Tag: shredded chicken

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Main Dish

The food choices surprised us ‘Honduran’ this trip

Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.
Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.

Earlier this summer, while on a trip to Kentucky for a conference, Joey and I asked around to the locals where we should grab lunch in Frankfort.

One of the recurring suggestions was to visit a little Honduran restaurant, Mami Monchita’s.

I don’t know what food genre I expected people in Kentucky to recommend, but I am certain it wasn’t Central American.

That being said, our policy to always trust the locals on where to eat paid off. The meal was absolutely fabulous, and I’ve been a bit obsessed with trying to cook something Honduran at home ever since.

While there, I ordered a meal that included pupusas, which “World Vision” explains thusly on its website, “Take masa harina—a special flour made from corn that’s been soaked in lime water—and add salt and water to create a dough. Roll it out and fill with cheese, beans or pork. Lightly fry in a pan until both sides are golden.”

So, this week, I finally decided to take the plunge into making my own pupusas, and while I’ll still need plenty of practice to be as good at it as the folks in Frankfort, these did not disappoint.

The recipe I used comes from the blog “Tara’s Multicultural Table.” You can find the original post on https://tarasmulticulturaltable.com/pupusas-de-queso-salvadoran-cheese-stuffed-tortillas/. I added pork to my version and used cheese I could find locally.

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Pupusas

Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Central American, Honduran
Keyword beans, masa harina, Monterrey jack cheese, pupusa, quesillo, shredded beef, shredded chicken, shredded pork

Ingredients

  • 2 cups masa harina
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 3/4 cups warm water
  • 6 ounces shredded quesillo or Monterrey jack cheese
  • 6 ounces shredded cooked pork, chicken or beef
  • 2-6 tablespoons oil I used canola

Instructions

  • In a mixing bowl, combine the masa harina, salt and water.
  • Mix until the dough comes together and you can shape it with your hands. You want it to be just moist enough that it doesn’t crack when you flatten it out. (Add more water, just a little at a time, if it’s too dry, or add more masa if it’s too wet.)
  • Form the dough into six balls of roughly equal size.
  • To make a pupusa, carefully flatten a ball of dough in your palm to about one-half inch in thickness. Place about a tablespoon each of cheese and meat into the center, and then squish the sides up around the filling to form a ball again.
  • To finish it up, gently flatten the dough back out to a disc with your hands until it is about one-quarter-inch thick, and set it aside on a plate. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
  • In a skillet, heat a tablespoon of oil over medium heat.
  • When the pan is hot, add as many pupusas as will easily fit in the pan. Let them cook several minutes and form golden brown blistered spots before flipping them to the other side. When the second side is golden, remove them to a plate. Continue until all of the pupusas are cooked, adding oil as necessary.
  • Serve with salsa or, for a traditional dish, curtido, which is a pickled slaw.

We really enjoyed these. I would say that if you enjoy the flavor of tamales, you would like pupusas, too. You can also add beans to this if you like or do any combination of cheese, beans and/or meat that you like. One of these days, I’m going to make curtido to go along with these. (There is a recipe for it at the same website link above.) We served ours with a spicy, homemade tomatillo salsa, along with some Mexican rice, and it was a delicious dinner.

I will definitely be making these again.

And if you’re wondering if it’s strange for a boring lady in Kansas to cook Honduran recipes in her kitchen, I’d say it’s probably fine. If Kentucky can get away with it, I reckon I can, too.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 24, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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Main Dish

Combination of chicken, veggies, herbs more than just fair

Crescent roll chicken pot pie casserole comes together quickly and features lots of great flavors from some fresh vegetables, along with plenty of herbs. It makes for a fantastic weeknight meal.
Crescent roll chicken pot pie casserole comes together quickly and features lots of great flavors from some fresh vegetables, along with plenty of herbs. It makes for a fantastic weeknight meal.

We have a friend we lovingly refer to as “the human jukebox.”

He has a ton of songs floating around in his head, and all it takes to get him to launch into one is to subtly mention a lyric.

Joey and I sometimes make a game of seeing if we can make a comment that will result in him humming, whistling or singing the song later on, after it’s invaded his subconscious. He always rolls his eyes and feigns annoyance when we bust up laughing at the outset of his tune.

My secret, though, is I tend to be a bit of a human jukebox myself, especially when I’m cooking with a particular set of herbs as I was this week: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

Simon and Garfunkel get me every time.

Getting “Scarborough Fair” stuck in my head this week was completely my own fault, though, as I decided to add a ton of seasonings to a chicken crescent roll casserole recipe I found in order to transform it into a chicken pot pie-inspired dish.

The recipe I started with comes from the blog “The Seasoned Mom” by Blair Lonergan. You can find the original post at https://www.theseasonedmom.com/crescent-roll-chicken-casserole. I added quite a few ingredients in my version.

