Chicken Enchilada Pasta

After you read through this recipe you need to go straight to the nearest store and buy the ingredients to make it.  Do not hesitate, do not pass go, do not collect $200!  This is one of the easiest recipes I’ve made lately and is definitely one of our favorites.  I won’t lie, at first I was hesitant to try it but I’m so glad I did!  It is easy, simple and delicious and smells SO GOOD as it’s cooking.  This recipe seriously makes a TON of food, so you’ll have leftovers for days which is awesome if you’re like me and eat lunch at home everyday!  So here’s what you will need…

Chicken Enchilada Pasta

2-3 Chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

2 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 medium onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 [4 oz] can diced green chiles

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

2 [10 oz] cans green enchilada sauce

2/3 cup red enchilada sauce

2 cups shredded cheese (I used monterrey jack)

1 cup sour cream

Penne pasta

Optional Toppings

Avacado

Green Onions

Tomatoes

Sour Cream

Cook, drain, and shred your chicken.  To keep the chicken from being dry, put it in a pot with water, some cumin and a little chili powder and set it over low to medium heat.  It is best to never let the water boil, but just cook the chicken slowly.  See all the spices? Yummm.

While shredding the chicken, your dog(s) may gather around to sniff for scraps.  They will not get any chicken, but they do make nice cooking companions ;)

Cook pasta and drain.  Next, chop up your veggies.  This doesn’t take much time at all, another reason why I LOVE this dish!

Heat the olive oil in a deep skillet and cook the onions until they’re nice and translucent.  Then add in your red peppers and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes or so. 

At this point everything will smell so heavenly that it may bring your husband in from the couch to stand next to you and sniff the goodness.  Bless him!
Now, add the chicken, green chilies, cumin, chili powder, salt and enchilada sauces. 

Stir this up and let the sauce simmer for about 10-15 minutes.  If it seems a little thick you can add some chicken stock to thin it out.  At this point everything smelled so good that I forgot to take anymore pictures, but the sauce just looks like sauce…  I was distracted by the excitement of a new episode of New Girl.  I LOVE that show!  It’s HILARIOUS.  If you’ve never seen it you really need to.  See, follow my instructions and eat delicious food while watching hilarious television.  Just don’t laugh so hard that you shoot chicken enchilada pasta out your nose.  Hahahaha!!! 
Ok, ok, ANYWAY… after the sauce simmers for a minute, add in the shredded cheese and stir until it is melted and heated through.  Now add in the sour cream but DO NOT bring to a boil.  Your sour cream will curdle and that ain’t sexy. 
Now, put your drained pasta back in the large pot you boiled it in and pour the sauce over the pasta and mix it up.  Now, get yourself a bowl and chow down.  I topped mine with a little sour cream and dug in.  I’ll wait, while you try your pasta.. Now come back here and leave me a little love note because you’re so grateful that I shared this recipe! 

SO GOOD!!!!!  Let me know what you think if you try it!  Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Slow Time

That’s what they call it here in the south.  What it means is that the sun goes down around 4:00pm.  But that’s ok, because this is what was waiting for me when I arrived home from work one day last week. 
Thanks for stoppin’ by

A Little Disappointed…

So a few weeks ago I pinned this recipe and was so stinkin’ excited to try it!  It sounded so seriously delicious I couldn’t wait.  I finally got around to putting it in my weekly meal rotation last week.  It smelled so insanely good while it cooked that I thought for sure it would be my new favorite meal!  Fast forward 5 hours after I assembled it all and dumped it in the crock pot….womp womp womp….  It wasn’t as good as the hubs and I had hoped, but I still want to try it again with a few changes.   I took some pictures while I made it, so here ya go..

For Angel Chicken you will need:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 1-1/2 pounds)

1 8-oz. pkg. fresh button mushrooms, quartered

1 6-oz. pkg. fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps sliced

1/4 cup butter

1 0.7-oz. pkg. Italian dry salad dressing mix

1 10-3/4-oz. can condensed golden mushroom soup

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 of an 8-oz. tub cream cheese spread with chives and onion

Hot cooked rice or angel hair pasta

Now you may notice that I’m using all white mushrooms, it’s because all they had at the store was white mushrooms and who really wants to go to 2 different stores, right?? Right.  Also, I’m using some old chardonnay that I’ve had hanging around for a few months.  The hubs questioned whether it was ok to use wine that old, and I assured him it CERTAINLY was.  So feel free to use some stanky old wine in your recipe too!  Kidding, kidding.
Ok, so first we melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan.  Once it’s melted we add in the packet of Italian seasoning.

Add in your soup, wine and cream cheese and whisk together.  It looks pretty much like barf at this point, but it smells UH-MAY-ZING.

