Fiesta Chicken Enchiladas Made Over

Recipe #87: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/fiesta-chicken-enchiladas-made-121733.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20120103-_-1188&cm_lm=ECBBCAE26A9EBFC4D6C4C17426109BFA

Yep, another "healthier version" Kraft recipe. What can I say? I'm on a roll. And in the mood for simplicity, quite frankly.

I altered a few things in my version:

-I left out the red and green peppers because I don't like peppers, the Meatatarian doesn't really like them either, and I plum forgot about them at the grocery store.

-I only had regular cream cheese on hand.

-No fancy Tex-Mex cheese here - just some old cheddar I grated after carefully checking for mold first. Oops, inside voice...

-Our salsa happened to be of the mild variety, in case that matters to anyone.

This recipe was pretty easy to make. I did use cooking spray (PC Olive - ooh la la!) on both the chicken saucepan and the baking dish. I'm learning! The tortillas were slightly messy to roll, but I managed without any real drama. Their suggestion of 1/3 cup per tortilla is pretty much bang on.

My version was probably a little blander than the Kraft pepper version, but I happen to like it. It still has good flavour. A hungry friend who stopped by also said it was good, so I'm 2 for 2 in tasting so far. I don't eat a lot of enchiladas - am I supposed to use cutlery? We just used our fingers and slurped a lot. The ends are crunchy, but the middle is soft. I hope they're just as good when I reheat the leftovers tomorrow.

Unfried French Fries

Recipe #86: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/unfried-french-fries-88497.aspx

Happy New Year! Sorry about the recent lack of updates. It was one hell of a fall semester, then I went home for the holidays. Now I'm back in Calgary and my mom is no longer making dinner each night. Sad face.

I chose this recipe for a couple of reasons:

1) I'm trying to keep eating better this year and this is one of Kraft's "makeover" recipes in which they provide a healthier way to eat the same foods.

2) We have a lot of potatoes at home (ignoring the fact that I had to go buy baking potatoes since none of our are that kind...)

About the only alternation I made with this recipe was that my parmesan cheese was the regular kind, not the lighter kind. We have an awful lot of it so I wasn't about to go buy more. Wait...that sounds a bit like the potatoes.... I digress.

I used Kraft's suggestion for cutting the potatoes (see bottom of the link above), but when they say 1/4" width, they really mean it. Some of mine were thicker than that, and they were the ones that were still crunchy after cooking. Take note. Also, I don't know if it was just the baking sheet I used (the only clean one I could find), but I wasn't able to get them all on it in a single layer so I had some overlap. That also contributed to some crunching, I'm sure. I used aluminum foil instead of cooking spray since I thought it would wreck the non-stick pan, but you really do need to use cooking spray both below and on top of the potatoes. Otherwise, you'll be eating aluminum foil, too. Take my word for it.

Overall, crunchiness notwithstanding, these were tasty. They were a bit more similar to potato wedges rather than fries, but they had a nice flavour and were filling. I had mine with a salad and cup-o-soup.

Homestyle Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

Recipe #85:http://astro.ca/recipes/homestyle_chicken_and_broccoli_casserole/

This recipe was quite delicious as a finished product, but I struggled to get it to that point.

I have my friend Shellery to thank for reminding me that Astro's website has some excellent recipes with which to use up the yogurt in my fridge. This particular recipe calls for 2% plain yogurt and I only had enough of the fat-free on hand. As you'll see later, that might have been part of my problems.

A word of caution about sauteing the chicken breasts. I had our stove on "medium", was using the olive oil AND a non-stick pan, but still managed to burn two breasts and stuck one to the pan. Medium was too high for me. Also, beware of hot oil splattering everywhere. Mine was burning too. Could just be me, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

I found that once I added the chicken stock (or in my case: part chicken, part beef stock after I ran out of chicken) to the flour and butter, it didn't really thicken much and I let it try for a while. I cooked some more butter and flour in a little saucepan (1 tbsp butter: 2 tbsp flour, I think?) and that thickened things up somewhat, but we were back to runny again after I added the yogurt. See my note at the beginning for more yogurt thoughts.

