Chicken Enchiladas

Even in October, I still open the fridge to a crisper full of peppers, so this week, I once again attempted to use them all up before our next produce box arrived on Wednesday.   I call my first attempt Steak and Pepper Kebabs, but don't be limited by the name.  A quick marinade made from soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, chopped rosemary and garlic (if I remember it) makes for a very tasty steak.  Pair it with bite sized peppers and onions and some oven roasted beets (peeled beets, cut into 1/2 inch slices and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, baked at 400 for about 45 minutes) and you have a super tasty meal.  I  like to add mushrooms if we have them and I always add onions.  I didn't even make them into kebabs this time, I just roasted the peppers and onions and sautéed the cubed steak.

Steak and Pepper Un-Kebabs with roasted beets

The abundance of apples this time of year and my sweet tooth collided in this amazing Monday night dessert...Baked Apples.  I consulted a few recipes, but for mine, I just cored the apples (from Red Goose Gardens), and filled them with a mixture of a handful of brown sugar, a small handful of raisins and and equal amount of craisins and chopped walnuts, sprinkled with cinnamon and covered in a cup of apple juice.  I baked at 350 for about an hour, basting with the juices every 10 or 15 minutes.  The apple juice and brown sugar cooked down into a yummy syrup that nicely went over the ice cream I served with these apples.  A healthy dessert?  I can tell myself that.

The baked apples look kind of old and wrinkly.  Maybe I'll peel them next time.  But there will be a next time.  

On Tuesday, I had a little bit of extra time in the evening so I threw together two make-ahead meals for later in the week.   First, I used up some of the abundant peppers in the fridge by making some Stuffed Peppers, from my own recipe posted in January.

Green peppers stuffed with Mexican style ground beef and quinoa.

The peppers were delicious served with a sliced up giant roasted beet we got in our box from Red Goose Gardens.

Check out how huge this beet is compared to the average sized apple.  Crazy!

I also made some Spinach and Sausage Lasagna Rolls, from my own recipe adapted from the Eat This, Not That guys.  This recipe is for a double batch, so I stashed a pan in the freezer for another night.

mmm...Sausage and Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Friday night was sleepover night at our house, so I planned ahead and made some pizza dough at lunch time so we could have some home made pizza for supper.  If you haven't made pizza dough, give it a try.  This recipe is super easy and doesn't require a lot of kneading.  I topped the  pre-baked pizza crust with a bunch of stuff I had in the fridge and freezer:  jarred pizza sauce, mozzarella and shredded parmesan cheeses, sliced red, green and purple peppers, sliced onion, sliced mushrooms and a little pepperoni.  The result?  Crispy, chewy deliciousness that disappeared in about five minutes.

Look at the crispy crust and nicely browned cheese on this home made pizza!

For breakfast the morning after the sleepover, I whipped up some "Baked Pumpkin Donuts" that I actually made into mini muffins because I don't have a donut shaped pan.  No worries, they were still delicious and they disappeared quickly.  The recipe makes 48 mini-muffin sized "donut holes".  I used the last frozen container of last year's pumpkin crop (actually kabocha squash) instead of canned pumpkin, which I discussed in this post last October.

I call them donut holes, but they are probably Pumpkin mini-muffins.  Either way, they are yummy!

This weekend, my cooking blitz included Chicken Enchiladas, Crock Pot Butternut Squash Soup, Stuffed Mushrooms and Kale Waldorf Salad.

The enchiladas are my own concoction that I have developed over the years, see below for the recipe.  Orignally, I used canned enchilada sauce, canned chicken and a whole brick of cream cheese, but I have made an effort to make this much more healthy.  The six enchiladas I made are so overstuffed, they will provide two suppers for the four of us.

These two enchiladas fed me and both of my kids.  Very filling!

We got a ton of different kinds of squash in our produce boxes over the last few weeks, so I am always looking for recipes to use them in.  I found this easy recipe for Crock Pot Butternut Squash soup on pinterest and gave it a shot.  Roasting the squash and onion really brought out the sweet flavor. I used one butternut and one acorn squash, because I only had one butternut.  At the end, I stirred in some sour cream, half and half and some garlic powder on top of the coriander, salt and pepper.   A perfect accompaniment to a crispy kale salad.

