Chicken Chile Verde

Posted on June 3, 2010 by so simply good

I love chile verde. It's one of those rare foods that I usually don't even attempt to make on my own, and count myself as lucky when I get it. The slow simmered pork chunks, the green sauce…my mouth is watering.

I was a little intrigued, though, when I stumbled across this recipe. A chicken chile verde that's great for Once A Month Cooking…I had to at least give it a try.

I'm so happy I did. It's not exactly what I think of when I think of chile verde (for one, the sauce isn't really greend!), but it's good. Not perfect – I'll be working on a few changes next time. If definitely needs that acid that a squeeze or two of lime gives it, while cooking and when serving. Tom and I both thought it could use a little bit more heat. I'll come back and make changes to the recipe once I figure out where I want to go with it.

Still…as is…it's pretty good.

It's a great way to use up some of that pulled chicken I always have leftover from making stock and it makes for a super easy dinner. If I've remembered to pull it out of the freezer in time, it can take me just a few minutes to pull together a great dinner. We ended up serving it in bowls, topped with cheese and sour cream alongside a few homemade corn tortillas for dipping.

Here's the recipe, with my changes:

Chicken Chile Verde
Serves: 4 (I'll be doubling on my next baking day)

8 ounces dry pinto beans (1 1/4 cups)

2 cups shredded, cooked chicken

1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chiles (I used Ortega)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon chili powder

3 cups chicken broth

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup onion finely chopped
a squeeze or two of lime

to serve:
1 cup grated Monterey Jack or cheddar
1 dozen corn tortillas
salsa
lime slices

Rinse pinto beans, soak them in cold water overnight, then drain.
The next day, combine beans, chicken broth, garlic, salt, and onion in a large pot; bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer until beans are soft, about 1 hours. Add more water if necessary.
Combine chicken and spices with beans; simmer 10 more minutes.
Serve with warm tortillas, cheese, lime wedges and salsa.

To freeze:

Cool completely and freeze. This is a great recipe for freezer bags - fill them, place on cookie sheets and freeze. Once the chile verde is frozen, it's easy to stack and takes very little room!
I try to pull out of the freezer at least a day in advance, but if I don't it's defrosts pretty quickly in a bowl of water in the sink.

Breakfast Muffins

Posted on May 24, 2010 by so simply good

This is one of those recipes that I wish I could take credit for, but I can't. It's just Heavenly Homemakers Breakfast Cake in muffin form. They are filling, freeze really well, taste great and have no refined sugars or flours in them (unless you put in chocolate chips).

I've been making them for my baking days for the last 4 months, and they're always the first thing we run out of! The first time I made them, I did them in a pan…which was fine, but cupcakes seem to work better for freezing.

Breakfast Muffins
makes about 24 regular sized muffins

1 cup butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup buttermilk (or do the old soured milk with vinegar trick)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole rolled oats
¾ cup honey
2 eggs
1 t. sea salt
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
1 cup raisins, chocolate chips or other dried fruit

Stir together butter, buttermilk, flour and oats in a glass bowl. Cover with a cloth and allow the grains to soak on your counter overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Prehead oven to 350.
Stir in honey, eggs, salt, baking soda and vanilla to soaked grains.
Fold in raisins, chocolate chips or dried fruit.
Scoop into prepared muffin tins (about 3/4 full) and bake for 15 to 20 minutes (until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean).
If freezing, allow to cool completely before bagging and freezing.

Notes:

This is a soaked recipe (as in, you soak the first 4 ingredients overnight), but I've done it without soaking and they come out just fine. Why soak? It seems to help with digestion. From personal experience, I can say that I don't have the headaches or other issues I tend to have with wheat when it's been soaked or fermented (as in sourdough).
You can also bake this in an 8×8 or 9×9" pan – just bake it for 40 to 50 minutes.
It seems like a lot of butter. I know. I'm not really afraid of it, and certainly far less worried about butter than margerines or other fake spreads. Butter is real food. I don't eat it all the time, and not lots of it when I do, but it's okay. In the long run, I really believe it will do far less damage to your body than any of that stuff in the tub. In fact, I've been eating full fat dairy and everything else for the past 6 months and my cholesterol has gone down over 25 points.