Those were really the only trouble spots I had. Two of my chicken breasts were more like implants compared to the others so I had to kind of squash them into the casserole dish. When you pour in your sauce, make sure all of the chicken is covered before you put it in the oven so that it doesn't dry out. I cooked mine with the lid on although the recipe doesn't say one way or the others. Opinions on this may vary.

When I cooked the jasmine brown rice, I followed the directions EXACTLY. Unfortunately, it was still kind of soupy at the end so I had to cook it longer with the lid canted to get rid of some of that liquid. This isn't really related to the recipe, other than the fact that the recipe is suggested to be served over rice.

The Meatatarian noticed a kind of tangy taste to the sauce which I noted to be from the yogurt. My mum cooked with yogurt in lieu of sour cream when we were growing up so it didn't phase me, but he wasn't completely keen on it so keep that in mind if you are expected a smooth, creamy taste. It might be a little edgy. Regardless, I liked this recipe a lot!

Ratatouille (Soup-ish edition)

Recipe #84: http://southernfood.about.com/od/eggplantrecipes/r/bl00810c.htm

A little while ago, I picked up a "Good Food Box" from school. Essentially, for $15 we got a random assortment of 15-20 lbs of produce. It's a really good deal and part of the fun is figuring out what to do with some of it. For example, this time we got (in part): red peppers (gave one away), a beet (didn't use it quickly enough, oops), and an eggplant. Eggplant? What the heck am I going to do with eggplant? I don't like eating it and none of my friends could be blackmailed or bribed into taking it. Thus, I started googling eggplant recipes in search of something I might possibly eat. The final decision to try this one came from the fact that I enjoyed the Disney movie, "Ratatouille".

This recipe has a lot of vegetables in it that I normally would never eat. However, in the interest of trying to expand my culinary horizons, I decided that I would try making something with things I don't like in it with the hopes that the blend of them together would turn into something I actually like eating. A little more nutrition never hurt anyone either. And so the experiment began...

Substitutions and modifications: I didn't change much of this recipe. In the mistaken hope that the Charmer would eat some of my ratatouille too, I bought one red pepper and one orange one because I heard him say before that he likes coloured peppers better than green ones. Due to my dislike of any peppers, I cut the ones I bought into really small pieces, the better to hide them from myself. I diced my onion because I'm still not really a fan of it. I've grown to tolerate it in cooking as long as the pieces are really small and it's well cooked. As for the tomato part, I ended up using two 540 mL (19 oz.) cans of diced tomatoes with Italian spices in them. This gave me more liquid than the recipe called for, but in the end, you'll see that worked in my favour. I used 4 small zucchinis, sliced pretty thinly. I added a couple of handfuls of sliced mushrooms, cooking them up with the garlic and onions. At the end of the cooking time, I also added 1 cup of chicken stock to make my version a little more soup-ish. I just couldn't stand the thought of eating a mouthful of vegetables I don't like unless they were part of a soup. I also added another tbsp of oil when I added the eggplant because the additional mushrooms changed the composition of my pot and things were sticking. Finally, I used squeeze-tube parsley, if anyone's keeping track.

Overall, this recipe wasn't too complex to cook. There's just a lot of prep although the Charmer pointed out that the food processor could help with all the chopping. Maybe next time. If I make this recipe again, I will add the zucchini sooner as mine was still kind of crunchy, even after an extra 10 minutes of cooking. I am not thrilled with crunchy zucchini. I'm also not excited to be the only person eating ALL of the ratatouille soup I made. It's pretty good, but it's a WHOLE lot of vegetables for one person to face down. Next time, I shall make sure others take some or I'll cut the recipe in half first. Maybe next time, I'll enlist a rat to help me with this recipe!

