52 in 52 # 30 Salsa chicken

Over the last few years, I have a new found love for making food for my family.  Before that, I was never a chef, by any means.  I was capable of making simple items like a grilled cheese or some boxed max and cheese but nothing that would have been considered from scratch or that contained more than a few ingredients.  Over time I became more and more interested in cooking.  Fortunately, for people like me, there are a million websites for beginning chefs who need even the most basic of assistance, and now there is Pinterest, which is a cook-in-training’s best friend.  Because of the internet, thousands of recipes are available to you in the click of a button. 

 

My sister pinned the original recipe for Salsa Chicken from Pinterest a while ago.  I never looked at it because the picture isn’t the most appealing photo that could have been taken of that recipe.  One day, I was bored with what we had for dinner options and decided to give it a try exactly as the recipe stated.  We absolutely loved it!  My sister said that they have served it over rice, in tortillas, or just alone with a side dish.  It is amazing with any of those options.  Our favorite way to serve it is over a homemade Spanish rice. 

 

Of course, because we are who we are, the subsequent times that we made this recipe we changed up the ingredients a bit.  Now that we have a different version we like it so much more.  This recipe originally called for sour cream to be added into it, but we changed that to cream cheese and we love that addition.  It gives the dish a creaminess that fools your body into thinking that it is super cheesy without all of the added calories of putting cheese into the dish on top of the sour cream.  We also add more than double the salsa that it calls for.  We love spicy things and if Grace wasn’t eating with us and if the babies toddlers weren’t eating out of our bowls, we would probably make it spicier.  What makes this recipe even better is that it cooks in the crock pot and is completely a ‘set it and forget it’ style meal.  This recipe is very simple and easy to assemble. 

  

Salsa Chicken

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 4 hours

 

2 frozen chicken breasts

1 can reduced fat Cream of Chicken Soup

2 cups your favorite salsa

3 ounces fat free cream cheese

3 Tbsp Homemade Taco Seasoning**

1 can black beans

 

**Refer to this post here, if you have not made your homemade Taco Seasoning.  If you don’t intend to do that, you would substitute an entire pouch of Taco Seasoning from the store in this recipe.

 

Place 2 frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of your crockpot.  Sprinkle taco seasoning evenly over frozen chicken.  Pour cream of chicken soup and salsa on top of chicken.  Do not stir.  Cook on high for 3.5 hours.  After 3.5 hours, remove lid, shred chicken, add can of black beans, and cream cheese and stir to combine.  You can either remove the chicken from the crock pot and shred outside of the container using whatever method of shredding chicken that you prefer, or you can use two forks and shred it while it’s still in the pot.  We have done it both ways and it yields a similar result both ways. 

 

Serve over rice, wrapped in tortillas, or on its own with a veggie or salad.  We have had it several different ways and I must admit that I love it served over rice.  You can easily substitute sour cream for cream cheese and you can use the full fat/calorie versions of all items as well but we are trying to make this as healthy as possible.  You can add more or less salsa depending on how spicy you like it.  The original recipe called for 1 cup of salsa and I don’t think that you should add any less than that for fear of it being too thick or losing some of its necessary flavor. 

 

Made as our recipe describes there are 302 calories in a 1 cup serving.  This will make approximately 6 servings of 1 cup each.  This is very filling and using our Spanish rice recipe makes the total calorie count still appropriate for a calorie conscious dinner and it is very filling. 

 

Try it out and let me know if you make any substitutions as I am always looking forward to trying new variations of my favorite recipes. 

 

Enjoy!

 

-Sara

 

 

 

52 in 52 #15 - Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole

I promise I am going to blog about something other than recipes... eventually.  I have been in the zone lately making recipes that I find from Pinterest, it seems.  And (knock on wood) they have been mostly positive experiences. 

Next up on the list is Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole.  Let me be honest here... I was originally annoyed by this pin because it is just a picture when you click on it.  I don't understand why people do this for a recipe.  Take me to someone's blog or website that has made the recipe and can give clear, descriptive instructions.  I don't want to see a picture with your less than 100 words of description/recipe.

With that being said, I still took the chance and it turned out great.  Our latest version of taco seasoning that we made is a little bit more spicy than I care for, but it made this dish very flavorful. 

Southwest Chicken and Rice Casserole
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 25 mins

Ingredients
2 large chicken breasts
2 cups instant rice - we used brown
3 tbsp. homemade taco seasoning or 1 packet
1 can tomatoes and green chiles
1 1/2 cups water
grated cheese

Instructions:
Cut chicken up into bite sized pieces.  Add water, taco seasoning and tomatoes and green chiles.  Heat until boiling.  Add rice and stir together.  This is where we differ from the recipe.  We heated our mixture to boiling again after the rice was added, then immediately covered and moved the temperature down to low on our stove top.  Once water is absorbed, stir completely to combine and top with shredded cheese. 