Now, bust open your mushrooms and dump those bad boys down in the bottom of your crock pot.  I forgot to take pictures at this point, but it’s pretty simple.  Next, lay your chicken over top of the mushrooms in a nice, even layer.  Pour the cream cheese/wine/soup mixture over all of that, put on the lid and set it on low for 5 hours. 

And this is how it looks five hours later!

I wish you could smell this through the computer, it is truly heavenly.  Maybe that’s why it’s called Angel Chicken.. Duh, Megan.  Anywho, make some rice and plop some of everything on your plate and chow down! 


I’m still not sure what it’s missing, but maybe it needed more Italian seasoning??  Who knows, but I will surely try again.  If anyone has any suggestions of things that might give it that little extra ZIP, please let me know and if you make it yourself let me know how it turns out!  On a side note, that golden mushroom soup is wonderful.  I used it in another recipe this week and it really added some great flavor.
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

A Month of Sundays

Sundays are for being lazy around our house. We usually cook some breakfast and the only chore that gets done is laundry.  I’m also usually running around with my camera snapping pictures either for the blog or just for fun.  So I’m not sure why, but one Sunday I stepped out on the back stoop just off the laundry room and snapped a quick picture of the trees over to the right.  In the summer I took a few of these photos because I thought it was interesting that when standing on the stoop I could see into about 3 other people’s backyards!  No, I’m not a creeper, I just think it’s crazy how close together our houses are. 
Once the leaves started to change I took a picture every Sunday, just to see how things were changing and it’s pretty neat to see the colors change over time.

The leaves are still very green but just the tips of the branches are starting to turn yellow and orange.

A week later and not much change except maybe a touch more orange.

Seriously just one week later!  So much more orange everywhere!  Gloomy, but still beautiful.

Another week and even more bold and beautiful!  It all changed so quickly.

So neat! Now most of the leaves have fallen off the trees because of some rainy and windy days, but it’s still beautiful in my neighborhood.  There are three gingko trees right around my house and they are always the last trees to turn, but in my opinion, are worth the wait!  If you’ve never seen a gingko tree in late fall you need to, because they are so gorgeous.  I’ll be taking some pictures of those this week, since the tips of their branches are becoming yellow.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Our weekend really started on Thursday night, this week. Amara and Jeremy came over to cook some dinner and hang out.  Amara and I are two pretty serious carnivores so we made the boys grill burgers, even though it was a tid bit chilly outside. Amara is also a Pinterest addict like me, and had seen a VERY cute little idea for the burgers.  She cut pumpkin faces out of cheese slices and they were so cute!  Even the boys each “carved” a slice of cheese…too bad Jeremy tore the jaw off of his and ate it, so it needed some facial reconstruction surgery. 

We hung around in the kitchen like usual and had a few beverages.  Amara seasoned the burgers and made some SERIOUSLY delicious corn on the cob.  The corn was so good that I couldn’t even get a picture of it before we snarffled it all down.  I’ll have to check with her about the exact ingredients, but it has something to do with olive oil, cayenne pepper and garlic.  O man, now my mouth is watering.  I made another pumpkin crunch.  I may have a problem.

Saturday Amara and I ran around town to a few furniture consignment stores, but didn’t find much.  Then we got all dolled up and made our way to Nashville to see The Last Straw perform at 3rd and Lindsley.  They didn’t play my favorite song, “Tupelo”, but it was still a great show!  You can hear a few of their songs on the website, so be sure to stop by and check it out and at LEAST listen to “Tupelo”!

via

That about sums up the weekend.  The only other things going on are some serious studying for Nick, a little FaceTime with my parents and lots of laundry.  Oh! I made something for dinner that currently smells so delicious I can hardly take it!  I can’t wait to eat!  I’ll have the recipe and some super fun cooking photos up in the next couple days.  Also, I’ve decided on what to do with my laundry room, so hopefully I can get started on it soon!  It will be so amazing once I’m done with it.  Keep your fingers crossed for Nick, he has an exam on Tuesday that, judging by the amount of studying he’s doing, will probably be very difficult.  Tomorrow we brace ourselves for the Trick or Treaters coming our way, all 250(!) of them.  That’s it for today!

Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Wireshark Cookie Dump:

Delicious-ness

Long time, no blog!  Last week was a little crazy and off.  I had vacation on Thursday and Friday but was completely consumed with the task of readying our house for the onslaught of guests coming to stay for Homecoming weekend.  So I didn’t have a spare minute to collect my thoughts into a post. 
So Sunday night, after the guests were gone I felt the desire to bake.  So off to the store I went, to gather materials.  I wanted to make something Fall-ish and delicious and Pumpkin Crunch seemed perfect.  Now, I had made Pumpkin Crunch last year but I’m pretty sure I got about ONE bite of it before Nick took it to work for all his co-workers to enjoy.  If you’ve never had Pumpkin Crunch I would suggest you find yourself a can of pumpkin and some butter and get crackin’!  I promise you won’t regret it.  The recipe goes a little something like this:
1 (16 oz.) can pumpkin
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp. pumpkin spice
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk
1 Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
1 c. butter, melted
Mix together the first 6 ingredients and pour into a 9 x 13 pan.  Evenly distribute the yellow cake mix over the top of the pumpkin mixture.  Drizzle the butter over the top of the cake mix.  Bake for 50-55 minutes at 350 until it’s nice and golden brown.
It might seem veeeerrrryyyy liquid-y when you first put everything into the bowl, but if you whisk it together it starts to firm up a little.  If you really want to kick it up a notch, you can serve it with a little ice cream or homemade whipped cream. Yumm. 
On a plate it doesn’t look like much, but let me tell you, it is ADDICTIVE and I’ve almost eaten the whole pan I love it!  The butter makes the cake mix a little crispy and very very buttery, which I love.  Paula Deen would be proud, considering it takes 2 whole sticks to get a cup of melted butter. 

 
O man…my mouth is watering…  HAPPY BAKING!

Wireshark Cookie Dump:

Weekend Wrap Up

We didn’t do much this weekend.  And it. was. AWESOME.  I felt like the weekend went on and on, which was even better.  Saturday morning I got up a little early and went to the store to get the ingredients to make this deliciousness, but a little modified since I don’t have a bundt pan.  It was so stinkin’ good!  And easy.  I think these could be awesome for Christmas morning, or a nice treat for Thanksgiving day when everyone’s running around forgetting to eat breakfast.  They literally take 25 minutes from start to baked and delicious. 

I wish you could smell this picture….heavenly…
The trick is to baste the biscuits half way through the cooking time with all the “juice” down in the bottom of the pan.  Oh man, now my mouth is watering..

Sunday I face-timed with my parents a few times, which was so nice.  You don’t realize how much you miss someone until you can see them, but you’re not there with them.  Thank goodness for the iPhone!  I love being able to walk around the house and show my parents all my new and wacky ideas about what’s next for the house. 
I ended up making the sticky buns again, since Nick and I loved them so much.  They are ADDICTIVE, so if you make them be very careful!  I also made us some poached eggs, since I figured carbs-a-palooza wasn’t a good idea two mornings in a row.  I recently discovered how to make poached eggs and now they are my favorite way to eat eggs.  Julia Child would be so proud!  Eggs really are strangely beautiful when poached.  I wasn’t sure Nick would even like them but after we ate he said he could eat poached eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I really think I could too!  When done just right they really are so wonderful.  If you haven’t seen the movie Julie & Julia, you should.  Se makes poached eggs in the movie and the first time she bites into one(which is also he first egg EVER. I mean EVER.) she says, “Cheese sauce…” which is just what they taste like when cooked perfectly.


Now I’m off to bed.  I’m so worn out right now because Nick and I spent a few hours tonight worried sick about our boy Jacobe. He escaped from the backyard and wouldn’t come home.  I’m so relieved that he came back and I’m so grateful to all of our wonderful, sweet neighbors who called for him and tried to lure him into their houses for us for hours tonight.  They were just as worried about him as we were.  Nick and I were sitting in the family room with the windows open and could hear our neighbors calling Jacobe and sweetly trying to bribe him with treats. They’re all so sweet and knew we were worried about our boy.  Just when we thought he was gone for the night we decided to give it one last try.  Nick took Peanut out on her leash to go looking for Jacobe and as soon as they were out of my line of sight I heard Jacobe’s yelp, which I knew meant that Nick had scooped him up so I ran out of the house.  When I came outside Nick had Jacobe in his arms and there was the sweetest woman walking behind him with Peanut on her leash!  The woman had slices of cheese in one hand and our crazy dog’s leash in the other.  She said she was just worried that a car would hit Jacobe and she knew how awful that is, since one of her dogs was hit by a car a year ago.  She had seen Jacobe when she was on her way home from work and stopped to ask us if we needed help, but we assured her it would be fine.  Fourty five minutes later she was back out with slices of cheese, trying to get Jacobe to come back to our house.  I have no idea who this woman is, but I need to find her and thank her for her kindness!  We have the best neighbors.  So thank you to everyone in the neighborhood who came the tell us they’d seen Jacobe on the street, thank you for standing on your porches calling for him, and thank you for helping us when we needed it!  We’re glad he’s back home.

Wireshark Cookie Dump: