4 minutes.

3. Add carrots and squash. Cook for another 10 minutes until they are soft. Salt and pepper to taste.

4. When all of your vegetables are soft, add chicken brother. Bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover your pot and simmer for 35-45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Using an immersion blender, puree soup to a consistency of your choice. I personally like little chunks. You can also use a regular blender, but blend in batches and be careful.

6. In my opinion, the soup is already good... but the real kicker is adding 1/2-3/4 cup of milk. I like skimmed milk, but reduced-fat milk or heavy cream are incredibly delicious as well (duh). Add milk to taste, depending on how creamy you want your soup to be.

7. Heat for another few minutes so the milk is fully incorporated.

8. Enjoy!

I'm starving at 4am!

What do I do when I'm bored and can't fall asleep at 4am? I search for food blogs. Found a few new delightful ones, including "Framed", which has phenomenal salad recipes, and "Honest Fare" has a great recipe for cherry clafouti that I'll change to mixed berries (I have a healthy cherry version from England, to be posted later). 6 Bittersweets is pretty much a cupcake blog (includes vegan recipes) with the most tasty-sounding cupcakes you'll ever see. Like tiramisu cupcake or bananas foster cupcake . "Brownies for Dinner" loves her desserts (could you guess?). Just explore. I'd list everything for you but I'm making myself drool...

I don't call myself hungry girl for nuttin', ya know...

Too many recipes! Too little time and energy!

I made fabulous veg enchiladas and chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight. It's been my dish of all dishes for about more than a year now. Simple in ingredients but full of flavor. I'll post them up soon.

Healthy Cranberry Walnut Muffins

The parents wanted muffins... the siblings wanted breakfast food... so given the usual fare of butter-laden, sugary muffins, I wanted to make a "healthy" muffins. I came across a recipe for Cranberry Walnut Muffins on Ezine @rticles. I made small adjustments.

Here's the thing... I trust my food blogs (see right column) and my usual All Recipes, Simply Recipes, Epicurious, Gourmet, and Food Network websites. But I was curious... and I was a bit disappointed. The muffins were good. Not stellar. The family reviews were mixed. My mother adored them. The younger siblings complained (but mostly because they don't like anything without chocolate?). I think it's a solid (metaphorically speaking), good muffin. I straddle the line and can't tell. On days when I want a pastry without the guilt, I can make this. Tasty enough to satisfy a craving. Healthy to make you feel great!

The muffins are incredibly low in fat. The changes are subtle, though the one thing I would change is the orange-y taste of the muffins. Even when cutting out the orange peel, I felt like the orange flavor was too strong. But that's just me. I don't like orange-y desserts. I'll eat orange chocolate, for example, but I never want or love it. (Sacriligious! I know!) The combo of oats, whole wheat flour, walnuts and applesauce are a delightful combo for a healthy muffin. If you're diabetic or cutting out sugar from your diet, you can use splenda. Also, use no sugar added applesauce!

Pros:

- Healthy, guilt-free!

- Super easy and quick to throw together

- Very moist muffins

- Love the walnuts

Cons:

- Orange-y

- Felt like there were too many cranberries

- Doesn't have butter (I'm starting to sound like Paula Deen now)

- Batter came out very wet... good moist muffins but had to bake longer than expected

Whole Wheat Cranberry Walnut Muffins

• 3/4 cup APF (if you're forgetting my lingo, refer to earlier post)
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar (I wonder how brown sugar would change the flavor...)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (I would also consider adding 1/2 - 1 tsp of all spice? I wanted more flavor!)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup orange juice (I would reduce to a little more than 3/4... 1 cup seemed too much)
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 dried cranberries (based on personal preference, I'd reduce to 1/3)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix both flours, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon.

2. In a separate bowl, beat egg, orange juice, and applesauce until combined. Add mixture to flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Do NOT overmix the batter. Batter will have a lumpy appearance.

3. Fold in cranberries and walnuts. Fill in your muffin tins.

4. Made about 14 smaller muffins (or 12 big ones) for me, depending on how you fill your tins. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until golden brown. I personally preferred that the muffins baked longer, because the batter was very wet and I wanted to make sure everything was cooked all the way through. 25 minutes gave me a nice crunchy top and maintained the very moist inside. These babies were pretty dense muffins!

Chocolate Chip Cookies a la Olive Oil

From today onward, Chocolate Chip Cookies shall henceforth be called CCC. One of my favorite (nerdy) classes in college was physics, and while the inner scientist in me has never manifested herself, I do love myself a good read through Scientific American and Science Magazine. Maybe I loved physics so much because the professor used CCC analogies for everything. Yes, CCC = explanation of life.