Squash soup and kale waldorf salad

On Saturday night, I decided at the last minute to whip up an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms to enjoy before our Chicken Enchiladas.  I was looking for something that used ingredients I already had, so this recipe with bacon, cream cheese and onions fit the bill.  Needless to say, they were amazing and made my eyes roll into the back of my head.  A definite "make again" recipe.

Look at the cheesy bacony goodness of these stuffed mushrooms!

Off to study for my teacher licensure exam...hope it's not as difficult as the study guide makes it seem.  You would think that earning a 4.0 in my Master's program would be proof enough that I can teach special education.  Oh well, what's one more hoop to jump though, right?

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Chicken Enchiladas
2 chopped cooked chicken breasts or the equivalent (canned works, too)
1/2 brick light cream cheese
1/2 jar salsa (I used corn black bean salsa)
1/2 T. Mrs. Dash Southwestern Chipotle Seasoning
6-8 flour tortillas
1 pkg spanish rice, cooked
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 jar salsa or enchilada sauce (I used frozen Salsa Verde and 1/2 a jar of regular salsa)
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1.  Cook spanish rice according to package directions, stir in black beans and spread in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 pan.
2.  Mix together the chicken, cream cheese, salsa, seasoning and 1/2 c. shredded cheese.
3.  Evenly divide chicken mixture between tortillas, roll up and place seam side down over rice and beans.
4.  Top tortillas with salsa or enchilada sauce and the rest of the shredded cheese.
5.  Bake, covered with foil, for about 30 minutes in a 400 oven.
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Sausage, Pepper and Fennel Pasta

This week started so beautifully.  We had unseasonably warm fall weather, with the high temperatures hitting the mid-70's.  Then the snow came.  I had the worst drive to work ever on Thursday, with a ton of slushy snow and wind.  I was happy when school was released at noon and I got to spend the afternoon at home with my girls.  After we watched "The Goonies", we took a little time to make a double batch of my Rosemary Focaccia Sandwich Bread, which I cut into meal-size portions and stashed in the freezer for later.  I could get used to working half-days.  Think of everything I could accomplish!

Focaccia bread--for sandwiches or dipping in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

For supper on Thursday, I used a bunch of items we got in our produce box from Red Goose Gardens. We had red, green and purple peppers, a bunch of tiny fennel bulbs, onions and tomatoes.  I sliced and sautéed the peppers, fennel and onions, then added about a dozen two-inch tomatoes that I chopped and a little rosemary-garlic seasoning I picked up at Sams Club.  I love how tomatoes melt down into a delicious sauce and make everything taste so much better.  I tossed the resulting sauce with hot pasta (the end of two boxes) and some chicken italian sausage (which we got in the meat clearance bin at the grocery store) I sliced up and sautéed.  Seriously delicious.  As I told the girls, they are so lucky their mama can cook! See my recipe below.

Sausage, pepper and fennel pasta.

Then Thursday night I still had the cooking bug, so I whipped up some Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark.  You should make it.  Seriously.  I'm not sharing my batch.  Pretzels coated in butter and brown sugar boiled into caramel sauce and topped with melted chocolate chips.  Cool, break apart and eat.  Enough said.  

Salted Caramel Pretzel Bark

Figure skating started this week.  Yep, October 3 was our first evening at the arena.  The girls really enjoy their time on the ice learning new moves and visiting with their friends while Phil and I walk many laps around the quarter-mile track.  With the start of figure skating, our Wednesday nights became very cramped for time.  We had a couple of avocados aging on the windowsill and I had a bunch of cilantro in the fridge and some limes leftover from last time I made mojitos, so I searched online for recipes that incorporated all of those ingredients.  I came up with Creamy Avocado Pasta, a recipe in which I threw the avocados, cilantro, lime juice and garlic into the food processor and tossed the pesto-like sauce with hot pasta.  I decided the meal needed some protein, so I dug a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer and baked them topped with chopped cilantro, minced garlic and a squeeze of lime juice.  I'm not sure I would make the pasta again, but the chicken was sure yummy.  

Creamy Avocado Pasta topped with a chicken breast.

I also made my favorite breakfast foods for supper this week--Eggs Benedict and Hash Browns.   As I have discussed in the past, our chickens are good little producers.  Right now we have ten chickens, but only five of them are of laying age.  The other five are still maturing.  Nonetheless, the three or four eggs we get each day are enough for our needs.  I used six of them to make Eggs Benedict.  I had ham and english muffins in the freezer and bought a packet of  Hollandaise sauce mix and poached the eggs.  Almost as good as Perkins, though they probably make their own Hollandaise.  Along with the Eggs Benedict, I served hash browns (shredded baked potatoes) that I cooked on the waffle iron to get them nice and crispy (thanks Pinterest!) and an acorn squash I quartered, baked and sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar.

Eggs Benedict with waffle iron hash browns and brown sugar squash.

This weekend, we got together with my family to celebrate a couple of birthdays.  We grilled steaks and shrimp skewers and served them with sautéed green beans and Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes.  Have you tried these potatoes yet?  They have been circulating around Pinterest for quite awhile now and I saw them in the Grand Forks Herald a couple months ago.  If you haven't had them yet, give them a try.  They are totally worth the effort of the two step recipe:  First you boil the potatoes, then you crush them, sprinkle them with with seasonings (I used rosemary and cracked pepper) and bake them until they are crispy.  Every time I make these, my girls beg for more!  My brother suggested that they would be really good with cheese on them...why not add bacon, too?

Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes

For dessert, I made Apple Crisp with vanilla ice cream.  I always use the recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook we got for a wedding gift.  An old standby that is always delicious...especially with apples from my Grandpa's trees.

Apple Crisp

Tonight for supper, it's chicken cooked in the crock pot.  I jammed two frozen chickens in my large crock pot at lunch time today, sprinkled them with seasoning and turned the cooker on high.  By 6:00 tonight, supper will be done and I will have leftovers for at least two meals this week and the makings of home made chicken broth that I will stash in the freezer for another day.  Check out this link for the recipe!

Two whole chickens roasting in the crock pot.

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Sausage and Pepper Pasta
1 package chicken Italian Sausage
3 sliced peppers (one red, one green, one purple)--about 2 cups total
1 sliced red onion--about 1 cup
5 small fennel bulbs, sliced--about 1 cup
12 small (2-inch) tomatoes, cored and chopped
seasoning to taste
cooked pasta

1.  Slice and sauté the sausage over medium heat until mostly cooked.  Move to a plate.
2.  In same skillet, drizzle a little olive oil, then add in peppers, onion and fennel.  Cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften.  Add the tomatoes and seasonings (I used a garlic rosemary seasoning mix and some salt and pepper).  Simmer for about 20 minutes, until the sauce comes together.  Add in sausage for the last ten minutes to blend all flavors.
3.  Serve over or mixed with hot pasta.
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A New Format

It has been about a year since I started this blog, and in the last few months, I have been less than diligent about posting.  It's not that I haven't been cooking, because I have, I just haven't felt like writing about my cooking.  I haven't even been taking pictures of my cooking.

So I was thinking that it's time for a format change.  Once a week, I'm going to make an effort to post about what we ate that week.  I will post recipes or links to recipes, along with pictures of our food.  To get to the recipe, just click on the link.  I may break from this format once in a while and post about individual recipes or a list of favorites, but I want to try something new.

To get started, let me say that while October is only a day away, we are still getting our weekly produce boxes from Red Goose Gardens.   According to their e-mail this week, we should get at least six more boxes this fall.  I love to see how the contents of the boxes change with the seasons.  What started out in early June as a half-full box of peas, lettuce, and green onions has evolved an overflowing box with additional bags containing the week's harvest.  This week, among many other things, we got our fall pumpkins for decorating!  We also got a bunch of peppers--bell, poblanos and jalapeños, a huge head of cabbage and a bunch of tomatillos.

Friday afternoon had me dreaming about bacon (as usual) and thinking about what I could do with the package I had in the freezer.  Then it dawned on me...I had just seen a recipe for bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers on pinterest!  So I made them for supper when I got home from work.  Yes, we had only Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers for supper.  And wine.  I love Fridays!

This is the Saturday's batch.  We cut the bacon in half lengthwise to stretch the recipe, but it was just as good.   

 Then my sister came to visit on Saturday and we made the poppers again.  This time, we also made Baked Chile Rellenos to go with the poppers.  Think that was enough peppers in one meal?  I only needed one Zantac to take care of the heartburn, though.  And wine.  I love Saturdays, too!

