I've had two recipes on repeat this winter, and I love them so much that one week I realized I had eaten the same entree for at least seven meals in a row! Since I've enjoyed them so much I thought I would share them with you.
My recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup is a combination of several different recipes I found online; the Velveeta Cheese makes it creamy and rich. This recipe is easily altered by adding a can of black beans, corn, or by using spicy Rotel instead of the original, etc.
3 chicken breasts (which you can cook/shred beforehand or during the process)
2 regular size cans of Original Rotel
2 (10 ounce) can mild enchilada sauce (if you want it spicy, use medium)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth (you may want one more can--it just depends on how thick you want your soup to be)
1 and ½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1-2 bay leaf
Velveeta cheese (about an inch or two wide "slice" cut into cubes)
Put everything except for the Velveeta in a crock pot and stir, cover, and cook on low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on high setting for 3 to 4 hours. After a few hours I remove the chicken breasts and shred them with two forks. About 30-60 minutes before the soup is finished cooking, drop the Velveeta cubes into the pot...once they melt, stir again. Serve with tortilla chips & sour cream.
My other repeat recipes is Chicken Tortilla Casserole, which I believe my co-worker got from Parents.com:
3 cups shredded, cooked chicken (you could easily use more if you want)
1 packet (1.25 ounce)taco seasoning
2 cups salsa verde
9 fajita-size flour tortillas
1 can (15.5 ounces)refried beans, warmed in microwave
8 ounces sour cream
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Directions
1.Heat oven to 350°. Mix chicken, taco seasoning, 1/2 cup water and salsa verde in a skillet. Simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes.
2.Coat 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. Cover bottom of pan with 3 flour tortillas, overlapping. Pour half of the chicken mixture on the tortillas. Cover with 3 more tortillas. Spread with warmed beans and the sour cream.
3.Sprinkle half the cheese over the beans and sour cream, and cover with the remaining 3 tortillas. Top with remaining chicken mixture, followed by remaining cheese. Bake at 350° for 25 to 28 minutes, until bubbly. I serve this with chips to and think it's even better reheated the next day.
Happy new week!
p.s. I'm grateful for my niece Mallie's first birthday party and the time with family.
Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, May 11, 2009
You Could Be the Lucky Winner
The Rescues' "Break Me Out" has been on repeat for the last two weeks or so, and the song pretty well got me through the road race I ran on Saturday morning. Why did I think running four miles on a hilly mountain at 8 a.m. would be fun? It was my first road race in about six years, and I never seemed to catch my breath and had a side stitch for the first time in ages. There was no mile marker for mile two, so I kept running, thinking I still wasn't half-way through which really psyched me out. Starting my Saturday with my friend CC was really fun though, and afterward I went to a yoga class (thanks to a free one week pass...paying $14/class wouldn't fit in my budget) for 75 minutes at a for-real yoga studio (as opposed to yoga at the gym where you can hear the blaring music and weirdos can watch you through the window). Very chill and calming. Tomorrow I'm trying hot yoga...100+ degrees. Should be interesting.
Saturday I baked for over three hours for our Mother's Day lunch and created something delicious....chocolate cupcake slathered with marshmallow cream and topped with peanut butter frosting. Crazy good combo.
Speaking of sheer yumminess, the other day I made caramel cheese cream frosting for the first time for a baby shower at my place, and it was so sweet it almost burned. I highly recommend the recipe.
Saturday night was the third date with my neighbor Clay. We went to a wonderful restaurant that was new to me and ate outside, sitting for several hours and just talking. Then we made the mistake of renting an inappropriate third date movie: The Reader. The first half was pretty much just a woman in her mid-30s (Kate Winslet) having sex with a 16 year old boy over and over. I could opine further, but I'll refrain. As soon as the sex stuff started, Clay asserted that "for the record" I'd chosen the movie. Sunday when I got back from church I found a book I wanted to borrow and note outside my door--fun surprise. Funny, we just now exchanged phone numbers. Date #4 is on Wednesday; we're grilling out.
Sunday my family had a great Mother's Day lunch at my sister's house, and she made super cute fruit kebobs. It was fun to be with my nieces, and I watched another mediocre movie with my mom (Nights in Rodanthe) that night.
So wanna play a game? Whoever comes the closest to guessing my time for the 4 mile road race gets a prize. And lets make the prize cupcakes/cookies/sweets of your choice or for more healthy people some great music. You have until Friday at 9 a.m. to guess.
p.s. I'm grateful that I'm working at home tomorrow and can chill/work on my sofa, at a coffee shop, or on my balcony.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Would I Recommend Match?
Bone posed this question earlier this week in a comment, so here goes it.
My friend wrote the following about his experience on Match: "I would compare it to searching for a slice of hot pizza in a pasture. There's always a chance you'll find one but you're more likely to run into a thousand cow pies first!" Based on my three weeks (and a ton of hours) on Match, I'd have to agree.
