Blender Salsa

We have a favorite salsa recipe and we want it to be your favorite, too.  It's ridiculously easy and so addictive.  We have both been making it for years now and we have tweaked the recipe so now we can declare it perfect.  Lu shared the original a couple of years ago, but since we both have made slight changes from the old recipe and we got some new pictures we decided it deserved a new post.  

Declaring it perfect may seem pretty bold, but one taste and you'll understand.  Oh, and did we mention that it uses canned tomatoes? In my opinion, that is one of the best things about this salsa--you can enjoy it all year! Originally I was worried it wouldn't taste as fresh using canned tomatoes, but the cilantro, lime, and jalapeno do an excellent job of making the whole thing taste fresh and I didn't miss dicing all those tomatoes one little bit. 

Just try to plan ahead at least an hour before you want to eat it so that the flavors can get happy before you eat it....although I've never been one to be able to but off my salsa craving for a whole hour!

Blender Salsa

Printable Version

Ingredients:

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1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes
1 cans (10 - 14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes with green chiles (Rotel)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 jalapeno, roughly chopped with seeds and membranes removed
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped *
juice of 1/2 lime

Directions:

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In a blender, or blending cup if using an immersion blender, combine Rotel with all ingredients besides diced tomatoes. Blend until smooth or desired consistency is reached. Add in diced tomatoes and pulse a couple of times leaving a little bit of texture. Chill for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to meld. Serve with chips, taquitos, quesadillas, enchiladas or any way your salsa-loving heart desires!

Notes:

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*I don't bother removing the majority of the stems. I know some people use only the leaves though. Just chop off the bottom and give the rest a rough chop before throwing it in the blender.

Recipe Source:

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Adapted from the Pioneer Woman Cooks; Originally shared on landeelu.com

Sweet Pork Nachos

Sweet pork nachos have my heart forever.

Start with this delicious sweet pork.  Cover it in cheese and other goodness.  Bake until melty...

... and drizzle with this creamy cliantro-lime dressing.  Devour.  

Follow this link to OSSS where we are sharing the recipe today!

Sweet Pork

I've tried several different recipes for cafe rio/costa vida style sweet pork. Some of them were super involved, but I loved how simple and delicious this one was so I wanted to share it with you.  I'm a huge fan of a low work to taste ratios and this one fits the bill perfectly.  If I can remember to put the pork in the coke to marinade the night before, it makes it extra easy.  (I have skipped the marinading step before when I was in a hurry and the pork still turned out delicious.)  It wasn't quite as tender, but it was still easy to shred and tasted great on our salads!

Sweet pork salads seem to be one of the few things we eat at large family get-togethers. Everyone seems to like them and since there are several components, it's easy to make assignments and have everyone pitch in.  The recipe is easily doubled (or more) to feed a large crowd.  We love this meat on salads, in burritos, enchiladas, tacos, and even on nachos.  There is no wrong way to eat it!

 - Leesh

Shredded Sweet Pork

Printable Version

Ingredients:

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1 can coke, for marinating

Garlic salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 lbs boneless pork (I have used boneless spare ribs and a loin roast both with great results)

⅓ cup brown sugar + more to taste if needed

2 cups salsa, blended until smooth

Directions:

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Generously season pork with garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Place in ziploc bag with coke and remove as much air as possible.  Refrigerate 4+ hours.  

After marinating time, dump pork and marinade into a lightly greased slow cooker.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Shred pork and drain liquid, reserving ½ cup liquid.  Add shredded pork back to slow cooker and add salsa and brown sugar.  Cook on low until heated through.  Add reserved cooking liquid until desired juiciness is achieved.  Taste and add more brown sugar if you like it sweeter.

Layered Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas {New Mexico Style}

If you know anything about New Mexico it should be that the people here are CRAZY for green chile.  You find green chile mentioned everywhere, it's probably on every single menu in all the restaurants all around.  There are tons of breakfast burrito joints around and they all feature green chile.  Subway even offers NM green chile for their subs.  

I thought the food here would be like all the other Mexican style food I'd had, and while it is similar, it's not the same. The Hatch Green Chile grown here is amazing. If we ever move from here we will have UPS ship us green chile. We are hooked! Amazon actually sells fresh roasted green chile that you can get shipped to your door.  

Now that you know we're crazy about green chile. Let me introduce you to this amazing Layered Green Chile Chicken Enchilada recipe. Perfect timing for Cinco de Mayo next week!  My neighbor is a sweet lady who has lived here most of her life, and she made us her enchiladas.  She told me she used to run a restaurant in Santa Fe - she's an amazing cook, especially of New Mexcian food! You better believe these enchiladas were good. Wow! So good!  I asked her for her recipe, she doesn't really follow one, she just whips it up. So she told me what she did and I made them and let her sample. She approved, so now I have a recipe that we LOVE.  We've served this to several guests.  There are some missionaries from our church that work in our area and whenever we invite them to dinner this is what they request.  