Easy Chicken Cacciatore

Posted on May 23, 2010 by so simply good

I don't usually post recipes until we've actually eaten it, but I've quite a few requests for this one so I thought I should get it up sooner rather than later. It doesn't hurt that Tom took one bite and asked for a bowl of it (he suggested I call it a hearty tomato soup in winter).

This actually started out as a freezer/once a month cooking recipe I found online…but as I started putting it together during my baking day, I realized I'd left a few things off my shopping list. I'm not even sure it's technically chicken cacciatore any more (the last time I had it, I think I was maybe 10), but it's definitely a good, simple, spicy tomato sauce. After a bit of scrambling and a lot of taste tests, this is what I came up with:

Easy Chicken Cacciatore
Makes enough for 2 meals for our family of 4
Freezes great

1-2 T. olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 large can of mushrooms 3 cans diced tomatoes
2 t. dried basil
2 t. dried oregano
3 t. garlic powder (or a few cloves)
a few shakes of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
several cups of pulled chicken (although hubby dear said it would be perfectly fine without meat)
pasta or brown rice (cooked) for serving
parmesean cheese (optional)

Saute diced onion and bell pepper in olive oil.
Add mushrooms and seasonings, cook for a minute or two.
Add 3 cans diced tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add in chicken and warm through.
Serve over pasta or brown rice and a sprinkling of parmesean cheese.

Seriously, that's how easy and quick it is. Since I was planning on freezing it, I went ahead and just threw my chicken in the bottom of my freezer bag and ladled the sauce on top of it.

A couple of notes:

Play around with the seasonings to find what you like. I tend to go a little heavy on garlic and I'm a little bit obsessed with red pepper flakes right now, but you could easily cut back on either of them.
The mushrooms – I'm generally a fan of fresh anything, but for freezing I prefer canned mushrooms. Fresh ones just get funky in the freezer.
I kind of feel the same way about frozen pasta. It doesn't take very long, so I'd rather wait until I'm serving to cook my pasta. I can also add a little bit of the pasta water to the sauce if I decide it needs to be thinned a bit when serving. I do find cooking my brown rice in a huge batch and freezing it in meal sized portions to work very well and also to be a huge time-saver for me.
I might try blending this all next winter as a tomato soup (maybe without the mushrooms, though).
Edited to add: When we had this for supper earlier this week, it was a 50/50 split on the pasta and brown rice. Tom and I loved the brown rice and the kids preferred the pasta. I don't normally serve both but since it was our first time, I wanted to experiment.

Enjoy!

This recipe linked to:
Life As Mom's Ultimate Recipe Swap
The Grocery Cart Challenge

almost done

Posted on May 22, 2010 by so simply good

Baking day is almost done. I've got a few more things cooling completely and a pork roast in the slow cooker that I'm going to let cook a bit longer before I shred it.

Other than that?

Done!

Even better than being done?

Tom is cleaning the kitchen =)

This is a little bit bigger list than usual – I'm hoping it lasts until we leave for our trip to California next month and I'm also hoping there's something still in the freezer for Tom (he comes home a few weeks before we do).

Here's what I did:

Beans (kidney and pinto) – 5 bags, 2 c. each
Brown rice – 6 bags, 4-5 c. each
Breakfast cake muffins – 7 bags of 5, 2 small loaves
Blueberry muffins – 5 bags of 5
Chocolate chip cookie dough – enough for 5 desserts
Waffle mix – 5 bags
Flour tortillas – 2 dozen and a few extras
Corn tortillas – 3 dozen
Sandwich rolls – 13
Chicken stock – 4 jars of 3.5 c. each
Chicken taquitos – about 1 meal
Chicken cacciatore – 2 meals
Chicken chili verde – 1 meal with leftovers
Tex Mex lasagna – in the oven for supper
South Carolina BBQ pork for sliders – at least 2 meals

And prepped meats for:

Fajitas
Teriyaki chicken
Rotisserie seasoned chicken breasts
Burgers

A few pictures:

Waffle mix. Next time, I'm going to do the labels for all of the "regulars" on the computer with any other needed ingredients or instructions.

Breakfast muffins – love these! No refined sugar or flour (except what's in the chocolate chips). I'll share the recipe later this week.

Tex-Mex Lasagna. In the oven right now =)

If we like it, I'll be sure to share the recipe soon.

Edited: Oh my heck, it's awesome! I'll definitely get this one up this week!

My made-up Easy Chicken Cacciatore (before I added the chicken). It's probably not very authentic, but Tom took one taste and wanted to eat it as soup (I'm glad I wrote down what I was doing!). All I have to do to serve is defrost, heat, put it on top of pasta or brown rice and sprinkle a little parmesean. On my list to share soon!

Flour tortillas. I think we finally mastered these! Tom, Caleb and I all worked on them. I also made a few dozen corn for me.

My freezer is actually almost full, and I've got a bunch of new recipes to share – I'd call that a totally successful baking day!

Baking Day Plans

Posted on May 20, 2010 by so simply good

Time to fill the freezer again! I'm going to try to do a little bit extra this month since we'll be heading out to California at the end of June. Tom will be home a bit before the kids and I are, so I want to have a few things in the freezer to make it easier on him. I've also got a few more actual meals I want to try this time.

Here's the list of regulars:

Beans (maybe pintos and kidney)
Brown Rice (I really should do a little tutorial on this – brown rice in the freezer is one of my biggest time/meal savers)
Breakfast Cake (double batch)
Blueberry Muffins
Banana Nut Muffins
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Waffle Mix
Teriyaki Chicken (I use an Iron Chef marinade we found at BJ's for this. It's not too high in sugar or fake ingredients, but once it's gone I'm going to try making my own)
Fajita Steak
Tuscan Lemon Chicken
Tortillas (flour and corn)
Chicken Stock (overnight in the crock pot – that worked great last month!)
Sandwich Rolls

And my test recipes (which I will of course share if we like them):

Pizza rolls (kind of like cinnamon rolls, but with marinara, mozzarella and a bit of chopped pepperoni – this is sort of a crazy idea I had the other day and I want to see how it works)
Chicken Cacciatore Penne
Chili Verde
Tex Mex Lasagna
Southwest Roll-Ups
South Carolina BBQ Pulled Pork
Giada's Marinara

I think it's definitely going to be a two day endeavor this month!

The Baking Day Regulars (with recipe links!)

Posted on April 23, 2010 by so simply good

Today was my fourth round of baking days (although that picture was from my first a few months ago). It's definitely getting easier – I seem to have found a flow and a rhythm that works really well for me. Rather than shopping this morning like I normally do on a baking day, we were able to get it all done yesterday which worked out sooo great. I was able to get beans, rice and muffins soaking overnight and threw a chicken in the crockpot to make stock… which saved me tons of time today and made it possible to get it all done in one day.

I'm also finding that there are a few things that I do every month and for my own sanity, I'm listing them here with recipe links. A few recipes are ones that I've been adapting, but haven't shared yet. I'll try to get them up as soon as I can.

Brown rice (cooked, cooled and portioned into freezer bags – it freezes great!)
Black beans (same as above, except I just realized I didn't portion and freeze yet)
Tuscan Lemon Chicken (someday I'll try the Herbs de Provence one, but this one is sooo good)
Pork Chops (basic – olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic…sometimes I add a little lemon)
Fajita Steak (a long time favorite of ours)
Orange Beef and Broccoli (not well planned on my part. The goal was to get the meat cut and bagged, and then to also get the marinade made and frozen but I didn't have all of the ingredients. Next time!)
Chicken stock and cooked chicken
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (made with whole wheat flour and coconut oil so they're a bit more nourishing)
Breakfast Cake (in muffin form)
Blueberry Muffins (I'll try to get these shared soon)
Apple Walnut Muffins (a new recipe that was awesome with my experimentation)
Waffle Mix (all but the wet ingredients, which are written on the bags)
Tortillas (another one I need to share)
Sandwich Rolls (trying to get a little photo tutorial done on these one of these days!)

