Chicken Enchiladas

We had chicken enchiladas last night, and as promised, here is the recipe. This recipe was stolen from a flier on the top of a can of El Paso green chiles and modified a little. It is simple, quick and delicious.

Notes:

This recipe is based on using one whole chicken. It will make two medium sized (9×13”) casseroles.  You can feed a fairly large group, or you can cook one and cover the other with aluminum foil and freeze to use another day.

Also, this recipe uses corn tortillas, not the flour kind. You can use the flour, but the corn variety works better with this. Like their cousins, you should wrap a bunch of the corn tortillas in a paper towel and warm in the microwave to soften them. They are a lot easier to use when they are soft.

What you will need:

• One cooked chicken (I almost always buy a rotisserie chicken from the deli section of the grocery store!)
• 1.5 lb (6 cups) of shredded cheese (any type – to your taste)
• 1.5 cups of sour cream.
• 2 or 3 (depending on taste) small cans of chopped green chiles
• A package of small (six-inch) CORN tortillas
• 2 14 oz (or one 28 oz) can of enchilada sauce (any flavor, but we prefer the green sauce)
• A can of cooking spray

Preparation:

Remove the chicken from the bones and chop into small pieces. Place in large mixing bowl.

Add the sour cream, 2 cups of cheese and the two cans of chiles. Mix well.

Spray two casserole dishes with the cooking spray. Add a little enchilada sauce and spread around to coat the bottom of the casserole dish.

Place a spoonful of the chicken mixture into each tortilla. Wrap it up and place it with the folds “down” in the casserole dish.

Pour the rest of one can of sauce on top of the enchiladas.

Spread more cheese on top of the packed enchiladas. (Be sure to leave about half your cheese for the second casserole.)

Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with the cooking spray and cover the casseroles with the spray-side “down” (to prevent the cheese from sticking to the foil).

This will use up about half of your ingredients. Repeat the process for the second casserole.

Cook one dish in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour until it is hot and bubbly.

Place the other in the freezer and pull it out to eat in two weeks or give it to a neighbor. They’ll love you for it.

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Let the summer begin!

We had a pretty slow, nothing-weekend, which was just great.

Both Mrs. Poolman and I had a four-day break –mine courtesy of two furlough days. The most exciting thing we did was to have some friends over on Monday for a pool-hamburger-and-brats “start of summer” party. We invited some folks who are not part of our usual group.  Mrs. P and I both agree we need to expand our social circle a little. We love our friends, but sometimes it seems we get into a rut.

I was talking with the husband of one of the “new” couples. His wife is another of our CCD teachers. They moved to Savannah two years ago and have not made friends as quickly as they would have liked.  We both agreed that it can be tough when you are our age (50s). In many cases, people who might seem like good prospects for friendship are already set in their social circle and aren’t really in the market for new friends. I seem to remember this being part of a Seinfeld routine at one point.

“Sorry, you seem like very nice people, but we really don’t have any current job openings for new friends.”

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On Tuesday, we did our good-deed of the week. One of our neighbor’s father broke his hip and is hospitalized. As Mrs. P says, “In the South, when there is a problem, we take food.” So I made up a double batch of chicken enchiladas and we took one casserole over to their house.

This is a pretty good recipe I blatantly stole from a flier attached to a can of El Paso Chopped Green Chilis. Muy bueno! We are eating our casserole tonight, so I’ll have photos of the cooked and served product. I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.

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And, it looks like my tomatoes might do well this year. Last summer’s batch really didn’t thrive, because (I think) they didn’t get enough sun.

Just getting started...

This year, I planted them in containers and can move them around as needed. It’s still too early to be getting any fruit, but five of the six plants are growing and appear health.

Our fingers are crossed.