I love that theses are layered enchiladas, it saves a lot of time and hassle rolling up corn tortillas. I'm not a huge fan of corn tortillas usually, but I do love them in this dish. Especially if they are white corn tortillas. You can buy white or yellow - I always choose white. 

I've included some notes in this recipe for making your own enchilada sauce from scratch or using cream of chicken soup.  I'm not a cream of chicken soup fan - and so the recipe for the sauce it something I use in a lot of dishes that call for cream of chicken soup. And I hope the pictures below help you see how nicely these come together.

I hope you'll enjoy these! Leave me a comment letting me know how you like them! (see below for the printable version)

Xo,
Lu

s

For making the sauce, you'll saute some onion and garlic in some butter or olive oil. You'll add some flour to make a roux. Then add milk and stir and let it simmer until it's thick. 

Then you'll add some diced (salted and drained) tomatoes, green chile, sour cream and shredded or diced chicken. 

 

You'll be left with this tasty sauce.

You'll grease a 9x13 pan and place it by your sauce, tortillas and cheese. 

  Then you'll spread a little sauce in the bottom of the pan.

 

And dip each tortillas in the sauce. 

Flip the tortilla to cover both sides.

Repeat this until you've covered the bottom of the pan with dipped tortillas.

Cover the dipped tortillas with some sauce.

And top it with some cheese. 

Repeat this at least 3 times, but you can use up as many tortillas as you want, making as many layers as you have sauce and cheese for. Bake it until bubbly. Enjoy! It's super yummy topped with guacamole, salsa, and cilantro.

Layered Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Yield: 9x13 size dish

Printable Version {Click Here}

Notes:

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You can make this using 2 cans cream of mushroom soup thinned with about ½-1 cup of milk.  If you prefer this way, cook the onion and garlic in butter, and then add the soup, milk, sour cream, tomatoes, and green chile.  

I like to dice and salt my tomatoes to get any excess liquid out. I set them in a fine mesh strainer over a bowl to drain while I prep the rest of the sauce and then stir them in at the end.

Ingredients:

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½-1 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

4 tablespoons butter or olive oil

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 ½ cups milk

1 tablespoon chicken base (or 3 chicken bouillon cubes)

Salt and pepper to taste

½ - 1 cup sour cream

2 tomatoes, diced and salted (see note about draining) (roma or tomatoes on the vine work great)

1-2 small cans diced green chile, or 3-4 fire roasted NM green chiles, diced (with or without seeds - you can pick your spicy level)

2-3 cups shredded or diced chicken (rotisserie chicken works great here)

corn tortillas (I prefer white corn)

1 ½ - 2 cups grated cheese (preferably colby jack or monterey jack)

Directions:

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Dice tomatoes and salt and let them sit in a fine mesh strainer to get rid of all the excess liquid. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a stock pot or large sauce pan melt butter over medium heat and add onions, cook for 5-7 minutes until onions are translucent, add garlic and cook 30 seconds more.  Stir in flour with a wire whisk until incorporated and immediately pour in the milk.  Stir  until smooth.  Let it cook until it reaches a simmer, and then let it simmer for 3-5 minutes until it’s thickened significantly.  Once it’s thick - remove from heat and add green chiles, tomatoes (salted and drained (see note above), sour cream, and chicken. Stir until mixed well.  

Lightly grease a 9x13 casserole dish. Spread ⅓ - ½ cup of the chicken sauce mixture over the bottom of the pan.  Dip each tortillas into the sauce mixture just to wet it and lay as many as you need to cover the bottom of your pan. You can rip some in half if you want. Or they can overlap - it doesn’t matter.  

Once you have a layer of dipped tortillas, put about ⅓ of the remaining sauce over top of the tortillas and then sprinkle with about ½ cup of grated cheese (you can make this as cheesy or non-cheesy as you prefer).  Repeat this step until you have at least 3 layers. You can do more if you have more sauce and tortillas.  The final layer will need to be sauce and grated cheese.  

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes until it’s hot and bubbly and these cheese is starting to brown. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

It tastes really good topped with salsa, guacamole and cilantro.  

Recipe Source:

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Adapted from a recipe from a friend in New Mexico, I altered her recipe to make it with my own sauce vs cream of chicken soup.