I put most things in freezer bags, portioned out for one dinner for our family of 4 and sometimes add in a bit extra for planned leftovers or lunches later on. The key to success for me has been making sure I jot down every single bag in my Homemaking Binder. It's also helpful to have a weekly meal plan, and to keep it posted somewhere I see all the time. Knowing what we're having over the next few days makes it easier to make sure I have dinner components pulled out in advance to thaw in the fridge.

When I look at the list like that, it really doesn't seem like I did all that much. There aren't any complete meals, but they are more than enough to give me a big head start!

Baking Day 2 Plans

Posted on February 25, 2010 by so simply good

Last month's baking day was a huge success. There are still a few things in the freezer (mostly marinated or prepared meats), we had baked goods to last us through the entire month and meal planning was so much simpler! I'm planning on

I'm getting ready to do it again this weekend, and here are my plans:

Blueberry muffins

Banana or pumpkin muffins (adapted with whole wheat, spelt or brown rice flour)

Breakfast cake (a total hit from last time, but I'm going to try making these as muffins this time)

Homemade almond milk (a test recipe, not a bulk one)

Sandwich rolls

Chocolate chip cookie dough (this was a huge hit – and there were just enough dough balls for fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies once a week)

Marinated chicken (maybe these)

Marinated pork chops (some with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and others with fresh squeezed orange juice added to the mix)

Marinated steak fajitas

Chicken stock

4 dozen tortillas made and cooked (testing out a new recipe from Rick Bayless, which has been saved on our DVR for the last 3 weeks – I'll share if we like it better than our current one)

Brown rice

Beans

A few thoughts:

meal components and baked goods definitely work better for us than actualy frozen meals. The more complete a dish has been, the less likely we've been to eat it.
marinating meat as it comes home from the grocery store = brilliant! I just pull it out of the freezer a day or two before it's on our menu…all I have to do after that is cook it.
I spent a little under $500 on all groceries and toiletries last month for our family of 4. It should have been just enough to feed us, but we ended up eating out more than usual due to stresses and the tax return. This month will be a lot tighter, and I'm adding in my first raw milk and some pastured meats. That eating out has to stop!

The Baking Day Report…

Posted on February 2, 2010 by so simply good

Whew!

One big morning of shopping…one crazy-busy afternoon of baking and cooking…and one slightly calmer morning to finish up.

And a whole lot of big messes!

All in all, I'm very pleased with how my fill-the-freezer frenzy went. I didn't end up making everything on my list (no marinated fajita steak because I forgot to buy the meat and no spiced nuts because I decided I didn't need them), but here's the breakdown of what I did end up with:

Stir Fry Chicken – 2 meals
Marinated Pork Chops – 3 meals
Taco Meat – 2 meals
Shredded Beef – 2 meals (plus dinner Friday night) – will share what I call my White Girl Barbacoa recipe soon!
Tuscan Lemon Chicken – 2 meals
Chicken Stock - 2 quarts
Enchilada Sauce – 2 quarts
Applesauce – 2 quarts
Kidney Beans – 2 bags (2 c. each)
Black Beans – 2 bags (2 c. each)
Tortillas – 40
BRC Burritos - 8
Chicken Burritos – 10
Breakfast Cake – 1, froze half
Banana Nut Muffins – 2 dozen
Blueberry Muffins – 2 dozen
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – enough for 4 dozen cookies
Brown Rice – 3 bags (3.5 c each)
Ranch Mix – 1 jar
Almond Milk (an experiment) – 2 quarts
Sandwich Rolls (another experiment) – one dozen
Calzones (supposed to be an experiment, ended up as lunch) – 4
Macaroni and cheese - 2 trays

All together, components for about a dozen meals. Not too shabby!