Today, I started my weekly Sunday cooking bonanza by boiling a head of cabbage and preparing the meat mixture for some crock pot cabbage rolls.  So we had these cabbage rolls for supper tonight and they were delicious!   I have to say, when it comes to cabbage rolls, I have learned my lesson.  Add way more seasoning than the recipe calls for and NEVER just use tomato sauce!  I followed the technique described in this recipe for Sweet and Sour Cabbage Rolls in the November 2012 issue of Family Circle Magazine, but see below for my own recipe for the cabbage rolls, because I did not follow any recipe I found, I just made it up as I went along.

Along with the cabbage rolls, I also roasted a pan of tomatillos, as I described in this post from last fall. After they cooled, I put them in the freezer and will make stew out of them another day.

Then, I made another recipe I found on pinterest, Banana Oatmeal Muffins.  These muffins have no flour in them and are loaded with yummy breakfast ingredients, so I decided to whip up a batch and throw them in the freezer for easy breakfasts this week.

I added a few chocolate chips on top for extra goodness!
I also used three bananas instead of only two and added an extra half cup of oatmeal.  My recipe made 15 muffins.

 

That's it for this week.  I hope to be back next week with another exciting episode of "What's for dinner at the Huck's!"  

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Crock Pot Cabbage Rolls
1 head of cabbage
a little olive oil
a couple onions, chopped
a green pepper, chopped
a few cloves of garlic, minced (or from a jar)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 jar marinara or spaghetti sauce
1 lb. hamburger

1/4 c. breadcrumbs or crushed crackers

1/4 c. milk

salt and pepper to taste

1.  Core the cabbage and boil the whole head in a large pot of salted water for about 15 minutes, removing 12 leaves as they become pliable.  Drain well, then remove tough stem; cut leaves in half.  Shred remaining cabbage a place in bottom of crock pot.

2.  Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the onions, peppers and garlic and cook about 5 minutes.  Scoop out about half of the onion mixture and add to a mixing bowl with the hamburger, breadcrumbs, milk and salt and pepper, if desired.  Add tomatoes and marinara to the onion mixture still in the skillet and cook a few minutes until the flavors are nicely blended.

3.  With stem ends of cabbage leaves facing you, place 2 heaping tablespoons of meat mixture in center of leaf and roll up. Place rolls, seam-side down, in crock pot. Pour sauce over top. Cover; cook on LOW for 5 hours.

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Favorites II

I haven't been very creative in the kitchen lately. For that matter, I haven't cooked very much lately. Between the kids activities, work, grad school and a bum tooth, food hasn't really been a priority. For today's topic, we'll have to make to with a favorites list: 

1. Homemade Artisan Bread.  This is seriously easy.  Flour, water, salt and yeast are all the ingredients you need.  Oh, and time.  You need at least 12 hours of rising time for this recipe, but it is so worth it!  Total hands on-time is about 15 minutes and you end up with a delicious round loaf of bread that you would have paid a lot for in a bakery.  That's my loaf shown above...I could hardly believe I made something that looked so professional!  Eat it with soup, slice for sandwiches, or my favorite, put in pan while cooking eggs so it gets toasty and spread with jam.  Yummy!

2. Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup.  Another super easy one...potatoes, garlic, onion, chicken broth in slow cooker for hours, then made creamy with cream cheese.  Of course it's delicious, just don't make a habit of it... this is not a healthy way to eat your veggies!

3.  Home Made Body Wash.  I don't know why, but when I saw this recipe,  I just wanted to try it.  It seems like I always have body wash on my shopping list.  It's kind of expensive and doesn't really last very long.  I ordered soap (Tom's of Maine) and vegetable glycerin from Amazon.com and bought distilled water at the grocery store.  Grate the soap and combine it with the glycerin and distilled water in a big soup pot.  Heat until melted and combined, then put in bottles to use. I use it for body wash and hand soap.  Kind of a lot of work, but I like knowing that I made it and I don't freak out when the kids dump a half a bottle down the drain "by accident". 

A couple weeks ago, I attended a Taste of Home Cooking School event in Fargo.  It was a lot of fun and I got some great recipe ideas from the presenter.  We also got two limited edition Taste of Home magazines full of recipes and a year subscription to Healthy Cooking.  A few of the recipes I have tried so far:

4.  Johnsonville Sausage Meatballs.  Using Johnsonville Italian sausage links as the meat in these meatballs adds great flavor.  These were really quick to make and went great with my homemade marinara and pasta. 

