Friday, August 20, 2010

domestic me

as much as i love eating, i'm not too much a fan of cooking.  it gives me anxiety when multiple things are going at one time and it stresses me out.  and i'm not too great at it.  i have a bad memory.  the other day i boiled eggs and forgot about them because i was so excited to see chris come home from work.  well 45 minutes later i remembered... pretty much all of the water had boiled out.  that's how my cooking goes.  or the time i made muffins and forgot the salt.  i was scooping batter out of the muffin pan and back into the bowl... it was not fun.  and remember this?  i think i've proved my point.  it's a problem.  and my husband doesn't even care if i cook.  he prefers cereal.  see, we were made for each other.

being a nanny, i really didn't eat much at home.  bowl of cereal in the morning, bowl at night.  everything else, i ate at work.  i mean, i was there for ten hours a day.  and it was good food.  and i didn't have to pay for it.  but now i can go days without leaving these walls (call me crazy but i like it), which means i'm limited to eating the food offered within the confines of my own home and it's getting kind of boring.  especially because i'm binge eating 24/7 (i'm currently stuffing my face with chocolate chips) but more on that another time.

so, yesterday i decided to make a meal.  well, more like an entree.  an entree of a meal.  i didn't serve it with anything else.   i made chicken enchiladas.  i took it real real slow and didn't even hyperventilate.  it made me feel real accomplished so i took pictures to preserve the moment... and to prove that i can be domestic every once in a while.

i'll even tell you how i made it... so you can make it too...  just in case you're like me and you have to eat anything that you see, read, smell, or hear the name of.

mix a can of condensed cream of chicken soup with a half cup of sour cream... or in my case, how ever much you happen to have left in your fridge.  which was a sad story because i would have liked to have had some left to eat with it when it was served.  i LOVE sour cream.  smear a spoonful or two around the bottom of your casserole dish.

make a chicken mixture.  this involves butter, chopped up onion, a little chili powder (i only added half of what it called for and it was still a little out of my comfort zone - i don't do spicy), can of diced green chilis, and cooked chicken.  pretty sure the chicken isn't supposed to be perfectly cubed but that's what i happened to have so i just went with it.  those things all have measurements but i didn't measure any of it so i hope you won't bother either.  why does the shape of chocolate chips make them taste so much better than regular chocolate?!?!

set up your assembly station and make it happen like in the picture.  clockwise, mine included soup mixture, casserole pan (i think i used the wrong size... does this look like 2 quarts?), glass of milk (or drink of your choice...always good to stay hydrated), chicken mixture, place where the magic happens (i used a cutting board), recipe, tortillas, and baby timer (because this never. leaves. my. side.) if you have a baby.  i used my kitchen table for all of this so i could sit down.  as i said, i took it SLOW.  and i am naturally a really slow person.  probably the slowest person you've ever met. 



when you finish rolling chicken inside those tortillas (and putting them seam-side down!) pour the rest of the soup mixture on top.

cover with delicious cheese of your choice (but don't get carried away with feta or gruyere or something weird like that).  i put extra green chilis on the top... but only because i got the super cheap 7oz can instead of the tiny 4oz one that cost just as much.  this is when i covered it an stuck it in the fridge... not required but it was only 2:30 and my honey wasn't getting home for a few hours.

while it's in the fridge, treat yourself to a bowl of cereal.  you deserve it.

thought i was lying about the cereal?  i wasn't.  here's some of our backup that we keep hidden behind the regulars on display.  you better believe there's more backup up top that was too lazy to uncover for the picture.

stick it in a preheated oven about 30 minutes before your honey gets home.  nothing needs to cook, just heat up.  i put mine on 350 and it was hot enough.

maybe your honey will maul you and tell you it's the best thing he's ever tasted in his entire life.  that's not really my honey's style.  he'll eat a bowl of cereal and then sit down to eat your chicken enchiladas.  after you've waited a polite amount of time and you ask him how he likes it, he may tell you it's the best thing you've made in months.  my honey is real nice, but he won't lie to me.  most often i get a shrug that basically says, "thanks for the effort but i'll just have another bowl of cereal please."  so this was a pretty big deal.  it also got me thinking of the losers i've made in the last few months... hm.

time to increase my repertoire.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

yay! I'm sure it was the most delicious enchiladas made ever!
Check out the Every Day Kitchen Aid on my blog (near the bottom of the list). She has a bunch of simple recipes that you won't go bonkers trying to put together.

Jeff said...

Look through your Easy Weeknight Favorites! I tell you there is lots of good stuff that is easy to make, hence the name. Great job on the enchiladas. I'm impressed.

S.A.R. said...

I am trey impressed! I must get this recipe. :)

Sara said...

I need you to know that I'm eating a chicken enchilada RIGHT NOW.

And it was amazing.

I'll pretend it was yours.

Sara said...

Haha! I love the way you told us the recipe. :)

Although I have my own chicken enchilada recipe, it is not wonderful. I am going to try yours.

As for the chocolate chips, I prefer chocolate in bar form. Chocolate chips are too waxy.

Mary Mitchell said...

This is the creepiest thing ever. I randomly decided to read your blog backwards tonight (I was trying to figure out when your baby was born). I landed on this page and guess what ... I MADE THIS EXACT RECIPE FOR DINNER TONIGHT. Allrecipes? Yes. That's where you got it. I'm going to take a picture of it right now and send it to you. Who would have thought that I would have read your old blog post about making these enchiladas for dinner on the exact night that I made these enchiladas for dinner. WHAT the heck?!