Chili's Type Southwestern Eggrolls

You love them at Chili's...and you can make them at home!

So here's what you'll need:

• 1 Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast, cooked and shredded. 
• 2 tablespoons Minced Green Onion
• 1/3 cup MexiCorn (You know the stuff!)
• 1/4 cup Black Beans, rinsed and drained. 
• 2 tablespoons chopped spinach. 
• 2 tablespoons diced Jalapeno Peppers
• 1/2 tablespoon parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack (or any shredded Taco cheese)
• 5 (6 inch) flour Tortillas
• Oil for Frying

Okay, I'm telling you ahead of time that you have to put these things in the freezer for four hours before you fry them. Don't plan on making this and then immediately eating them. Plan ahead! Four hours ahead. At least. I make double the recipe above when I make this, since you can freeze them and it seems silly to waste half a can of corn and beans.

For starters, we're gonna cook and shred some chicken. For you newbs, to cook chicken breast, simply rinse it off, wrap it in some foil, place it in a baking dish and stick it in the oven at 350 for 50 minutes. Then slice the crap out of it.

(Playing Dexter with Chicken)

Next, we're going to chop up some tasty green onions. Green onions are bought in the produce section of your story and they come in a nice, cheap little bundle that looks like this.

(This is a great recipe for people who like to play with knives!)

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan over medium heat and toss these green onions on in there. Cook /stir them for a few minutes until they are soft. Then add the chicken, corn, black beans, spinach, jalapeno peppers, parsley, cumin, chili powder and salt. (aka 'everything else') Cook and stir 5 minutes until well blended and tender.

(Starting to look very Southwesterny!)

Remove from heat and stir in the Monterey Jack cheese until it melts. I used some generic 'Taco Cheese' because that's what Kroger carries and I was too lazy to go anywhere else. Honestly, as long as the words "Monterey Jack" are somewhere on the package, you're good to go! 

  

The Cheeese...eet eeez melting!

Wrap your tortillas in a clean, lightly moist cloth and stick them in the microwave on high for 1 minute, or until hot and pliable. (There can't be more than like 10 people in the world who don't exclusively use 'high" on their microwave. I'll bet 95% of you don't even know how to change that setting.) 

Tortillas...in a microwave.

(This picture wasn't really necessary, but look how clean the inside of my microwave is!) 

Put about two spoonfuls of mixture onto each tortilla. Like so:

To make your eggroll, fold in the sides of the tortilla in, fold the top over the filling and squeeze it gently a second. The tortilla is soft, it will conform to the shape of your filling. Then tuck the sides in again just a bit and roll it all the way. Squeeze it gently again. It's a bit like play-doh. You'll feel it mold. (Secure with toothpicks if you feel you need to) Put the eggrolls in a baking dish, cover it with plastic, and stick it in the freezer for at least four hours. (This is so they don't fall apart when you fry them.) 

Okay..now it's time to fry these suckers. The key to frying these in a pan is this: You don't want the heat so high that the outside gets too hard and brown before the inside cooks....so you want barely med high heat and watch your eggrolls carefully.  (Put them in carefully, don't splash hot oil on yourself!!!) (Start with the fold side down) Deep fry them for about ten minutes or until golden brown.

Drain on a paper towel before serving, and serve with a tasty ranch dressing!! :) 

Delicious! 

(*Bonus picture : My Noodles, helping me cook.)

Chicken Cordon Bleu for Newbs!

One of the things I love about doing a cooking blog is it forces you to try new and interesting recipes. Chicken Cordon Bleu is one of those things I always thought of as too hard to do, so I never even attempted it. Something about having to roll up ingredients with toothpicks...and hope it will A. Hold its shape and B. Cook all the way through...just seemed impossible given my limited skill set...but all of a sudden, today, I woke up and decided I was gonna try and make this.

*Derpy Edit -- I should probably give you a list of ingredients:

•  6 Boneless Chicken Breast halves
• 6 Slices of Boiled Ham
• 6 Slices of Swiss Cheese
• 3 Tablespoons Flour (pretty sure I used a lot more than that.)
• 6 Tablespoons Butter
• 1/2 Cup White Wine
• 1 Tsp Chicken Bouillon Granules (go easy on this..)
• 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
• 1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

For starters, preheat the oven to 350. Now, because Chicken Cordon Bleu needs nice thin slices of chicken, I decided to make a cooked, shredded chicken meal for tomorrow (Southwestern Egg Rolls, fyi,) thus allowing me the luxury of keeping that nice flat top piece while tossing those weird shaped under pieces into something else. Using a nice sharp knife (by the way, nice sharp knives DO matter...it took me a stupid long time to finally understand this.) slice your chicken in half like the illustration below..and just use those pretty top pieces. (Bottom pieces go into a foil hell all their own.)

Each thin slice of chicken now gets a slice of ham and a slice of swiss folded onto the top of it. I literally went to the deli and asked for SIX slices of Ham and SIX slices of Swiss Cheese, and the young woman behind the counter literally rolled her eyes at me. But why get more than you need?!

There are two methods to rolling these things up. The more common is to roll it up thin end to fat end long ways, and the other is to just fold it in half. Being a newb, I tried both ways to try both methods out. Once I rolled them, I secured that thing with a TON of toothpicks...because bitches love toothpicks. Meanwhile, I melt some butter (Did I say 'some?' How about six freaking artery clogging tablespoons worth?) in a pan over med-high heat. (Downs a handful of Simvastatin)

(Picture of butter melting in a pan...because Melted Butter!) 

Dredge the chicken pieces in flour, or...flour mixed with some seasoned bread crumbs. Some people dip them in egg first. I didn't do this..because after using SIX FREAKING ARTERY CLOGGING TABLESPOONS worth of butter, I am going to pretend to be health conscious. That...and this particular recipe didn't actually call for it.

(Dredging the chicken roll in flour)

(Is it me, or does this look pornographic?)

And then, why not just go ahead and toss that chicken on into that sea of butter. 

So the idea is to brown the chicken on all sides, and you would THINK that the cheese would fall out and it would get really messy, but this didn't actually happen. (Well, it did a little, but just a very teeny little.) You want to fry it long enough in the butter so that the sides get nice and brown. I started with the 'non open' sides down and then moved them around, which..requires a little creative work on your part since there are toothpicks fighting you the entire time. I used two forks to turn them...worked like a charm. 

(Chicken getting golden brown.)

(This is when my husband actually come downstairs to ask what I was cooking.)

Now that the chicken is brown, you put it in one of these things and stick it in the 350 oven for 25 minutes.

I'd like to point out, at this time, that the rolled chicken seems to be holding up better than the folded chicken, although in the end, they tasted exactly the same, so...take from that what you will. While this is cooking, we'll make the sauce. Now, I'll be honest...I didn't care for the sauce that came with this recipe. It came out too salty tasting to me. There are a few dozen different recipes for sauce for Chicken Cordon Bleu when I looked on the net, all with varying ingredients, and I'm sure one of them is delicious. But here is the sauce I didn't like...because I took pictures and well, you may as well learn from my mistake. 

You pour a half cup of white wine into the used pan (of butter goodness,) along with a teaspoon of chicken bouillon crystals. (I think the bouillon is what made it taste salty...so maybe try half a teaspoon first. Like, a real half teaspoon, leveled....) (I used one of those haphazard slightly heaping teaspoons...which may have been a bad idea.) Mix the cornstarch and whipping cream in a separate little bowl and then whisk that into the pan, lower the heat and let it simmer for ten minutes. It does thicken up nicely.

 (I...seriously messed up this sauce somehow...)

After twenty five minutes, I checked to make sure the chicken was cooked through nicely, which it was. And here's the finished product! 

(Why yes, that IS a LAKE of butter..but look at my beautiful CHEEEKEN!)

When I cut open the rolls, they were indeed perfect inside, much to my surprise, and they tasted AMAZING, as in a full ten on a scale from one to ten! The folded ones also tasted amazing, and while not as aesthetically pleasing, I found no real difference between the two. Even without my completely messed up sauce, these things were heavenly to eat and now that I've finally got my first Chicken Cordon Bleu under my belt, I plan to make them more often. Hopefully, with a much better sauce. :)

Chicken with Red Wine Sauce

Real connoisseur's will wince at this admission, but I love cooking wines.

When my brother and I were children, on a few rare occasions, we were allowed sips of red wine. Usually it was connected to the holidays, but sometimes my father just indulged our curiosity. While I loved pretending to be drunk, I always hated the taste - an unfortunate prejudice that followed me into my adulthood. Forget the Manischewitz...I didn't drink anything with alcohol in it at all.

