Darkened Kitchen

For those of you who have been following, you may have wondered at the sudden stoppage in entries to the blog. We ended up spending three days out of our place due to a fire upstairs, so needless to say, there was no cooking at all. It took another day or so to get things cleaned up (like water from the firehoses which runs down the walls), and then a 36 hour work weekend. But I expect to have another entry soon. The next entry I already know, and is a traditional Mexican dish and personal favorite of mine. Don't abandon me yet. The kitchen has been dark but things are getting ready to happen!

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

Tonight we had chicken enchiladas, which was not from an established recipe, but from an experiment that turned out well. I had planned to make enchiladas of some sort, though I usually make the traditional  type with a red sauce. However, my daughter wanted something more cheesy and creamy, so I improvised with what we had in the pantry and came up with these. Considering the rate that they disappeared, I would say they were a success!

First slightly brown a pound of boneless chicken breast in a skillet with a tablespoon of oil:

Next add a tablespoon of Adobo sauce, a multi-spice Latin seasoning found in most grocery stores. Let that continue to cook for a few minutes.

Then add a cup of any store-bought salsa to the chicken. I used a generic chunky salsa with medium heat but you could use mild or hot as you like.

Let that continue to cook for a few minutes as well, then add a cup of water, cover, and continue cooking at a low heat. Once the chicken becomes very tender, use a fork or spatula edge to shred the chicken.

If you have excess liquid in the pan, just turn the heat up and cook the chicken uncovered on high for a few minutes so you won't have juice dripping out of your enchiladas as you try to roll them. Once the meat is prepared, set it aside and prepare the tortillas. Use corn tortillas, not flour, or you will end up with a soggy mess.

You will be preparing 10 tortillas and can cook as many at a time that will fit in your skillet or griddle. Use nonstick spray or a small amount of oil on the cooking surface and cook tortillas until they just start to have some golden spots and are more pliable. This is really important because you can't roll an uncooked tortilla or it will break apart.

Once your tortillas are all cooked, you will assemble your enchiladas in a baking pan, size 9 x 13 if you have it. The type of pan, glass, metal, or ceramic, doesn't matter though you should slightly oil the pan so that your enchiladas don't stick to the pan.

Start by putting a large spoonful of your chicken filling in the middle of a tortilla, folding it, then rolling it up.

Once your enchiladas are rolled, place them seam down into the pan in a row. If you don't have enough room, you can always fit more on the sides unless you are making a dish that you want to "look pretty". One

of the biggest tricks to making something like enchiladas, dumplings, or any food with a filling, is judging how much of the filling to put in so that all of the pieces are almost equal in size without having any leftover filling. When I first started doing food with fillings, I would always have some left over. Shredded chicken can be eaten on a sandwich, in a salad, or even a taco, so don't stress out if you have your nice row of

                                                       enchiladas and some filling staring at you from the bowl!









Once your enchiladas are rolled in the pan, you can set them aside and make the sauce. I used Crema Mexicana tonight, a Mexican triple cream that you can find in the cold case with other Mexican cheeses. If

you can't find that, then you can substitute whipping cream. It will be the cream part of the sauce rather than the usual sour cream that some recipes call for.

I used the entire 15 ounce container of cream, putting it into a nonstick saucepan and heating it on low heat. After that, I added a cup of shredded yellow and white cheddar cheeses and allowed them to melt in the cream. I also added a tablespoon of the Adobo sauce for seasoning. After the sauce is smooth and hot, pour it over the enchiladas.

Bake your enchiladas at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbly and slightly browned.

Serve the enchiladas with any of your favorite toppings such as salsa or hot sauce, chopped green onions, sour cream or guacamole, that is totally up to you, but I ate mine tonight with Sriracha hot sauce and chopped green onions. I only got two out of the pan as the rest disappeared too fast!

This is definitely an adapted dish, more "Tex-Mex" than authentic Mexican, and having eaten plenty of both in the ten years I lived in Texas, I can honestly say that I like it all!

Fried Rice

Fried rice is traditionally a dish to use leftovers so there is no real "recipe", and my recipe will reflect what we had in the house today. When I make dishes accompanied by rice, I usually go ahead and make a full pot of rice in the rice cooker with the intention of making fried rice later. Basic fried rice similar to what you would find in a Chinese restaurant is usually just a bit of scrambled egg mixed in with the rice and some soy sauce, and is made to accompany a stir-fried dish. However, this dish has more components and made as a stand alone dish. You can have it with or without meat, again, depending on what you have or what you want.  As is with all Chinese dishes, you should assemble your ingredients and prep them before starting to cook. In this case, there wasn't much prep other than chopping five green onions, white and green parts.

Today I used one cup of pre-packaged shredded carrots as my other vegetable, but you could chop your carrots fresh, use a cup a frozen mixed or stir fry vegetables, or peas and carrots. I wouldn't recommend using a frozen mixture with broccoli in it, as the broccoli pieces become mushy. You could also use white, yellow, or red onions in place of the green onions, but they will be slightly sweeter, and since I used carrots today, I didn't want the dish to be overwhelmed with sweet flavors.