{Baked} Breakfast Taquitos

**If you haven't seen our giveaway going on, don't miss it. It ends Monday, February 16th.

If you've been around here a while, you know that we love taquitos.  You also probably know that we love brinner.  So, on a whim, I thought--why not combine the two?  And usually when I have these kinds of crazy ideas it requires a lot of tweaking and often just scrapping the whole recipe.  But this time it was different.  I loved the result.  I don't know what it is about the crispy taquitos that gets me, but I just can't get enough.  It also helps that they come together super quickly and that I usually have all the ingredients on hand.  My kids and hubby always eat them up without any complaints, which is always a huge bonus.  Plus, they were super filling.  

Just in case these weren't awesome enough on their own, add freezer-friendly and make-ahead to their resume and you pretty much have a winning recipe.  These are perfect for breakfast, lunch, or dinner--or even dinner guests and the filling is super adaptable.  You can sneak in some spinach or other veggies and add green chiles if that's your thing (and in New Mexico, you know that's Lu's thing!).  I've made these several times in the past month and I think they will definitely be a regular in our dinner rotation.  

My 4-year-old also loves to help make these.  We like to use the Tortillaland uncooked tortillas, which makes him the designated tortilla-cooker.  In my scientific studies I have found that when I can involve my kids in making dinner they are approximately a bajillion times more likely to eat it.  I hope you'll give these a try!         

{Baked} Breakfast Taquitos

Printable Version

Ingredients:

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8-10 taco-sized flour tortillas

5 eggs, scrambled

1-2 cups spinach, finely chopped and sauteed (optional)

1/2 pound sausage, browned and crumbled

1 - 1 1/2 cups hash browns or shredded potatoes

salt and pepper, to taste

1 cup shredded colby jack cheese

4 ounce can diced green chiles (optional)

½ cup sour cream

vegetable oil spray

kosher salt

Directions:

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Preheat oven to 400.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or lightly greased foil.  

Cook or heat tortillas according to package directions.  Cover and set aside until ready to assemble taquitos.  

Combine sausage, cooked scrambled eggs, spinach (if desired), hashbrowns, cheese, chiles (if desired), salt, and pepper.  (Note on the hashbrowns: if using frozen or rehydrated hash browns, make sure to cook them or remove as much liquid as possible from them so you don’t end up with soggy taquitos.  If using shredded potatoes, toss them in 2 teaspoons of oil and microwave them for 5-8 minutes stirring every minute or so to soften them.  Drain any excess liquid.)

On a clean work surface, spread out tortillas.  Spread a dollop of sour cream on the inside of each tortilla.  Distribute filling evenly across all tortillas.  Roll them tightly and place seam side down on the baking sheet.  Lightly spray each taquitos with cooking spray and sprinkle lightly with coarse or kosher salt.  

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges of tortillas begin to lightly brown and get crispy.  Serve with salsa and sour cream for dipping.    

Notes:

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We like the Tortillaland uncooked tortillas.  Make sure to cook them before using them in the taquitos.  You can also use corn tortillas here, which I really like.  They get a bit crispier, so it’s harder for my little kids to chew them.  If you choose to use corn tortillas here it will make 12-15 taquitos.  

For the potatoes, use whatever you have.  I have used both frozen and dehydrated hash browns, and shredded potatoes with great results.  Make sure to cook or microwave them if using grated potatoes.  

To freeze: Assemble as directed up until the spraying/salting step.  Freeze until solid on a foil or wax paper lined baking sheet and then transfer them into a gallon-sized freezer bag until ready to use. Move them to the fridge to defrost on a lined baking sheet 8-10 hours before baking or allow them to thaw at room temperature for an hour or two before baking.  Before baking, lightly spray them with cooking spray and sprinkle a little bit of kosher salt on them and bake as directed.

Can easily be adapted to be gluten-free by using corn tortillas.

Recipe Source:

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A Leesh and Lu Original--by Leesh

Chicken, Feta, Mango Tacos {Yum!}

A few weeks ago on Facebook I mentioned that I had planned a month of oven-free meals.  Living in the desert heat with a swamp cooler makes it so I don't want to turn my oven on unless I HAVE to.  And 3 weeks later, I've only baked some bread, rolls, and a few batches of cookies. I haven't used the oven once for dinner.  It's been great!  I'll be ready for fall time when I cam turn my oven on all I want! :) 

I've tried a few new recipes that have been so yummy! This is one of my very favorites.  I found it on the Atheno's web page.  They make feta cheese, I LOVE FETA CHEESE! 

The flavors here were awesome, there was the savory taco flavored chicken, with sweet juicy mango bits, tangy feta, buttery smooth avacado and fresh cilantro and tomatoes. I'd thought I'd died and gone to taco heaven!  We'll be enjoying these year round for sure, but I thought they were particualry summer appropriate.  I hope you'll love them as much as I do!

-Lu

  

Chicken, Feta, Mango Tacos  

Printable Version {Click Here}

Ingredients:

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1 ½ pounds chicken, cut into bite size pieces

1 tablespoon olive oil

1-2 tablespoons taco seasoning

¾ cup green salsa

The ingredients below are to top your tacos, you don’t have to have these particular measurements, but this is a rough idea of how much you’ll want.

1 mango, peeled and diced

1 avocado, diced

1-2 tomatoes, diced

⅓ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

¾ cup feta cheese, crumbled

6-8 flour tortillas, cooked and warm

Directions:

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1. In a non-stick skillet heat oil over medium heat and add chicken and taco seasoning, and cook until no longer pink and juices run clear.  Turn off heat and toss with salsa.  (can keep warm on low heat if desired while you chop up everything)

2. While chicken is cooking, warm tortillas and chop the rest of the ingredients and place in bowls for topping each taco.  

3. Top each tortilla with chicken mixture, and the desired amount of the rest of the toppings, roll up and enjoy!.

Recipe Source: Adapted from Athenos.com 

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow. This chicken enchilada recipe is a recipe my mom made for us growing up. It's always been a favorite of ours and anyone we've shared it with. 

The original recipe calls for cream of chicken soup in the sauce.  But I've kind of outlawed it at our house - and make my own from scratch. The recipe is a lot faster to make with the cream of chicken soup, so I've included both versions of the sauce recipe. Pick your way of making it and either way they are both tasty!

I love that I can whip these together pretty fast.  If I don't have precooked chicken in my freezer or canned chicken, I will often throw a pound of chicken in my 1 quart crock pot with a 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and 1/3 cup of water in the afternoon and cook it on low for 4 hours and it's ready just in time to bake these for dinner.  I also have froze these ready made and then thawed before baking, so it's a great freezer meal too.  (I love these kind of meals!)

I've posted a few pictures of the process of making these, it's really simple.  Enjoy some Enchiladas! 

FYI, we love these topped with fresh salsa.  Click here for my favorite quick and easy Restaurant Style Salsa. 

Recipe below pictures.  

 

Also, if you are in need of some meal ideas for cinco de mayo, check out our recipe index or these quick links to some other favorites. 

Sides/Appetizers

Restaurant Style Salsa
Guacamole {Easy Squeezy & Tasty}

Fresh Salsa 

Mexican Creamed Corn

Main Dish

Taco Salad

Super Nachos

Chicken Fajitas  (with this Fajita Seasoning)

Taco Soup

Dessert

Tres Leches Cake

Flan

Seasonings 

Taco Seasoning

Fajita Seasoning

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

Printable Version
Ingredients:

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8-12 flour tortillas

For the filling:

1 pound or 2 cups of cooked chicken

½ to 1 large can olives, sliced (use as many olives as you love)

3 green onions, sliced

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)

½ - 1 cup grated cheese (cheddar, pepper jack, monterey jack or colby)

Sauce (without cream of chicken soup):

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 ¾ cup milk

1 tablespoon chicken base (or 3 chicken bouillon cubes)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 3-4 oz can green chiles

½ cup sour cream

Sauce (with cream of chicken soup):

1 small can cream of chicken soup

1 cup sour cream

1 3-4 oz can green chiles

¼ - ½ cup milk (to make as runny as you like)

More grated cheese for the top (about ½ cup)

Directions:

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  And spray grease a 9x13 casserole size dish.

Start with the sauce.  You’ll want to smother a little sauce in the bottom of the pan to help them from sticking to the pan.  

Option 1: For the from scratch sauce:

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a medium size sauce pan. Add 3 tablespoons flour and mix, then add milk and whisk thoroughly to make sure the mixture is smooth. Add chicken base/bouillon salt and pepper, let mixture come to a simmer and simmer for 5-10 minutes til mixture is thick and smooth.  Remove from heat and add the green chile and sour cream.

Option 2: Sauce with cream of chicken soup:

Mix soup, sour cream, green chile and ¼ - ½ cup milk until mixture is smooth and has a thick, yet runny consistency.  

Mix the filling mixture together and fill tortillas with 2-3 tablespoons of the filling mixture and roll them up.  Place them in the greased and sauce covered pan.  Smother with the sauce and top with a little cheese.

Bake for 30 minute or until bubbly and slightly browned.  

Serve with salsa on top or any other desired toppings (guacamole, sour cream, green chile sauce.)

For a Freezer Meal: 
Follow instructions but use a disposable tin pan from the dollar store, cover with heavy duty foil and freeze.  Let thaw in fridge for 24 hours before baking as directed above.