Match reports that my profile has been viewed 2,278 times, which is sort of creepy. I've have read and deleted over 100 e-mails without responding (but for at least half of those I read their profile). Received a lot of "winks." I'd guesstimate that I have responded to less than 25 men, including one very attractive guy in Atlanta who wrote me three times because he was dumbfounded that I didn't respond to his emails ("I am surprised you did not write me back. Not to be cocky at all, but I get so many nice compliments about my profile. I would of thought you would of found it very appealing."). I could tell my lack of reply was making his head hurt, so I finally wrote back and explained why I wasn't interested.
I think that if I were not looking for a Christian whose faith is similar to mine, my Match experience would be very different and more positive. I'm ruling out all other faiths or lack thereof from the get-go--plus I generally will not respond to a man who indicates in his "My Date" section that he does not care what faith a prospective date is. I realize that may seem narrow, but if a man is willing to marry someone who doesn't share his faith then we believe different things about marriage and scripture. A lot of my e-mails back and forth with guys has been fleshing out their faith because in the South most people consider themselves a Christian, and it can mean anything from "I was raised by Baptist parents but have never personally practiced any religion" to "I'm a good person" (not what I'm looking for, btw) to "holy roller."
Of course, faith and religion are better discussed in person, and e-mail only makes the exchange of belief more cumbersome. But most of the guys I'm corresponding with live in ATL, Nashville, or Knoxville, so it's not like we can just grab a cup of coffee and chat. So in short, if you're fairly open and not looking for someone as specific as I am (you know, a Christian faith like mine, 28-37, athletic/fit, playful, preferably really tall, educated, decent writer, funny, intelligent, and so forth) then I'd recommend Match. And really, what can it hurt? One month costs $22, and there's a few guys I'd consider meeting. One has asked to take me out, but I'm sort of dragging my feet. I think I just need to make myself do it. It's hard to get excited about someone on a computer screen, I guess.
In other news, I made cupcakes tonight for a friend's birthday. I used a Betty Crocker fudge chocolate box mix because I worked late, and I must say....from scratch is really better than this box mix. The peanut butter frosting was yummy (Cream 1 cup of creamy Jif with a stick of butter; slowly add 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar; at the end add about 3 tablespoons of milk or cream).
p.s. I am SO thankful for the sunshine today...and that I have a job where I can put on my running clothes at 3:45 and go for a 4 mile run. My boss didn't even blink when I came in covered in sweat; he just started telling me about some research he needs.
My friend wrote the following about his experience on Match: "I would compare it to searching for a slice of hot pizza in a pasture. There's always a chance you'll find one but you're more likely to run into a thousand cow pies first!" Based on my three weeks (and a ton of hours) on Match, I'd have to agree.
Match reports that my profile has been viewed 2,278 times, which is sort of creepy. I've have read and deleted over 100 e-mails without responding (but for at least half of those I read their profile). Received a lot of "winks." I'd guesstimate that I have responded to less than 25 men, including one very attractive guy in Atlanta who wrote me three times because he was dumbfounded that I didn't respond to his emails ("I am surprised you did not write me back. Not to be cocky at all, but I get so many nice compliments about my profile. I would of thought you would of found it very appealing."). I could tell my lack of reply was making his head hurt, so I finally wrote back and explained why I wasn't interested.
I think that if I were not looking for a Christian whose faith is similar to mine, my Match experience would be very different and more positive. I'm ruling out all other faiths or lack thereof from the get-go--plus I generally will not respond to a man who indicates in his "My Date" section that he does not care what faith a prospective date is. I realize that may seem narrow, but if a man is willing to marry someone who doesn't share his faith then we believe different things about marriage and scripture. A lot of my e-mails back and forth with guys has been fleshing out their faith because in the South most people consider themselves a Christian, and it can mean anything from "I was raised by Baptist parents but have never personally practiced any religion" to "I'm a good person" (not what I'm looking for, btw) to "holy roller."
Of course, faith and religion are better discussed in person, and e-mail only makes the exchange of belief more cumbersome. But most of the guys I'm corresponding with live in ATL, Nashville, or Knoxville, so it's not like we can just grab a cup of coffee and chat. So in short, if you're fairly open and not looking for someone as specific as I am (you know, a Christian faith like mine, 28-37, athletic/fit, playful, preferably really tall, educated, decent writer, funny, intelligent, and so forth) then I'd recommend Match. And really, what can it hurt? One month costs $22, and there's a few guys I'd consider meeting. One has asked to take me out, but I'm sort of dragging my feet. I think I just need to make myself do it. It's hard to get excited about someone on a computer screen, I guess.
In other news, I made cupcakes tonight for a friend's birthday. I used a Betty Crocker fudge chocolate box mix because I worked late, and I must say....from scratch is really better than this box mix. The peanut butter frosting was yummy (Cream 1 cup of creamy Jif with a stick of butter; slowly add 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar; at the end add about 3 tablespoons of milk or cream).
p.s. I am SO thankful for the sunshine today...and that I have a job where I can put on my running clothes at 3:45 and go for a 4 mile run. My boss didn't even blink when I came in covered in sweat; he just started telling me about some research he needs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)