We served ours in a bowl and it was amazing!  It has great flavor and is super easy to make.  The cheese melts and makes it creamy and delicious! 

Enjoy!

52 in 52 #9 - Homemade Taco Seasoning

Homemade Taco Seasoning – Pinterest Project #9

 

I have had my eye on this pin to make my own taco seasoning for months.  This is one of those items that I would not have previously brought up to my husband.  My husband is very practical and one of the things that he always wants me to think about is the amount of time, effort and money that it would take to make something personally versus the amount of money that it would cost just to purchase something pre-made at the store.  Since a packet of taco seasoning is like $.80 at the store and I figured that he would be less inclined to indulge my desires to try this recipe at home.  Luckily he was feeling generous that day and he actually seemed like he was into it. 

 

The original pin that I used as inspiration is here.  I was very interested in at least trying this because I figured that it would solve at least a few of my issues with the packets of taco seasoning.  We eat tacos, salsa chicken and other recipes that require taco seasoning a lot, so we were always buying at least a few packets of that seasoning mix when we went to the store.  We buy a lot of spices for chili mix and other cooking adventures so I knew that we would have everything on hand, I was always just hesitant to try a new recipe because I didn’t want it to be horrible.  Also, with the packet of seasoning, I was always getting HORRIBLE heartburn with it no matter what we put it in.  I am not sure what is in that mix that causes that but this homemade version definitely does not do that, which is awesome. 

 

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Prep time: 10 minutes

 

2 Tbsp chili powder

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp onion powder

½ tsp red pepper flakes

½ tsp oregano

1 tsp paprika

1 Tbsp cumin

2 ½ tsp salt

2 tsp black pepper

 

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix well and store in an airtight container.  Use 2-3 Tbsp per 1lb of ground meat depending on how flavorful you like your dishes. 

 

This seasoning blend tastes amazing in any dish that you would use the store bought mix in.  There are several different things that I love about this mix:

 

·         It’s customizable – you can add more or less salt if you like.  We use smoked paprika in place of regular paprika and we also usually add more red pepper flakes since we like ours a bit more spicy than some other people.

·         You don’t get that gross, heartburn-y feeling after eating this mixture.  There are no preservatives that aren’t already in the spices themselves and there is no MSG to leave you with an upset stomach like the package mix. 

·         We buy our spices in bulk most of the time, so this recipe ends up being fairly comparable as far as price is concerned to the package.  It will cost maybe a few cents more per use but to have something that tastes much better and you can customize makes it totally worth it.  Plus, people are impressed when you say that you make your own spice blend. 

 

You can buy cheaper mixes and get a bland result but if you are looking for something to add some kick to your dishes that require a taco seasoning packet, give this one a try.  Let me know what you would add or remove to make this blend different for your family.  I am always in the market for substitutions to try. 

 

52 in 52 #2 - Taco Pasta Bake

Pinterest project - 3                                                                   
Pinterest projects to go - 49




This. Is. Delicious.  So apparently, I have a problem with cheese, as evident with my meal plan for this week.  That will be on next year's resolution list. 

I found this recipe on Pinterest for this week and decided to give it a go.  My husband picked it from the meal plan for tonight and had it ready when I got home.  The following answers are straight from Corry's mouth with no censoring:

1. Was this recipe easy to make? Yeah
2. Did you enjoy this recipe? Yes
3. Would you make it again? Yes
4. Any additional comments? Add some jarred queso to it as it seemed a bit dry before it went into the oven. 

"Are you interviewing me?"  Not anymore!

Taco Pasta Bake:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 box of large pasta - we like Penne Rigate
• 1lb of ground beef
• 1 1/2 tbsp homemade taco seasoning
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 pkg of cream cheese
• 1 1/2C shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup jarred queso

Directions:
1. Boil pasta until al dente and drain
2. Brown ground beef
3. Mix together taco seasoning and 1C of water, pour over cooked beef and let simmer for about 5 minutes until the liquid has reduced
4. Add the cream cheese to the beef mixture, stir until melted and combined, and remove from heat
5. Put pasta in your casserole dish and mix in 1C of the shredded cheese and spoonful or two of jarred queso.
6. Top pasta and cheese with beef mixture, gently mix until the pasta is coated
7. Top with remaining 1/2C of shredded cheese
8. Bake at 350 uncovered for approx 30 minutes 

Original recipe here:

http://www.canadianmomscook.com/2012/07/taco-pasta-bake.html