Lightened-Up Hummus

Recipe #83: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/lightened_up_hummus.php

I made a recent discovery - I like hummus! I recently came into a 2lb. bag of carrots so I figured making my own hummus would be a good way to eat up some carrots. It's also a good way to use up some of the garlic and spices I have. I figured I'd try this recipe since it's a "lighter" version. It's also a good source of fibre with all the chickpeas.

The yogurt in this recipe was a PITA. Maybe my cheesecloth was too tightly knit? I checked it after 2 hours, then again last night, then again this morning. When I came home from school, it finally seemed to have reduced by half or so. You might want to leave some extra time for yours, just in case.

Aside from the yogurt incident and trying to find sesame oil at the grocery store, this recipe was straightforward and simple to make. I'm not 100% in love with the sesame flavour residue, but overall, the hummus is nearly the same as the stuff I was buying. Thankfully, it's cheaper when I make it myself, and it makes more than the equivalent of one container from the store. Now I just have to find a recipe to use up more of the sesame oil...

Quick Cheesy Shells & Beef

Recipe #82: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/dinner_club/quick_cheesy_shells_and_beef.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dinnerclub_04Nov2011

Omnomonmnom! This recipe is delicious. At least, the way I made it. This recipe showed up in my inbox this week - Thank you, Canadian Living Dinner Club.

I made a few substitutions: we didn't have the large pasta shells on hand so I used the rigatoni in the cupboard, I used half of a giant onion and a little onion that came from the community garden at Mount Royal Uni, and instead of the bottled strained tomatoes, I used a 540mL can of chopped tomatoes that happened to have spices and stuff in them. The red pepper flakes were optional and I added them to mine. Some of my stuff is a little bland so I thought I'd use a little more "zip". Oh yeah, and the ground beef was just shy of 1lb.

The only trouble I had with this recipe, and it may not happen to you if you don't substitute the tomato part like I did, was that the recipe was a little soupy at the end. I cooked it a little longer (maybe 10 minutes?) on low to try and get rid of some of the liquid. It was still a bit soupy when I added the pasta to the sauce, but the whole thing seemed better after the pasta got stirred in. The taste test was my favourite part because the end product is delicious!

"Take-Five" Banana Bread

Recipe #81: http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/miracle-whip-take-five-banana-83897.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20111102-_-1162&cm_lm=ECBBCAE26A9EBFC4D6C4C17426109BFA

I'm not entirely sure how this recipe got its name. Perhaps, "take five ingredients, throw them in the oven, and voila!"? Regardless, there are only five ingredients.

I should probably tidy up the kitchen a little more some time soon. With only five ingredients, I was sure I had everything on hand, but when I went to make this recipe this morning, I couldn't find the sugar anywhere. I was pretty sure we had some, but the Chocolatarian was asleep and it seems my brain was, too. I ended up going to the store to get some cheesecloth for a different recipe so I picked up some more sugar. When I got home, I went to continue with this recipe when I suddenly saw the sugar I couldn't find sitting on the counter right in front of me - where it had been the whole time... sigh.

I chose this recipe because I found two ripe bananas in the freezer and I had another ripe one that I didn't want to eat. I don't like eating bananas when they taste too much like bananas, if you know what I mean. I left the frozen bananas out to thaw overnight so I could bake with them. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. When I went to peel them for the recipe, the texture and consistency, along with the oozing of clear liquid, was making me gag. G-N-A-R-L-Y. The Chocolatarian, upon hearing this story later, recommended throwing them in the food processor frozen next time so you might want to consider it too.

Surprisingly, Miracle Whip was an ingredient in this recipe. I know - Miracle Whip?! Yep, and you wouldn't even know it by the delicious taste of the final product. I assume it helps keep it moist and sweet. I didn't substitute anything in this recipe. Substitution tends to be harder in baking than cooking. I have considered using Splenda instead of sugar next time, mostly because we have a huge bag of Splenda for some reason, but I'm not sure what it might do to the taste. Too sweet? Maybe. My friend also suggested (after the fact) adding walnuts and I had considered chocolate chips, but forgot them in the final process. That just means there's room for modifications in the future!