For years, I avoided recipes that included wine in its ingredients, assuming I wouldn't like them either...but finally I gave in and tried one, and I've been hooked on Holland House ever since.  So, if you're like me and know nothing about wine but want to try something new, this recipe is for you. :)

Chicken with Red Wine Sauce

Ingredients : 

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 lbs boneless chicken breast
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup red cooking wine 
• salt and pepper to taste

  Directions:

Cut chicken into small strips.

 
Heat oil in skillet over medium/high heat. Stir fry chicken with garlic and onion until chicken is no longer pink and its juices run clear. Sprinkle with paprika and brown sugar.  *I* use two heaping tablespoons of minced garlic, myself...but then, I love garlic.

Pour red wine around chicken. Lower the heat to medium, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, lightly basting chicken as you cook.

 The wine will slowly thicken and your chicken will pick up a beautiful caramel color. Towards the end, you can leave the lid off to help the sauce thicken if you like.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, but keep in mind that cooking wines have a higher salt content than regular wines. You might not want to use any at all. I serve mine over white rice (I serve everything over white rice because I have a microwave rice cooker, and that thing is the bomb!) but this goes perfectly with spaghetti as well.

Easy, tasty and fabulous looking!!  Make it this weekend. It will be a perfectly yummy surprise for your hungry family!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Wraps

These can be eaten hot or cold. Make a bunch. 

Ingredients:

• Cooked boneless breast chicken - cubed. 
• Large flour Tortillas 
• Cooked crispy Bacon
• Green Bell pepper, chopped
• Red Onion, chopped
• Shredded Cheddar (or Mozzarella)
• Black Olives, sliced.
• Creamy Ranch dressing (or tasty dressing of your choice) 

First of all, yes, every other recipe here is wrapped in a Tortilla. Those things are amazing. I love them. I didn't put a quantity on my ingredients because you can adjust them according to your needs. I usually make 8 at a time, since you can snack on them all week long.  (And you will!)

So for starters, we're going to fry up a strip of bacon, one for each wrap. Here's a picture of the bacon frying because bacon is awesome. (By the way...if you don't have a griddle, you totally should buy one! I wish I had gotten mine twenty years ago. They make your life sooo much easier, and I swear they are easier to clean than a pan.)

While the bacon is frying, you can chop up your veggies and chicken. Put your entire stack of Tortillas on a paper towel and stick them in the microwave for one minute. You want them to be soft and pliable. Tortillas like to be soft and pliable. Gather all your ingredients together and be ready to make like an assembly line.

 

Draw a line of dressing across the middle of the Tortilla and top with a handful of chicken. Then pile on the rest of the ingredients according to taste. Obviously, if you don't like olives or onions, etc, you can omit those things, and add things you do like, because no one is going to question you. There is no wrap police. Yet. They are equally good with cheddar and mozzarella and they are equally good with Creamy Ranch, Caesar and Italian dressings, etc. You may be the master of your own culinary destiny!

For show purposes, I lined everything up for the photo, but normally, I just dump it all in one big row.

To fold a Tortilla for a wrap, you're going to fold the sides in first (barely an inch..just enough to keep stuff from falling out the sides. Then you fold the bottom half up and over your filling and you just scrunch it all inwards. The warm Tortilla will be malleable. If you hold it there a second, you can feel it conform. Fold the sides in again and roll it forward all the way. Again, hold it there a second and squeeze it gently. It's almost like playing with play dough. (I probably should have done these on something other than a white background as it's hard to see. Sorry!)

As you make each one, pop it in the microwave for 45 seconds while you make the next one. (Assuming you are going to eat it now. Otherwise, you can pile them into a big zip lock bag and refrigerate them just like this until you are ready to eat them.)

To be a true Killer Gourmet, slice them at a diagonal and serve with one half leaning against the other. Like so:

 Yay! It's yummy noms!

(For a healthier low fat version of these wraps, omit the bacon and choose a low fat cheese and dressing. They're almost as good. But of course, nothing is as awesome without bacon.)

Spinach Chicken Crepes

 
It takes about an hour of work to make these sumptuous Spinach Chicken crepes, so I only make them once every two months or so, but they are sooo worth the time. This recipe makes twelve crepes, and I usually cook six and either refrigerate or freeze the other six to eat at a later time. If you are feeling adventurous one day and wanna be all pro in the kitchen...these are the things to make!