A few thoughts…

I couldn't have done this without Tom or the tortilla press. He worked on tortillas for about 2 hours (maybe more), freeing me up to work on other items. The press made the tortillas a little bit thicker than I'd expected – but they're still great for tacos and I'm going to try making flat bread pizzas out of them, too.

Next time, I will definitely buy more frozen blueberries – between smoothies, blueberry muffins and Tom's love for them, we've almost gone through the big BJ's sized bag since Friday. Also, blueberry muffins work great with sucanat instead of white sugar.

I'm no longer afraid of coconut oil – these healthier chocolate chip cookies are amazing. Next month, I'll be replacing all of the oils in my baking with coconut!

Planning dinners that used foods we'd already prepped that day was a blessing. I was wiped out by Friday evening, and all I had to do was pull out a little of the shredded beef and homemade tortillas. Not exactly the best presentation, but they were delicious!

To quote Caleb, "speriments are good". My experiments all worked out pretty well – we love the homemade almond milk and it's at least a third cheaper making it at home than buying it at the grocery store. My bread dough works great for little sandwich rolls, which I'll definitely be making more of considering my test batch is almost gone. I realized recently that I buy loaves of bread at the grocery store and then throw them away because we don't eat them. I guess I'm just so programmed to buy bread that I didn't realize the waste! I always have bread dough in the fridge, and the kids prefer rolls to sliced bread anyway.

And I don't know why, but it's just really fun to make your own almond milk. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing soaking almonds in our kitchen on at least a weekly basis! We decided not to strain ours since we knew we'd be using it within a day or two and would have thrown the almond meal in the smoothies.

Calzones were another experiment. These four were gobbled up as soon as they'd cooled enough to eat, and on that level they were a success. I had hoped to see how they'd freeze, but didn't quite get the chance. And I need to work on sealing them a bit better – as Hanna pointed out, these all look like they're "puking on each other"…not exactly the response I want to hear about food. I still might make these for my next baking day but if I have my bread dough ready, they only take a few minutes to throw together and I can use all sorts of leftovers for fillings. They're definitely going in my "we need pizza now!" file.

Next time, though, I'll remember not experiment with my experiments before I've made them at least once following the recipe. The macaroni and cheese was okay with spelt pasta, but Tom and the kids would have really loved it with regular. That's how I'll do it next time.

A few notes as I'm looking toward next month…I'm interested to see exactly how long all of this will last us. I need to find another easy meal for Tom's lunch. We both like burritos, but not 3 or 4 times a week. I threw all of my recipes and notes from this round into my homemaking binder for next time. I also created a little freezer inventory sheet and am crossing things off as we eat them.

a girl with a plan

Posted on January 29, 2010 by so simply good

I mentioned last week that I was planning to take part in a freezer cooking day this weekend.

I think I'm just about ready. My shopping lists, master baking list and daily break-downs are done. I've printed a few recipes I needed and just have to gather a few others. We're heading out first thing tomorrow to pick up the needed groceries and we'll be heading home to fill that freezer up.

If all goes according to my two day plan, by Saturday night I'm hoping to have the following done and in the freezer:

Mini pancakes
Blueberry muffins
Banana or pumpkin muffins (adapted with whole wheat, spelt or brown rice flour)
Breakfast cake
Homemade almond milk (a test recipe, not a bulk one)
Sandwich rolls
Chocolate chip cookie dough
Spiced nuts (a combination recipe of an old family one and this one)
Calazones
Applesauce
Marinated chicken (maybe these)
Marinated pork chops (some with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and others with fresh squeezed orange juice added to the mix)
Marinated steak fajitas
Two taco roasts cooked, shredded and frozen (and I have got to share that recipe!)
Enchilada sauce
Chicken stock
4 dozen tortillas made and cooked
- some for burritos and some to freeze on their own
Ranch dressing mix

I'm still debating adding in this macaroni and cheese recipe that might end up as a test recipe with some spelt pasta I have in the pantry. If it works and freezes well (I have no idea how spelt pasta will freeze), I'll do a larger batch next time.