Now that the vegetables are ready, start by adding an 1/8 cup of oil to your pan and getting it fairly hot. Add two eggs, and stir until cooked thoroughly and in small pieces.

After cooking the eggs and breaking them up into smaller pieces, add the onion, stirring until the onion is translucent.

At this point you add your meat. It can be chicken, shrimp, pork or sausage, depending on your tastes, and is totally optional. The favorite in our house is chicken, but we didn't have any leftover chicken today, so I used Quorn, a meat substitute. You can also use freshly cooked meat if you choose, though it will add to the cooking time and you will have to cook it separately first.

Once the meat is added, stir it until it is heated, then add the vegetables that you have already chopped or gotten from the freezer. Make sure they are are small pieces that will cook thoroughly quickly.

Stir all of the vegetables in until cooked, then add 6 cups of your cooked, cold rice. Again, like the meat, you can cook your rice fresh, but keeping in mind that warm rice will have a tendency to stickiness and isn't in the spirit of the dish as a quick use of leftovers. If using cold rice, add it to the pan and when breaking up the chunks, make sure to use the back of a large utensil to mash the kernels apart rather than the edge of the utensil. If you use the edge, you will end up cutting up the rice grains into smaller pieces. Once the rice is separated, add 1 tablespoon of garlic, an 1/8 cup soy sauce, and if you like spicy, 1 tablespoon of Sriracha. Stir all of the ingredients to mix thoroughly and cook until heated through. Fried rice is really popular in our house and this recipe size disappears quickly between the three of us.

Fried Rice Ingredient List

6 cups cold, cooked rice

2 eggs

1/8 cup oil

1 cup cooked, cold meat of your choice (optional)
1 cup onions chopped, any type
1 cup chopped vegetables, fresh or frozen. Best choices include carrots, green peas, or mixed veggies.

1 tablespoon garlic; granulated or fresh minced

1/8 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon Sriracha (optional)

Beef and Cabbage

I have made this stir-fried dish for many years. It is one of my oldest son's favorites, and since today is his 28th birthday, I decided it would be the perfect choice for today's blog. I got this recipe from my good friend, Annette, a third generation Panamanian who grandparents came from China to work on the Panama Canal. I had tried making stirfried dishes before I met her, and was surprised at how few ingredients hers took. It is quick and easy, though for the best results you should marinate the meat for several hours at least. She usually does hers overnight.

Start with a pound and a half of beef. The cut isn't as important, because the marinade will tenderize it.

Slice the meat as thin as you can, because the marinade will penetrate better and cook easier. To make super thin slicing easier, put the meat in the freezer to stiffen, then slice it. After slicing, add the marinade, which is

2 Tablespoons onion powder
2 Tablespoons garlic powder
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar

Mix these ingredients into the bowl with the meat, cover, and place in fridge to marinate for a minimum of 3-4 hours for best results. You could cook it immediately after mixing in the ingredients, but it won't penetrate the meat nearly as well.

When you're actually ready to cook, chop one whole head of green cabbage. The shape of the cabbage pieces isn't as important, as long as they are fairly uniform in size and you separate the layers somewhat before stirfrying to make sure they cook evenly.

Now that you're ready to cook, add 1/4 cup of oil to your pan and heat it to a high temperature. You don't want to set off the smoke alarm, but you also don't want to dump cold ingredients into cold oil. The stove should be at a consistently high heat. Start by cooking the meat in the pan. If there is any residual marinade in the bowl, pour that in with the meat as well, stirring at high heat until meat is thoroughly cooked and some edges look slightly browned.

The next step is the only one where my method of cooking differs from Annette's. When she cooks it, she takes the meat from the pan, stirfries the cabbage in the same oil, then adds the meat back into the pan. The biggest difference is likely more control over the amount of cooking to your cabbage, because, being a stirfry, you really don't want to completely cook down your cabbage. It should still be somewhat crisp when bitten. However, because I tend to be in a hurry most of the time, I just add the cabbage directly into the pan with the meat. I still get the crunchy, lightly cooked cabbage if I stir it frequently while cooking and not leave it sitting on the stove.

When the cabbage is cooked, it is ready to serve. The marinade usually makes enough sauce to cover both the meat and cabbage, but if it looks a little drier than you like, add a tablespoon more of oyster or soy sauce. Serve it with rice. Simple and delicious. Another good thing about this recipe is that you can vary it. Annette has made this same dish with chicken or pork, and you could add extra or different vegetables to make a beef with peppers and onions. I have also added Sriracha to make a spicier version. Tonight's version however, is the original, authentic Chinese home cooking that Annette first taught me.

The amounts listed for this dish will serve four or five hungry people. I always make this amount for the three of us, because then I get to pack up the leftovers for work lunches!