Chicken Enchiladas

 

This recipe came from our Best Simple Suppers for Two cookbook. The original intention was to make it for Valentine's Day, but we decided to roast a whole chicken instead for our romantic February 14 dinner. Since this recipe called for shredding a prepared rotisserie chicken it made more sense to use the leftover chicken for this one. The recipe says this has a prep time of 10 minutes, which I found wildly inaccurate. It took about twice that long to shred the chicken, chop the onion and garlic, cook it all with the other ingredients, then divide, and assemble. 

Full ingredient list includes:

4 six-inch corn tortillas (next time I will use six tortillas)

2 T olive oil

1 garlic clove (minced)

1 small onion (chopped)

2 cups shredded cooked chicken

1 can black beans (rinsed and drained)

1 can diced tomatoes

juice of one lime

1 cup corn kernals

1 t. cumin

1 c. enchilada sauce

2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

While sautéing the onion and garlic in our indispensable cast-iron skillet I charred the tortillas in a dry cast iron pan on the stovetop. I added the chicken and beans to the skillet and seasoned with some salt and pepper. Once the chicken and beans were warmed through I removed half the mixture to a separate bowl and mixed half the corn, half the tomatoes, half the cumin, half the lime juice, and half the enchilada sauce into what was left in the skillet and sprinkled a third of the cheese on top. Two tortillas were placed on top of this, and then the rest of everything (except the cheese) was mixed together in the bowl with the remaining chicken and bean mix, and then put over the tortillas. A third of the cheese was added, and then the other two tortillas followed by the last of the cheese. This was all baked in the skillet (with its lid) at 350 for 14 minutes. We topped our enchiladas with sour cream.

A spicy, flavorful meal with a lot of texture. We both liked this, although it wasn't especially simple. It had a lot of ingredients, a lot of steps, and created a lot of dishes. We will likely have this again, but I will save it for a weekend meal next time.

Super Simple Spicy Salmon

 On Thursdays we eat pink - pink salmon that is! 

When we bought our near-the-beach house six years ago we had the intention of going there together on Thursday nights when James had his rowing night, and then having a fresh, home-cooked seafood dinner together before heading back to our primary residence in Bridgewater. 

It has not always worked as intended, and this past year (plus) even less so as rowing was shut down. Last night we were back to business as (almost) usual with a stop a Kyler's Catch to pick up some salmon before James went off with his rowing buddies at Whaling City Rowing. Our super wonderful adult child is visiting so we enjoyed a family meal together. We selected an easy recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages: Four-Spice Salmon. 

We had all of the four spices called for (coriander, cloves, cumin, and nutmeg) in our spice rack, so once we had the salmon we were good to go. The only additional ingredients were salt and pepper and butter. I used lemon-pepper seasoning and some coconut-infused sea salt from Saltopia. I seasoned both sides with all the spices (although the recipe only says to do one side) then cooked on the stovetop in butter about 3 minutes per side. I served with super simple sautéed squash. This paired well with an oaky Malbec. 

Final verdict: Three thumbs up!

Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart

Gotta love a recipe with two hyphens in its name. This one showed up on my Facebook feed from the New York Times Cooking pages and I made it for dessert Saturday evening. It is simple to make, but since much of it is cooked on the stove top it has to be watched carefully, or burning on the bottom can be a potential issue. The recipe calls for ground almonds which I was able to take care of rather easily with my blender. The recipe also calls for four eggs, which gives it a custard-y look and flavor, albeit with a denser texture. I don't usually take seconds on dessert, but I did on Saturday!This was really good.