5.  Emeril's New Orleans Garlic Chicken.  All I can says is Yummy...try it and you will see.  Emeril takes "simple" breaded chicken breasts to a whole new level.  Phil doesn't eat breading, but he said this chicken was so moist and tender I can make it again.  That's a definite compliment coming from him!

6.  Grilled Chicken, Pesto and Two-Cheese Naan Pizza.  Using naan (Indian flat bread--I just buy it at Walmart off the clearance cart) as the crust, this pizza is super easy.  Pesto sauce (which I still have a ton of in the freezer from last summer), chicken red peppers, olives and cheese all combine into this delicious meal.  Try cooking it on the grill for a summery twist!
A few that I have bookmarked and will be trying in the near future:

1.  Stacked Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas.   Any excuse to get veggies on the table is a good one in my book.  Roasting the veggies before putting this dish together just adds another dimension of deliciousness!

2.  Spaghetti with Garlic, Olive Oil and Pepper Flakes  Simple as that, nothing else.  Whenever I cook pasta, I try to make double and stash some in the fridge for later in the week.  I have a big baggie of spaghetti just waiting for some garlic and hot pepper flakes.  As Rachel Ray would say...Yum-o!

3.  Tomato, Basil, and  Fresh Mozzarella Salad.  I can't wait until summer comes and we start getting our weekly CSA boxes...this is what I dream about all winter when I'm eating frozen or store-bought produce.  Maybe with the early melt, the deliveries from Red Goose Gardens will start early?

Cheesy Potatoes and Ham

Using up that leftover ham sometimes takes some creativity.  I came home from a family New Years gathering with a big baggie full of ham, dreaming of potatoes with ham and cheese.  I didn't want to go to the grocery store to make my recipe so I consulted a few cookbooks before coming up with my own version.  We actually had a small box of Velveeta in the cupboard from when it was on sale with a coupon last fall and still have a stock of potatoes from Red Goose Gardens. 

I know potatoes have a bad rap and they aren't considered the best vegetable for you, but they do count as a veggie in my book (sometimes).  These "veggies", doused with cheese and ham, are definitely not diet food, so don't eat them very often!

Cheesy Potatoes and Ham (This made 10 servings at our house)
10 potatoes, washed and sliced (peeled, if desired)
1 small onion, diced
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb. velveeta (small box)
2 c. diced ham (more or less as desired)
2 c. milk

Combine all but milk in large roasting pan (spray pan first if you don't want a big mess to scrub).  Pour milk over mixture.  Bake at 400 for an hour or more, stirring once or twice in the begining to mix in the cheese.  It is done when the potatoes are soft and the milk and cheese cook down to a thick sauce.  This would probably work in the crock pot as well, 3-4 hrs. on high would do it. 

These are great with a green salad or just some raw veggies with ranch, to balance the soft texture of the potatoes.  It also reheats well, though I wouldn't recommend freezing it.

Amazing Black Bean Soup

As I stared into my cupboards this morning planning my weekly menu, I found a bag of dried black beans that had been there for awhile.  With those beans in mind, I started searching the apps on my phone for a recipe that I could use them in.  Normally, I would just soak them overnight, simmer them until they were done, then freeze them in baggies for use with tacos and in soups.  Today, I was looking for something different.  I found exactly what I was looking for on my Epicurious app. 

This soup is not a weeknight soup unless you have done some work ahead of time.  The beans need to be soaked either overnight or quick boiled and soaked for a couple hours.  This worked out perfectly for a Sunday afternoon at home.  While the whole process took several hours, a lot of that time the beans were just sitting on the stove soaking.  Total hands on time was probably about 45 minutes, divided between beginning, middle and end.

Black Bean Soup (makes 6 servings)
1 lb. dried black beans
8 slices bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 red or green pepper, diced
1 T. minced garlic
1 minced jalapeno or serrano, depending on how hot you want it (I had roasted serranos so I used one of those)
1 1/2 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. dried thyme or 1 t. fresh
1 bay leaf
1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz),  do not drain
6 c. or more chicken broth (I used boxed this time)
 2 T. chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime, juice squeezed out

Pick over and rinse beans.  For quick cook method, put beans in a pot and cover with 2 inches of water.  Bring to a boil, then shut off heat and let sit for an hour or two.  For slow cook method, cover beans with 2 inches of water and refrigerate overnight.  Either way, when beans are done soaking, drain and rinse them. 