Filling Ingredients: 

• 2 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 2 cups grated asiago cheese *
• 3 eggs, beaten to blend
• 1/2 package fresh spinach (or...half a can works too)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 lb cooked chicken, chopped   
• Jar of Alfredo Sauce for topping. 

* - I use the grated 'Italian Mix' cheese sometimes because not every store carries the grated asiago. So long as it contains asiago cheese, it's fine. The mix cheese is very close to the same flavor.

Crepe Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup fresh snipped chives (*green onions work just as well and is what I use here)  
• olive oil spray

Prepare the crepe batter first. Add the eggs and water and combine well. Add the flour and salt, and process until mixture is very smooth. Stir in the chives or onions. Place in a bowl and let sit for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, combine the ricotta, asiago (save a little cheese to sprinkle on top later) and eggs in a large bowl. Add the chicken and onions. Regardless of which kind of spinach you use, canned or fresh, stick it in the microwave for a minute to remove some of the moisture from it. (If you use the canned stuff, drain it really really well first)  Fold the spinach into the ricotta mixture.

                                      (Yes, it sort of looks like greenish gunk at this point)

To make the crepes, lighty grease a pan and heat over med high heat. Temp wise...think pancakes. You want these crepes to come out rectangular in shape. There's a way easier way of making crepes than to hold the pan at an angle and swivel it around. I just pour like a quarter cup of mix onto the pan and then take a regular straight edged spatula and spread the liquid into the shape I want.  Observe my very brief video. (I lay some oil on the side of the griddle and shove it around with the spatula every once in awhile as needed..so ignore the LAKE of oil on the side there, lol)

Then you turn them over and let them cook 10 seconds on the other side. I use tiny squares of wax paper to separate them as I stack them. I have no idea if they stick together or why I started doing it that way, but it's habit now. :)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease bottom of baking dish.

Fill each crepe with 1 cup ricotta filling, then roll.

 Place in baking dish, seam side down.

Pour the Alfredo sauce on the top of the crepes and sprinkle with a little cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

 
The filling, the crepes and the sauce are have their own unique, amazing flavors and the combination of tastes is OUT OF THIS WORLD delicious! 

Chicken Quesadillas

While working as a (line cook) chef in a (dive) fine dining establishment, I made these Chicken Quesadillas on a daily basis, so these are restaurant quality goods. Quesadillas cook fast so the key is having all your ingredients in front of you and ready to go when you start. The 'busy kitchen unit of measurement' is one handful of each item, so adjust your needs accordingly.

To make ONE Chicken Quesadilla, you will need: 

Ingredients: 

• Two Large (10 inch) Flour Tortillas
• Cooked Boneless Chicken Breast - diced
• Green Bell Pepper - chopped
• Onion - chopped
• Tomato - diced (I used the canned kind)
• Shredded Cheddar cheese
• Shredded Mozzarella cheese
• Grated Parmesian Cheese
• 1 tb Butter (appx)

For my own convenience, I mix my cheddar and mozzarella cheese together in a plastic bag but you don't have to do that. If you are making your Quesadillas in a pan, you'll need two pans going at the same time, set to medium high. If you're using a griddle, set to 400. Cluster your ingredients up next to your pan or griddle, and you're ready to go.

Lay down a full circular spot of butter for each tortilla and lay the tortilla on top of that. (I give it a quick rub around to make sure it's fully covered.) On the left tortilla, place a handful each of Cheddar and Mozzerella, spread as evenly as possible to the ends. On the right tortilla, cover evenly with a handful each of onion, pepper, tomato and chicken. (You can adjust your distribution to taste. It's your Quesadilla...make it however you like!) 

By the time you're done with all that distribution, the cheese side will probably look melted, like above. Slip a spatula underneath the cheese side and carefully flip it on top of the meat side. I use my fingertips to help line it up, but of course, it's very hot, so do that at your own risk.

Rub a little butter across the top of your Quesadilla and dust with the grated Parmesian cheese. Give it maybe another 20 seconds after that to really fuse together nice, and then using a spatula, slide it onto a plate. Cut your Quesadilla in 8ths and fan out for show. Serve with Salsa, Sour Cream, Guacamole or any fun topping of your choice.

The nice thing about Quesadillas is you can refrigerate left overs and eat them cold. They make absolutely delicious snacks.