chicken enchiladas

Alright this is my attempt at making a chicken enchilada for the first time. I got this recipe from allrecipes.com and it is rated at 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Ingredients
1 tbsn butter
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 4oz can diced green chiles
1 10.75oz can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 c sour cream
1 1/2 c cubed cooked chicken breast
1 c shredded Cheddar cheese
6 12in flour tortillas
1/4 c milk

Directions
+ Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a large baking dish
+ Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat and saute the green onion until tender. Add garlic powder, stir in the green chiles, cream of mushroom soup and sour cream. Reserve 3/4 of this sauce and set aside. With the remaining sauce add the chicken and 1/2 cup of the cheese and stir all together.
+ Fill each tortilla with the chicken mixture and roll up and place seam side down in the baking dish.
+ Add milk to the reserved sauce then spoon over the tortillas. Top with 1/2 c of cheese then bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serves 6


Changes from this recipe that I had
No green chiles since I could not find them at my grocery store
More green onions because onions are awesome
Less sour cream. Not a big fan of sour cream plus too much is bad for you. Yeah yeah  know, kind of pointless if I am having all that cheese :P

One thing that I like about allrecipes.com is that you can change the amount of servings you want and have it recalculate the ingredients and directions for you.

Let me know what you think of the dish. I hope you enjoy it!

school lunch from around the world

Article

Google and Food

When I thought I couldn't love Google anymore than I already do, they come out with a nice neat little filtered recipe search.

You can type in an ingredient into their search and on the left side bar click "Recipe" and it'll give you recipes relating to the ingredient that you typed in. I gave it a test run and typed in "half and half" because I used only a quarter cup in a recipe and I have some left over and now I want to know what else I could make that involves half and half and ta dah! Google found it for me and came up with a list of things!

The more people know and use this feature I am sure that Google will come out and improve this feature to be even better. So far the best usage I can think of (at least for me) is to type in ingredients that I have leftover that I need to use up! I think it's totally awesome and I have linked the actual article down below. 

Read more here

mac n cheese

So I was having a lazy day and wanted something simple and settled on some mac n cheese. Then for some reason while in the check out line I decided I want to spruce up my mac n cheese. I decided to also buy some broccoli. In my fridge I already have a package of turkey bacon that I want to throw in.

Ingredients needed
1 box of mac and cheese (I bought the 12oz Velveeta's shells & cheese)
5 or 6 slices of turkey bacon
1 broccoli bunch

Boil water for the pasta and while that is going on is when I gave the broccoli a rinse and cut off the stem. I cut the florets of the broccoli to be fairly close to bite size. Some people don't like eating the stem, but I don't mind them. I trimmed up the stem slightly and cut them up into cubes, again, about bite-size. Plus the smaller they are, the faster they cook up. Take the turkey bacon slices and cut them up to about the same length as the width of a broccoli cube. If they are all about the same size, it's more enjoyable to eat in my opinion.
In a pot put about a quarter size amount of olive oil and throw in the broccoli about medium to medium high heat.. Don't forget to put in the pasta in the boiling pot of water around this time.
In a pan put about a dime size amount of olive oil and throw in the bacon. Monitor the pasta, bacon, and broccoli and make sure everything cooks up evenly. You might want to put this at a lower temperature so that way you can focus on the pasta and broccoli first. Just make sure you mix it up every now and then so it all gets cooked.
When the pasta is done I toss in the cheese mix as well as the bacon at the same time. The broccoli goes last but only because I don't want it all covered in cheese.

At my local store they were selling cases of Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback which is made with real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup which is something the body can't really process. Plus I think these tastes better anyway.

Tostadas de Camarón

So I went to 100% Taquito the other day and got the Tostadas de Camarón. Camarón meaning Garlic Shrimp I think? On their menu it is described to have "Two crispy tortillas topped with black beans, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes & fresco cheese." This is one of the best things to get. It was super super crunchy. I was only able to eat one of the chips and just saved the other chip for later. One was enough to make me full, me being about 5'1" tall haha. But yeah, it was delicious!

Spaghetti with Kale and Tomatoes

This is a recipe that I got in the Feb 2011 Real Simple magazine. I didn't have any almonds or pecorino but I think it came out fine without it. Since I love garlic, I had tossed in 2 extra cloves into the dish. I hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients
6 oz whole-grain spaghetti
2 tbsn olive oil
1 med red onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 bunch kale, thick stems removed and leaves torn into bite-size pieces (about 8 cups)
2 pints grape tomatoes, halved
1/3 c. chopped roasted almonds
1/4 c. grated pecorino (1 oz), plus more for serving

+ Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking water, drain the pasta, and return it to the pot.
+ Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, 4 to 5 minutes.
+ Add kale to the onion and garlic and cook, tossing frequently, until tender, 2 to 3 minutes.
+ Add the tomatoes and cook, tossing frequently, until the tomatoes begin to soften, 1 to 2 minutes.
+ Add the kale mixture, almonds, pecorino, and reserved cooking water to the pasta and toss to combine. Serve with additional pecorino.

Serves 4

First Post!

Hey! Welcome to my blog!

I first want to say that despite the name of my blog, I am in no way a professional cook or chef. The name of my blog is just inspired by an Internet show, Pro At Cooking, that I had seen a few years back. I am just someone who enjoys cooking and experimenting with food. The blog is the perfect way for me to keep track of the things that I have tried to make and little side notes and edits for any future attempts of making the dish again.

I just have a few rules if you use some of these recipes for healthier eating.
1. Your brain takes about 20 minutes before it realizes you are not hungry anymore. So just take this time to slow down and enjoy what you are eating. If you take this method you may end up eating the correct portion size.
2. If you feel that you are hungry stop to really think about it first. Are you eating because your body is needing to replenish itself? Is this feeling of needing to eat out of boredom? Or is it because it's "time to eat?" Which brings me to my next rule.
3. There is no set time of when you must eat. Just eat whenever you feel your body needing to eat. I believe that one of the best ways is to eat more than just 3 meals a day with the appropriate food portion. If you cannot change out of this 3 meals a day routine, then have snacks in between. But do follow Rule #2. Have a snack only if you are actually feeling hungry.
4. Eat until you are no longer hungry. This is different from eat until you are full. You do not need to feel full to tell you that you are done eating. It's ok to put the food aside and put in the fridge for later. Or to get a to-go box to save for later.
5. Be as active as possible. I used to be able to go to the gym regularly but my schedule lately does not allow enough time for me to go to the gym. What I am trying to do now is to be the most active as I can a day. It could be as simple as taking stairs instead of elevators. Walking to the TV rather than turning it on by remote. Walking around while brainstorming. Anything to keep you moving.
If you are interested in reading more about how to eat healthy, I actually found this one here and it contains some of the rules that I have. These rules are pretty good and I may use some of them in future blog posts.

Those are my basic rules. From time to time I may come back to this topic and write a post about health. Maybe change up my rules a bit by adding or removing some. I am not the healthiest or fittest person on the planet and I admit I could shed a couple pounds myself. I really do enjoy all sorts of foods but would be at risk for all sorts of things if I didn't control what I ate which is why I follow my rules as strictly as I can. This blog is also for me to have visible reminders of what it is that I have consumed so I can choose a healthier meal if I have to.

I hope that you enjoy the food that I post!