Cook bacon in big soup pot over medium high heat, stirring occasionally until crispy.  Drain all but 1 T. of fat off the bacon, then add the onions, garlic and peppers along with the thyme, oregano and bay leaf.  Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until onion is softened, about five minutes.

Add beans, tomatoes and chicken broth, and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until beans are very tender, about 2 1/2 hours.  Discard bay leaf and stir in cilantro and lime juice. 

Even though it is the middle of December, our CSA membership to Red Goose Gardens came in handy once again.  I was able to raid the freezer for thyme, peppers and serranos and could have used some tomatoes if I had thought of it. 

I served this delicious soup with warmed flour tortillas, using the tortillas to scoop some of the stew out of the bowl.  It would also go well with some kind of quesadillas or just plain tortilla chips.

Next time I will cook this in a crock pot after the sauteing step, which will make this soup even easier.  If you like brothy soup, use more chicken broth.  We tend to like stews at our house, so I don't use a lot of broth or water in soup recipes.  The six cups I called for is half of what the original recipe said and it's about perfect for a really thick bean soup.  You could probably skip the cilantro with little effect, but the lime is my own addition and really adds something to the flavor.  I also added the can of tomatoes because I thought it would go well in this recipe and I was right.  If you don't have the tomatoes, you could go without.

My family absolutely loved this soup.  The kids inhaled their bowls and asked for more, wondering when I was going to make it again.  I agree that this is probably one of the best dinners I've made in a long time. 
I can't want to make this again soon and will make sure to double the recipe next time so there are some leftovers.  Yes, we ate a whole bag of dried beans for supper. Don't worry, as part-time vegetarians, we keep a supply of beano in the closet.

Add a little spice to your life!

I love my crockpot!  Just the other day I used it to cook up a huge batch of dry navy beans, which I then portioned into baggies and put in the freezer.  I often use it to make a roast or reheat soup from the freezer.  Twice in the last few weeks, I have used it to make chicken taco filling for enchiladas.   A little work earlier in the day or the night before pays off huge when you walk in the house and smell dinner cooking.  While I love to cook, there are some days when it's so nice to not have to put a lot of effort into supper.  

Chicken Taco Meat
2-3 frozen chicken breasts (I used 2 huge ones, just use common sense)
1 packet of taco seasoning
1-2 c. chunky salsa (however much you like)
1/2 c. water

Sprinkle the taco seasoning in the bottom of the crock pot.  Top with the chicken breasts.  Pour the salsa and water over the chicken breasts.  Cook for 4 hours on low.  Shred chicken with a fork. 


Before cooking.  It took about three minutes to get it all together. 
Just turn on the crock pot and walk away.  It takes care of itself!

I use the meat for chicken enchiladas, but it would be even easier just to make chicken tacos out of it.  This would be great for a taco bar when company comes over.  You can do all the prep in advance and just enjoy the conversation and a margarita.  This recipe could be easily doubled, you would probably just need to increase the cook time.   

After a few hours on low.  All I did was mash/shred the meat with a fork. 

Chicken Enchiladas 
8-10 flour tortillas
Chicken taco meat
Enchilada sauce (I  use homemade frozen salsa verde, but red or green sauce from a can would work, too.)
Shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400.  Spray bottom and sides of 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray.  Put some meat filling in each tortilla, amount depends on how big the tortillas are. Place enchiladas in pan, seam side down.  Top with salsa verde or enchilada sauce.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Cover with foil (I always spray with nonstick spray so it doesn't stick to the cheese) and bake for about 30 minues. 

These are delicious fresh out of the oven, but also reheat well for lunch the next day.  They can also be assembled in advance and refrigrated until you're ready to bake them.  I like to serve them with chips and salsa and  black beans on the side.  Sometimes I put the beans inside the enchiladas, it just depends on my mood and memory. 

I like a recipe that's flexible and this one definitely is.   So take my recipe and make it yours.  Enjoy!