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Crescent Roll Chicken Pot Pie Casserole

Crescent roll chicken pot pie casserole comes together quickly and features lots of great flavors from some fresh vegetables, along with plenty of herbs. It makes for a fantastic weeknight meal.
Course Main Course
Keyword carrots, celery, cream of chicken, crescent roll dough, garlic, garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder, parsley, peas, rosemary, sage, shredded cheese, shredded chicken, thyme, yellow onion

Ingredients

Filling Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 3 celery stalks diced
  • 3 medium carrots diced
  • 1/4 yellow onion diced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1/4 cup frozen peas
  • 1 cup chicken shredded
  • 1/4 cup shredded cheese
  • 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
  • 1/2 teaspoon thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon sage
  • garlic salt and pepper to taste
  • 8 ounces refrigerated crescent roll dough

Sauce Ingredients

  • 10.5 ounces cream of chicken soup
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 3/4 cup shredded cheese
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • garlic salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray an eight-by-eight-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set it aside.
  • In a skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the celery, carrots and onion, and saute until the vegetables are soft.
  • Add in the garlic and peas, and saute for another couple of minutes or until the garlic is fragrant.
  • Remove the skillet from the heat and add in the chicken, cheese, rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, garlic salt and pepper, and stir to combine.
  • Roll out and separate the triangles of crescent roll dough, and place a spoonful of the chicken mixture into the center of each, loosely rolling the dough around it, and place the filled dough into the prepared baking dish. It’s OK if they are touching. (If you have extra filling after you’re done with the dough, just sprinkle it around in the pan.
  • Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until the crescent rolls are golden brown.
  • While they bake, add all of the sauce ingredients to a saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk or stir until the cheese melts.
  • When the rolls are baked through, pour the sauce on the top, and place the casserole back in the oven for five to 10 minutes or until the sauce is bubbly.
  • Serve immediately.

This is really saucy. You could easily get away with doubling the filling, getting an extra can of crescent rolls and using a nine-by-13-inch dish instead—while using the same amount of sauce.

I didn’t mind the extra creamy sauce along with the vegetables and buttery dough, though, so it’s all about what you like.

Of course, the addition of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme complimented the chicken and veggies nicely, too. That combo is a true love of mine.

This piece first appeared in print on May 18, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Be ready for an enchi’little’ heat with jalapenos this week

Jalapeno cream cheese chicken enchiladas are a great weeknight dinner. They're spicy, cheesy and make for fantastic leftovers.
Jalapeno cream cheese chicken enchiladas are a great weeknight dinner. They’re spicy, cheesy and make for fantastic leftovers.

Sometime last summer I found a huge bag of hatch green chiles that were on clearance in our local grocery store.

I immediately threw them in my cart, visions of cheesy enchiladas with mild, roasted chiles dancing in my head.

What I created was an abomination. I quickly realized how spicy the chiles were when Joey and I each took our first bite and nearly choked from the heat. I’m sure there are people who love playing chicken with the Scoville Heat Scale who would have absolutely loved them, but at the point that they even made Joey sweat, I knew they were way too spicy for either of us to consume. They ended up being deconstructed and made into another dish with lots of other ingredients to balance out the spice.

When I told Joey I was going to try a recipe for jalapeno enchiladas this week, he looked at me with a bit of skepticism that I wasn’t going to try to kill us both again. Luckily, though, we ended up with a dinner that was just the right amount of spicy and was really delicious.

The recipe I used is from the “All Recipes” website. You can find the original post at https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/218031/jalapeno-cream-cheese-chicken-enchiladas. I added extra seasonings in my version.

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Jalapeno Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

Jalapeno cream cheese chicken enchiladas are a great weeknight dinner. They're spicy, cheesy and make for fantastic leftovers.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword cayenne, cream cheese, cumin, enchilada, garlic, garlic powder, jalapenos, Monterrey jack cheese, paprika, rotisserie chicken, shredded chicken, weeknight dinner, yellow onion

Ingredients

  • 1 rotisserie chicken cooked and shredded (about 3 cups)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper divided
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder divided
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 2 or 3 jalapeno peppers diced (remove seeds and ribs for milder taste)
  • 4 to 6 cloves garlic minced
  • 8 ounces cream cheese I used fat free
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 28 ounces green enchilada sauce
  • 7 to 8 flour tortillas
  • 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese shredded

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • In a bowl, combine the shredded chicken, one teaspoon cayenne, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, salt and pepper, stirring to incorporate the ingredients. Set it aside.
  • In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and jalapenos, and saute until they are soft. Add in the minced garlic and saute for another couple of minutes until it just starts to brown.
  • Cut the cream cheese into one-inch cubes and add to the skillet, stirring to melt the cheese and combine the ingredients.
  • Once the cheese is melted, remove the pan from the heat, and add one-half teaspoon cayenne, one teaspoon garlic powder, paprika, cumin and the seasoned chicken. Stir until all the ingredients are well combined.
  • In a nine-by-13-inch pan, spread half of the enchilada sauce on the bottom.
  • Assemble the enchiladas by spreading a large spoonful of the chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla. Sprinkle the filling with about one tablespoon of shredded cheese, and roll the tortilla tightly, leaving the ends open. Place it seam-side down in the pan. Continue until all the filling is used, squishing the tortillas together as necessary.
  • Pour the remaining sauce over the top of the enchiladas and top with the rest of the shredded cheese.
  • Bake, uncovered, for 30 to 35 minutes or until the cheese is lightly browned and bubbly. Let sit for five minutes before serving. Garnish with sour cream and pickled jalapenos, if desired.

These had just the right amount of heat, and it was balanced really well with the cheese, but you can also decrease the spice level a bit by leaving out the cayenne pepper. They were also fantastic leftovers, which I always appreciate on busy weeks.

If these still sound too spicy for you but you’re in the mood for enchiladas, I’d encourage you to search for “queso fresco enchiladas” on my website (spiceupkitchen.net). Those would easily fit the bill.

But if you decide to make up your own recipe, just be careful not to blindly trust mystery peppers at the grocery store. And if you do, let me suggest purchasing some good anti-perspirant, a big box of tissues and a gallon of milk to help you recover.

This piece first appeared in print on March 24, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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