I've baked a lot of different recipes. The differences are typically subtle, unpronounced, and delicious regardless (I mean, how can you really mess up sugar, eggs, butter, chocolate?!... okay don't answer. I just jinxed myself.)

I found a recipe for CCC made with olive oil from The Crepes of Wrath, whose author was inspired by Slice of Feist. I love how small the cooking world is now that everything's online. Olive oil?! Really?! Yeah... I was curious.

Here are my thoughts:

- The cookies are much fluffier and lighter than I expected.

- Baking cookies with olive oil still smells great... but when my brother came downstairs his first response was "it smells like pasta". I disagree, but whatevs.

- If you can, beat/mix by machine not by hand. It's a lot of hard work! But I think that goes for baking in general... I was too lazy to use the machine. (Yeah yeah, I know it doesn't make sense since machines are supposed to make your life easier but don't judge me).

-I found the batter very sticky... so I personally would not use my hands to roll balls. I just took a spoon and dropped them by a giant, heaping spoonful.

I feel healthier eating these (compared to eating regular CCC made from butter, of course). Cookies are cookies. But made with olive oil, I feel like I've cut down on my saturated and trans fat, mom! Whenever I cook healthier, I like to change the fat contents a bit (either using a butter+oliveoil mixture for dishes or using half applesauce for baked dishes)... but I'm not a big fan of baking with fake sugar. Splenda in my coffee? Sure, but in moderation. I'd take 2 TB of real sugar over 10 lbs of fake sugar anytime. I say enjoy life at its fullest.... just eat well and live well.

BUT, at the end of the day, taste-wise I still prefer traditional butter with my CCC. These cookies are fluffy and delicious, but you can definitely taste a hint of olive oil. I wonder what would happen to the flavors if I did 1/8 c EVOO and 1/8 c apple sauce? Okay, getting too complicated. Anyway, if you want something tasty and "healthier", give this a try. It's good... but I'll be experimenting with more CCC recipes. Coming up!

UPDATE: These cookies are even better the next day! No one would ever know that you used Olive Oil. No hint at all. They are still soft, chewy, and delicious. IGNORE my last comment above.

Chocolate Chip Cookies w/ Olive Oil

• 2 1/4 cups APF (All purpose flour)
  
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cups EVOO (Extra virgin olive oil)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 or 2 TB of milk
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I like the big chocolate chunks from Nestle)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt.

2. In a separate bowl, mix sugars, vanilla, and oil. Beat in eggs one at a time. Slowly mix in the flour mixture, making sure it's well incorporated.

3. Add a TB of milk to make the dough a bit softer... if you think it's still too dry, add another teaspoon to tablespoon if necessary. In my personal experience, the dough was still a bit sticky when I added a grand total of 2 TB of milk, but no worries. The cookies still came out great.

4. You can roll dough balls with your hands, but I just used a big spoon. The dough balls don't need to be perfectly round. They flatten out nicely anyway.

5. Bake for 10-12 minutes. I ended up with about 12-14 big cookies, so I baked the full 12-12 1/2 minutes to make sure they were baked all the way through.

6. Allow them to cool before you indulge. I greedily tried to pick up a cookie while it was still piping hot, and ripped out its innards as it was soft and therefore stuck on the lined baking sheet. =)

Potato Leek Soup

Without school or a job, you'd think I'd be more productive by posting more often, particularly since I've been cooking up a storm. Wrong. My laziness overcomes me. (Just kidding... it's been quite a crazy year) But I digress.

As the cold Californian winter sets in at a chilly 70some degrees, I decided soup was to be made. I do love my soup. I love potato leek soup, but my biggest concern is the amount of fat in traditional recipes. Most recipes call for heavy cream or half and half, but I found that substituting milk (even skim milk, dare I say!) works perfectly well depending on your taste buds. The taste of fresh leeks and potatoes were incredible. However, if you prefer creamier soup (as my family did), you can substitute heavy cream or half and half (or go 50% milk, 50% half and half if you feel creative).

(Sorry no pictures today. My camera fails me.... and the state of my kitchen is currently unfit for photographing)

Potato Leek Soup

• 3 TB butter (or 2 TB butter + 1-2 TB olive oil to cut down on saturated fat)
  
• 3 leeks, thinly sliced
• 1 medium or large onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3-4 large russet or 6-8 yukon gold potatoes, thinly sliced (using a food processor is great, skin optional)
• 3-4 cups chicken broth (enough to barely cover potatoes)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• salt to taste
• fresh ground black pepper to taste

1. Melt butter in a pot over medium heat and add your onions, garlic, and leeks. Cook and stir frequently until you've caramelized everything (translucent, almost browned).

