Mexican Casserole

I haven’t posted to this blog in 5 years!  Years!  To be honest, I needed a break.  I felt like I had exhausted my cooking repertoire at the time.  I have made some changes since then.  The past 20 months I have been a member of WW (formerly Weight Watchers Canada).  I have lost 70 pounds (and counting).  I have relearned how to treat food and have a much healthier outlook on cooking.  I decided the best way to connect my WW life and my love of recipes was to pick up this blog again. We will see how it goes.
My first new offering is this Mexican Casserole.  I calculated it to be 5 points a serving.  I recommend calculating your own depending on how you tweak it for yourself.  It is delicious.  This casserole dish makes 6 generous servings.  Here’s what I did:

Cook 1 pound of extra lean ground turkey.
Add 1 diced onion, 2 diced red peppers, a can of rinsed black beans, a cup of frozen corn kernels.
Season (to your liking) with chili powder, cumin, ground coriander and garlic powder.
Cook through.
At the same time cook up your rice mix.  I used uncle Bens 7 Grain Medley, enough to make 2 cups when cooked through.  I added a little chicken bouillon (liquid) to the rice mix but you don’t have to.
Once everything is cooked, mix together.
Add 1 can of Enchilada Sauce.  Mix in.
Put everything into a 9x13 sprayed casserole dish.
Grate a couple ounces of mozzarella on top.
Bale for 20 minutes to half an hour at 350 degrees.
Enjoy!

Authentic Tacos with Pico de Gallo

A classmate of my husband is from Texas.  He came home rather excited last week because he got it.  What did he get?  Her taco recipe.  We are not talking tacos with the package mix here.  We are talking real, good tacos.  The best tacos I've ever had, ever!  He was kind enough to write out the recipe for me to share with y'all too.  Here it is:

1 lb of Ground Beef

2 Jalapeno Peppers (For a medium heat. You can add more if you want more heat.)

2 Onions

4 Roma Tomatoes

½ Bunch of Cilantro

1 Lime

½ Red or Yellow Pepper

Iceberg Lettuce

¾ can of Whole or Diced Tomatoes w/ juice.

1 Tablespoon of Ground Cumin

1 Teaspoon of Oregano

a pinch of sugar

Beef Stock

Make Pico De Gallo:

Dice one onion, four Roma tomatoes, ½ a Jalapeno Pepper. Finely chop ½ bunch of Cilantro, and squeeze all the juice from the lime. (A trick for juicing a lime is to roll it along a surface, such as a cutting board, using the palm of your hand. Apply enough pressure onto the lime to break it up inside without breaking the skin. Then cut it open and squeeze the juice out into the bowl). Mix ingredients well and refrigerate. It is best to make the Pico de Gallo a few hours before you plan to serve the Tacos.

Taco Beef:

Dice the other onion, ½ red or yellow pepper, and finely dice 1 ½ Jalapeno Peppers. (Be careful when cutting or grating Jalapeno peppers by hand as the oils on your hands can will cause a burning sensation when anything your hands come into contact with (eyes, nose, face, etc.) Saute the ground beef with the onions and peppers, until the beef is almost browned. Add the canned tomatoes, Cumin, Oregano, sugar and beef stock. (I mix the beef stock with water and just add 1 tablespoon of liquid.) Bring mixture to a boil, and then turn down and allow it to simmer for 20 min.

Fixins:

Serve the taco meat with shredded iceberg lettuce, grated cheese (we like sharp cheddar), Pico de Gallo, sour cream, warmed taco shells. Enjoy!

Chicken Burritos

This blog has been seriously neglected for a while.  I have a backlog of pictures of meals that haven't been posted.  I drifted in my files all the way back to April to find where I left off.  These burritos are another way to use that rotisserie chicken meat.    They were pretty easy.
vegetable oil
1 onion - sliced into rings
1 red pepper - sliced lengthwise
1 green pepper - sliced lengthwise
tex-mex seasoning
pulled chicken meat
tortillas
fresh cilantro - finely chopped
shredded cheese
sour cream
salsa

Lightly oil a large frying pan.  Set heat at medium-low.  Add onions and peppers.  Sprinkle with Tex-Mex seasoning to your liking.  Saute until the veggies are softened.  Add the chicken meat, mix and heat through.  Remove from heat and set aside
Take a tortilla, add a scoop of chicken/veggie mixture into the centre.  Add cilantro.   Fold into wraps.  Place wraps into a baking dish (lasagna pan size) and bake at 350* for 15 minutes.  Top with sour cream and salsa as desired.

Fajita Fiesta

This was a very adapted shared meal with my friend Jen's family. Originally this was to be just a meal for our family on Sunday. My oldest who is 4 really wanted to play with his best friend (Jen's son Josh). So I thought, why not? and invited them over for supper. The only drawback was realising that I only had one pack of wraps (6) and I was now feeding 8. I did NOT want to go to the grocery store on a Sunday. It's crazy! I had no desire to stand in a huge line up just for wraps. I stopped by the bread outlet instead and while they didn't have any wraps in, they did have pita bread, so we used that instead. It actually ended up working better for the kids as all the filling didn't fall out of their wraps (which is what usually happens.

Here's all the fixin's

Beef - I had cut a large piece of steak meat into strips the day before. I put the beef strips into a ziplock back. I then took a Fajita seasoning pack and sprinkled it all over the beef. I added about a half cup of water and mixed it all together. I sealed the bag and refrigerated it to use the next day. I just pan fried the beef until cooked through. I had wanted to BBQ grill it but it was pouring out.

Veggies - I cut a large onion and one and a half red peppers into thin strips. I used the leftover marinade from the beef to saute into the veggies. I cooked them until the veggies were softened.

Beans - 2 cans of beans in tomato sauce into a casserole dish. Hand blend it until relatively smooth. Grate 1/2 cup of cheese into it. Sprinkle in a few tbsp of Tex-Mex seasoning. Mix it all together and cook it in the microwave for 5 minutes. I usually use one can of beans and tomato sauce and one can of kidney beans (well drained and rinsed) but I didn't have kidney beans on hand. You can also sub in one packet of taco seasoning for the Tex-Mex seasoning.

Guacamole - I used my own recipe found here

Sour Cream

Salsa

Grated Cheese

Heated Whole Wheat wraps and pita bread

Multigrain tortilla chips

Guacamole

2 avacadoes
1 clove garlic
1 tomato - diced
1/4 c red onion - diced
1/4 c fresh cilantro - chopped
2 tbsp light mayonnaise
2 tbsp tex-mex seasoning*
1 squirt lime juice

Peel and pit avacadoes. Mash them well into a medium sized bowl. Crush garlic into bowl. Add the diced tomato, onion, cilantro, mayonnaise, seasoning and lime juice. Mix well.

Enjoy!

*Can use seeded jalepeno, or a few dashes of hot sauce instead.