Typed up like that, it's a little intimidating. I'm reminding myself, though, that I've got Tom and the kids already on notice that they're helping so I don't have to do it all by myself. I'm really hoping to make this a monthly effort and am anxious to see how much it helps out my time in the kitchen!

Chicken Packets

Posted on October 10, 2007 by so simply good

One of my first adventures in OAMC (Once A Month Cooking). I’m not quite sure why I printed the recipe, but it is easy

(And I’ve really got to work on my food photography skills. We have really odd light in our kitchen and I just don’t know what to do with it.)

The original recipe is here. I made a few changes (like nixing all of the full fat ingredients for low-fat or non-fat). Honestly, I don’t think I gave up much in terms of flavor or texture. Also, we don’t eat Pillsbury breads very often (the pop cans kind of scare me), but I’ve found that the lower fat ones don’t seem to have the odd preservative flavor that I always notice in the regular ones.

They’re nothing fancy, but with a good salad or maybe some vegetable soup they make an easy, light and tasty supper or lunch. Just the sort of thing we enjoy on the weekends.

Here’s my version…

Chicken Pockets
Makes 8 pockets
about 5 points each

Ingredients for Cooking Day:
2 cups cooked chopped chicken
1 -3 oz. packet cream cheese (I used non-fat)
1 Tbsp. chopped chives
2 Tbsp. milk (again, I used non-fat)
celery salt and garlic to taste

Ingredients for Serving Day:
1/2 c. seasoned bread crumbs
2 -8oz. package refrigerated low-fat crescent rolls.

Directions for Cooking Day:
Whisk together cream cheese, chives, milk, garlic and salt.
Add chicken and mix to combine.
Freeze in freezer bag.

To Serve:
Thaw chicken mixture. (I took mine out that afternoon and defrosted it in a water bath – it didn’t take very long, but overnight in the fridge would work too.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Unroll crescent rolls and make rectangles instead of triangles by sealing the perforations.
Place 1/4 c. filling on top of each piece of roll. Fold over and seal.
Gently roll packets in crushed croutons.
Bake 20 minutes until golden brown.

Notes:
*These stood up surprisingly well as leftovers. Hanna and I had them the next day for lunch and I was surprised to discover they weren’t at all soggy like I thought they’d be. I wrapped them individually after they’d cooled the night before and refrigerated.

*I do think the seasoning needs to be kicked up a little bit. We all liked them, so the basic recipe is a keeper for us and I’m going to play around with them. I added a little extra garlic to the tops of the leftovers the next day and it helped. Honestly, I’m thinking a dash or two of my brother-in-law’s pepper sauce might be what I’m wanting.

*These would be fairly easy to adapt to different breads and fillings. Our Publix sells fresh pizza dough and I’m seeing calzones, broccoli/cheddar/ham filled biscuits, maybe a few more.

*I was really worried that the freezing would affect the texture of the chicken or the sauce, but I didn’t notice anything. Tom didn’t either (and he’s a little more picky about food that has been pre-cooked. Don’t get me started about his issues with leftovers).

*Right now, I’m freezing most of the meals in freezer bags. After everything has cooled, I lay it flat in the refrigerator to chill further and then just stack on a shelf in the freezer. I label everything with what it is, how to finish it up and when it was cooked. I would like to find some other reusable freezer containers, though, in the future – so I’m not continually putting money out for bags that get thrown away after one use.

*Once I get a little better at this OAMC think, I’m going to try to do two cooking days a month – one for chicken and one for beef. There are a few other recipes I’d like to try with chicken and it would be a whole lot easier to do a bunch at once!

Category Archives: OAMC