Simple and Delicious Inside out Chicken Enchilada

I absolutely love chicken enchiladas. I have been making them for at least half of my life and was probably one of the first things I started cooking. Since I love enchiladas I wanted to make it a bit different. This is a great twist to the usual rolled up chicken enchiladas. And its super simple. You can either use a slower cooker, which I do not have, or you can put it in the oven like I did. I have to say, I am afraid of raw and/or under-cooked chicken so that is why i cooked it longer. I added pictures below of everything.  I hope you get to make this recipe, its truly delicious.

 

Ingredients:

3 lbs (4 chicken fresh chicken breasts)

2 19oz cans of green Chile enchilada sauce

12 Corn tortillas

2 cups Shredded cheese ( I used Sharp cheddar cheese)

More shredded cheese to add after cooking, if you like

Corn ( I cut the corn off of 4 of our left over corn on the cob)

1 can Black Beans

1 can olives

Sour Cream

 

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

I used a dutch oven (Pioneer Woman Brand) and put 2 cans of green Chile sauce in with the chicken breasts. Pop it in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours. You can always check after the hour to see if the chicken is done. I cooked it longer to make sure it was not under cooked.

While the chicken is in the oven I prepped the food. Cut the corn off the cob or drain the corn in the can, drain the black beans, cut up olives and cut corn tortillas into whatever shape you like. I stacked them on top of each other and cut them. That’ll save you a bit of time.

Take the cooked chicken out of the oven. Take one chicken breast out at a time and shred the chicken with two forks. Put the shredded chicken back into the green Chile sauce and add all of the other ingredients. Stir ingredients until just mixed. Put it back into the oven and cook for 30 more minutes.

Take out and put in a bowl. Add more cheese if you like and top with sour cream.

 

Live Simple

 

Pizza recipe revised and absolutely perfect!

When I first set out to make pizza at home from scratch I found one recipe and kept tweaking it. I now have the best and most delicious recipe that I want to share. I love simple, I love easy and I love good food! I also found a pizza sauce without sugar added and without other junk added. It was maybe a dollar more but gosh, for $2.50 and using only half the bottle is darn cheap. Picture is down below.  Also, I cut out the oil out in the recipe and the crust is spot on amazing! I hope you get to try this recipe out, we absolutely loved it. 

Ingredients:

1 cup warm water

2 1/2 tsp yeast (I only use Fleischmann’s brand)

1/2 tsp raw sugar or regular sugar if that’s all you have 

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 Cups White whole wheat flour (I only use King Arthur brand)or just regular white flour if that’s all you have

Shredded cheese

Pepperoni or whatever topping you like

Pizza pan
Directions:

Warm you mixing bowl by adding hot water and let it sit for 1 minute. Pour out the water and then start your first ingredient.

Add 1 cup of warm water to mixing bowl, yeast and sugar. Mix the yeast mixture enough to make sure all the ingredients are wet. Let it sit for about 5 minutes until yeast rises. 

Add flour, salt and garlic powder and mix the ingredients with a dough hook until all are mixed together. 

Lightly flour a counter and put dough on it. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. Sometimes I let it sit more if I get sidetracked, which is very easy with kids. Ha! 

Now is the time to preheat your oven to 425 degrees. 

Once the dough is done sitting, roll the dough out into a circle or whatever shape you need for your pan. I make sure the dough is about an inch over on the sides so I can roll it up to make crust. 

Lightly spay your pan with cooking spray.

Put the pizza dough on pan and roll the sides up two times. Make a small crust border. Not sure how else to explain it, ha! 

Set aside and let it sit for about 10 minutes. I know, sounds like a lot of waiting…..but you want a really good tasting homemade pizza right? It also gives me time to clean up the kitchen and tend to my boys. That way I don’t have a mess to clean up after dinner is done. 

After the 10 minutes, add the pizza sauce.

Add the desired amount of cheese

Add your toppings. Our favorite is pepperoni. I use the Applegate pepperoni brand. It’s way healthier than other brand. And they do not have nitrates in it. Thank goodness for that. 