2. Add the potatoes and pour in the chicken broth to just cover the potatoes. Cook until potatoes are tender (usually 15+ minutes). Remember to scrape the bottom of the pan to prevent burning... the brown potato bits are delicious!

3. Using a hand blender or a potato masher, mash and stir potatoes until you get a thick, chunky soup. Blend to your desired consistency. Continue stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot.

4. Add your cup of milk (you can add more, depending on your preferences), salt, and pepper. Continue cooking for 5 minutes until the milk is well incorporated.

Serve hot, preferably with freshly baked bread on the side. (Recipe for honey whole wheat coming up soon?)

Chicken Noodle Soup for your soul (and stomach)

Alas, I have been remiss in my duties. Exams and travel have gotten in the way of my blogging. But fear no more! Recipes, pictures, and restaurant reviews are on their way!

I've been in the mood for soups lately. Unfortunately you can't tell as I've only posted a handful of recipes. Fortunately for you the list will expand, and you'll see that my soup recipes take up a hefty proportion! Maybe it's the unpredictable English weather that wavers from sunny and warm to drizzly and numbing. Or maybe it's just because 

soup is AWESOME. 

One of my favorites, and the easiest to make, is Chicken Noodle Soup. Growing up with non-Western parents, I didn't grow up eating this when sick. So the first time I made it, I played around and came up with a chicken noodle soup heartier than I imagined. I made two versions. The first, and my favorite, one is posted below. The second followed the same recipe, except I did not have celery and added spinach instead. The spinach dulled the flavor a bit, but the soup was still amazing. For the extra nutritional bonus, I'm definitely keeping it in future recipes but perhaps in smaller doses. 

Loaded with lean protein (if you use chicken breast) and vitamins and minerals from all of vegetables, the soup is also very low in fat. Just google the nutritional values of the sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, garlic and onions, and you'll see why this soup is a winner, especially if you're under the weather. I teamed it up with orange juice for good measure, the first time. I particularly love adding sweet potatoes (or yams). It's untraditional but adds a nice creamy sweetness to the broth and infinitely more flavorful than regular potatoes. I would just skip regular potatoes if you don't have sweet potatoes. But it's up to you!

Note that I never follow a precise recipe for this soup. I generally throw in whatever I have and add or subtract based on how it tastes. You really can't go wrong with a broth-based soup. Preparation and cooking time are about 1-1.5 hours, depending on how quick you are. Yum!

(Soup with orange juice. Double the power...)

(Soup with spinach experiment)

Chicken Noodle Soup (Services 6-8)

• Diced Chicken Breast or Thigh (3-4 cups or about 4-5 breasts)
• 1-1.5 Large Carrots, diced
• 2 Stalks of Celery, diced
• 2 Sweet Potatoes, skinned and diced
• 1 Large Onion, diced
• 3-4 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 6-8 cups of chicken stock (add water to flavor to your liking)
• Salt and Pepper to your liking (optional, I don't add any)
  
• 2 tspn Thyme
• 1-2 tspn Ground Ginger (or use 1 TB fresh ginger preferably)
• 2-3 cups Egg Noodles, Linguine, or Pasta (your preference) 

1. If you are using stock cubes, then add 450ml of boiling water to each cube. I use 4 cubes to make this soup. If you are using broth, bring all of it to a boil. Add thyme, ginger, garlic and onions. Let it boil for a minute or two so all the flavors are incorporated into the broth. 

2. Add everything else, except for the noodles. Reduce to a simmer.  Allow to cook for 35-40 minutes until chicken is cooked all the way through and potatoes are soft.  (If you are using spinach, add it in the last 10 minutes. Let it wilt all the way and turn a dark green.)

3. Add your choice of noodles. Cook it in the soup for as long as the package instructs. When I used fusilli, I cooked it for 10 minutes in simmering soup. 

4. Add any salt, pepper, or herbs to your liking. Once you see that the chicken is cooked all the way, the vegetables practically melt in your mouth, and the noodles are well cooked (I would recommend soft noodles, not al dente).... Enjoy!

UPDATE: The soup tastes every better the next day. If I had kids, this would be a great way to get them to eat their spinach. I simply added spinach to the soup and simmered it until the leaves became wilted and soft and dark green. Delicious. And healthy!