Mexican Enchilada Lasagna

My husband, Wes, has mentioned a couple of times that we have not had chicken enchiladas in a while, in hopes that I would make it for dinner one night. After much thought and deliberation, I decided that he was right, we haven't had it in a while. Then I saw this recipe and saw the picture and thought "whoa!" "That looks amazing!" I knew after reading the ingredients that this was going to be a dish that I would have to make my own due to all the cheese, oil, and sour cream it called for, but usually when I make a dish from anothers recipe I try to follow it as closely as possible and then I taste it to see what needs to be changed. Also, it did call for 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to cook the cut up chicken in, but I omitted that and used my favorite ingredient, cooking spray. Hahahaha! I do love that stuff. I never have to scrub dishes all thanks to that.

This recipe was good, but does need a lot of work and I will definitely be making it again soon. My husband and I both agreed, though, that it needs some spice to it and flavor. It doesn't have to be spicy, but there was just a lack of anything in it, if that even makes sense. This was, however, really simple to put together and make for all of us. My almost 1-year old daughter loved it, then again she loves anything with cheese.

What I used:

cooking spray

1 lb chicken breast cut up into bite size pieces

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cups sour cream

1-4 oz can diced green chillies

small corn tortillas

water

5 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese

salt and pepper to season

What I did:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

I started off by having my husband chop up the chicken breasts into bite size pieces and cooking them in a skillet coated with cooking spray. I mixed the cream of celery, cream of chicken, sour cream, and chillies in a mixing bowl. I then got out a baking dish and sprayed a little cooking spray, so nothing would stick to awful bad and put a very small layer of the sour cream mixture on the baking dish. I then dipped the small corn tortillas in water and put a layer on top of the sour cream mixture. Then I put another layer of the sour cream mixture on top of the tortillas, then put some of the cooked chicken on that and then a good amount of cheese. After that, start over with another layer of small corn tortillas. You should have enough for three layers and I only put a small amount of chicken on the top layer. Finish it off with lots of cheese. Mmmmmm! Bake it for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling and starting to get a little brown on top. Let it sit for a few minutes to give the cheese time to set, so it's not a huge mess for you when you cut into it and serve it up. I had some fresh basil from a friends garden that my husband had just brought home today, so I chopped up a very small amount and sprinkled it on top of the lasagna when I pulled it out of the oven. It gave the dish a little bit of flavor and it's totally optional.

Now, as I mentioned before, there are several things that I am going to do differently when I prepare this dish again. Instead of using the regular cream soups, I am going to use the reduced fat cream of celery and reduced fat chicken. Also. I am going to use light sour cream and reduced fat shredded cheese and probably only use three cups of shredded cheese instead of five cups. Now, as far as the spice goes, I am going to saute diced yellow onion and add some dried or fresh oregano and ground cumin. These spices will give it that mexican flavor instead of just the bland flavor the original had. Adding some diced up tomatoes would also be a nice touch to give it some more color than just the yellow. After I bake it then I will sprinkle some chopped up green onion on top to give it that little bite it needed.

I will definitely make this again and when I do I will post the new pictures and show what I did differently so that you can get a flavorful dish without all that unwanted fat.

Hole in One!

My mother and my stepdad live on a farm in Kentucky and raise cows and chickens, as well as their beloved beagle, Ten Ten Ten. The chickens earn their keep by producing the most delicious, farm fresh eggs that you could ask for. When my husband, daughter, dog and I get a chance to travel down their, we load up, taking home about three or four dozen of these amazing eggs. My job, of course, is to figure out how to use up all these eggs in various dishes without letting them spoil.

I then research different recipes that require the use of these delicious eggs, so that we can enjoy them. I make Ella Grace, my daughter, a scrammbled egg in the morning and she absolutely loves them. She prefers to feed herself, due to her independant nature, and she needs the protein so I gladly make her one almost every morning. I am currently trying to bake something once a week, such as Chocolate Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins or Kahula Chocolate Cupcakes with Swiss Coffee Buttercream Icing. Both of these recipes required the use of several eggs, not to mention they both turned out amazing. We also poached eggs and made our own rendition of eggs benedict. I named it Rocky Hill Eggs Benedict since the eggs came from Rocky Hill and everytime I go there I get biscuits and gravy, which is made with sausage from the hog that gets, well to keep it simple, turned into sausage, pork chops, etc. Anyway, this turned out even better than expected and I will definitely share that another time.

Today, I kept it super simple and decided to make what I call a hole in one. I simply got one slice of bread and cut a perfect circle out of it using a cup, toasted it on the skillet with a small amount of butter, and then dropped a farm fresh egg from Rocky Hill into the circle and fried it up. The easiest breakfast a mom could make for her family, or lunch that you could make yourself, which is what I actually did today. Sometimes the most easy dishes are the best to have.

What I used:

1 egg

unsalted butter (less than a tablespoon)

I slice of bread

How I did it:
I melted the butter in a small saucepan. I used a plastic cup to cut out a perfect hole in the bread and then toasted the bread in the butter. After both sides were a little toasted I broke the whole egg into the circle and let it fry. Cover the pan if you want the egg to cook a little quicker. When the egg was almost cooked through, I flipped the bread and let it cook on the other side for less than a minute. Enjoy!!!