Put in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. Check the pizza to see if it is brown on the edges. If not keep in the oven for 5 more minutes. Our pizza came out perfect in 25 minutes. 

Cut and enjoy! Try not to eat the whole pizza at once. Hehe! 
If you have any questions just ask me! 

Live healthy

Live simple

Yummy Taco Seasoned Potatoes

This is one of our family favorite. It is a meatless meal but super easy to mix it up and put meat on it. This is actually a pretty healthy meal and everyone loves it. And it is really inexpensive.

Ingredients: 

3-4 large Potatoes

3 Tbps Taco Seasoning

1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 can Black Beans

1 Avocado 
Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Cut potatoes into little chunks. It doesn’t really matter which shape. I mix it up regularly . 

Put the Potatoes into a bowl and add the olive oil. Mix until all coated. 

Add the Taco seasoning and mix until all coated. 

Put into a greased baking pan, this time I used our cast iron skillet. Put in the oven for 20 minutes and test to see if the Potatoes are soft/cooked. They normally take 40 minutes total but I do not like to over cook them. After the 20 minute mark I will check on them about every 10 minutes. 

Once they are done, put them into a bowl or plate. Add black beans and top with avocado. 

I make many variations of this. You can add cooked ground turkey, shredded cheese and salsa. Making the Potatoes is just the base to so many different meals. 
I hope you get to enjoy them as much as we do!

Live healthy 

Live simple 

Football appetizer

It’s officially football season! Yes!! This was such a fun memory in the beginning of our relationship. We typically do fantasy football and this season he is playing two types so it’s gonna be a fun one! My goal is to try to make two types of foods a week. The idea is to do one appetizer and one meal but it will depend on how things are going. This time I made a simple and easy appetizer. All that is needed is wooden skewers, tater tots, bacon and cheese. And whatever dipping sauce you like. I used barbecue sauce, my husband used ranch and ketchup. 

1. Bake as many tater tots as you want. I made probably 50 tots. Bake for 30 minutes

2. While tots are baking cook the bacon and crumble once done.

3. Take tots out when they are done and let cool for about 5 minutes. 

4. Put tots on skewers and place back on the pan. I put 10 tots on each skewer. 

5.  Sprinkle a little bit of cheese on the tots, sprinkle the bacon crumbles and then more cheese. Put as much or as little as you like. I honestly did not put on as much as I should have. More the better 🙂 

6. Place loaded tots back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Just until cheese is melted and a little crispy. 

7. Take out and serve. 

Simple. Easy. Yummy. 

Husband approved! 

Live full

And

Live simple

GO SAINTS

GO CHARGERS

Easy Football foods

Well, football is officially here and this house is very excited! We are on the east coast now So our games are later and we have to stay up super late to finish the games. A bummer but it means we need more snack foods. I posted a flautas recipe yesterday that would be perfect for snacking on. Today I am sharing my 7 layer bean dip and a look at our football pizza. I make the same recipe for the pizza but just change the ingredients or look. Its fun and cooking should be fun! Here is what our football pizza looked like before I put it in the oven

….and have to admit, we were so hungry that I forgot to take an after picture ha ha It was absolutely yummy though. Ill take a picture next time.

On to the bean dip recipe.

7 Layer Bean Dip

Ingredients:

Black bean refried beans (or regular refried beans)

Cheese sauce (I used tostitos)

Ground beef (I used taco seasoning for flavoring)

Avocado mashed up

sour cream

shredded cheese

olives

Directions:

In a 9×9 pan spread black beans (the first layer) on the bottom. Next spread cheese sauce over the black beans. Sprinkle the ground beef mixture on top of the cheese. Next, carefully spread the mashed up avocados over the meat. Next, even more carefully spread the sour cream on top of the avocados. I try not to move the avocado mixture when spreading the sour cream so it looks better. Sprinkle on the shredded cheese and after that sprinkle on the olives. And voila! Done!

Dish it up and enjoy. It is super easy, yummy and something you can eat throughout the day. This is one of my favorite football foods.

Enjoy and Live simple!

Go Saints!!

Easy Baked flautas

I wanted to use ingredients I had on hand and came across flautas online. I’ve had them at restaurants but have never attempted homemade. I came up with my own version and they turned out so yummy! Here’s my recipe, feel free to use your own ingredients you have on hand. But this is a really yummy mixture. Also, if you are looking for footbal foods this would be perfect! 

Ingredients:

1 package of flour tortillas

3-4 cups spinach

Ground beef (I flavored it with taco seasoning) 

Brown rice

Shredded cheese

1 cup black beans, drained 

1-2 tsp olive oil 

Softened butter or olive oil for coating

A glass of wine or a beer-to drink while your cooking of course! Cooking should be fun! 
Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Cut up tortillas into quarters
• Chop up spinach and put into a pan on the stove. Add 1 tsp of olive oil and cook until wilted, about 3-5 minutes. 
• Mix ground beef, black beans and brown rice together
• Put a small amount of ground beef mixture onto the outer curved part of the quartered tortilla. Next to it (on the inside) add a small amount of spinach. After that put a small amount of shredded cheese. Here is what mine looked like 

  

  ground beef mixture, spinach and cheese

   
• Roll up from the outside in and place on a pre-sprayed cookie sheet. Continue until you fill the pan up. 
• Take softened butter or olive oil and rub onto flautas. This is to make sure the flautas get crispy or flaky. Mine looked like this. I tried both to compare. I like the olive oil a little bit better but they both taste amazing.   
• Put into oven for 15 minutes, take the, out and enjoy! They should look like this  

  

  This is the finished product comparison. They look similar.

   

I served them with cheese sauce, sour cream and avocado. 
Hope you enjoy them as much as we do! 

Love life and live simple.

It’s pizza time!

This is the easiest and yummiest pizza recipe I have made so far! I absolutely love making homemade pizza from scratch and I have different toppings every time! This is a must make recipe 😃

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups hot water

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp yeast (freischmann’s active dry yeast) 

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp granulated garlic

4 cups all purpose flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine water, sugar and yeast into mixing bowl. I have found that the best way to have a no fail yeast rising is to warm up the bowl you are going to put it in first. I put really hot water in the bowl and let it sit for a minute, dump it out and then add the ingredients. Let it rise for about 5-10 minutes.

 

yeast mixture after 5 minutes

 
Add salt, garlic and flour and mix well. Dough sound not be super sticky. 

I put 1/2 cup flour on a dry and clean surface and roll out into whatever shape you are making your pizza. Today we did a rectangle pan pizza. We do circle, rectangle and hearts normally. 

 

dough on 1/2 cup floured surface

  

doug rolled out into a rectangle-ish shape. I dont try for perfection.

 
Place dough in a greased pan. I use the Kirkland brand of Pam. 

I roll the sides in

Put on ingredients. I used semi cooked broccoli and onions today. I normally use what we have on hand to save money. 

Place pizza in preheated oven at 425 degrees. I cook the pizza on the second rack from the bottom for 20 minutes and the. I put it on the top rack for 7 more minutes. 

Take it out, cut it up and enjoy!

   
 This really is such a yummy pizza it’s hard to just eat two pieces! 

From start to finish it took me a little less than one hour. 
Enjoy and live simple!

Craving pizza on a budget?

Need a fast lunch?

Craving “pizza” but don’t want to pay a hefty price for pizza?

Do you have pasta sauce? Cheese? Left over hot dog and/or hamburger buns?

Here is the solution and it only takes about 10 minutes. 

“pizza” finished and packed to take to our daily family picnic at the hubby’s work.

We have been making this style of “pizza” for as long as I can remember as a kid. 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

1. Separate your hamburger and/or hot dog buns.

2. Spread pasta sauce onto hamburger and/or hot dog buns

3. Spread cheese onto hamburger and/or hot dog buns

4. Put into over and keep an eye on it. I typically let the cheese melt and then turn it to boil and make them  toasted. 

And, voila, Done! 

Super easy, cheap and you can get rid of the left over hamburger and hot dog buns. Woot! 
Enjoy and live simple 🙂