Pork-Sweet Potato Quesadillas

I do not do New Years Resolutions... I am just not a goal oriented person. Unless it happens to do with food. So, my goal for this year is to try out recipes that I would normally skip over because they sound wired or look gross. I am trying  to expand my horizons people!

Enter the Pork-Sweet Potato Quesadillas. Now who would put sweet potatoes in a quesadilla, weird! The perfect recipe to satisfy my goal. And wow! These were divine. I am not a leftover person (no goals, no leftovers, got it?), and I was seriously eating these for a few days (it makes a lot). My husband was so-so on them, my kids thought they were great (the orange is cheese right mom?). So I will be making theses again, and they were surprisingly simple!

 Pork-Sweet Potato Quesadillas

1 medium sweet potato
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 pound ground pork
1 1/2 teaspoons ancho chile powder
Kosher salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch scallions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 burrito-size flour tortillas
2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend (or 1 cup each shredded cheddar and jack cheese)
Sliced pickled jalapenos and sour cream, for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Pierce the sweet potato a few times with a fork and microwave until soft, 7 to 10 minutes. Let cool slightly, then remove the skin and mash the flesh with a fork; set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork, chile powder and 1 teaspoon salt and cook, breaking up the meat, until browned, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, sweet potato and scallions and cook, stirring, 2 more minutes. Add the cilantro and season with salt. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

Wipe out the skillet; add 1/2 tablespoon butter and melt over medium-high heat. Add a tortilla, spread one-quarter of the pork mixture on one half and top with 1/2 cup cheese. Fold the tortilla over the filling and cook until the quesadilla is golden, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm. Repeat to make 3 more quesadillas. Cut into wedges and serve with pickled jalapenos and sour cream, if desired.

Empanadas

Empanadas are little pockets of deliciousness. Okay, really they are a great Mexican food staple. You can fill them with anything from chicken to chocolate, and you can even make some amazing dips for them. The idea is that you make them from scratch, and make a bunch of them and freeze the ones you don't eat. Well, around these parts I like the find the easy way. The recipe I found was from Paula Deen on food network, and instead of making your own crust, you use refrigerated pie crusts so these little beauties are super simple.

This specific recipe calls for chicken, but we used chorizo because chorizo is delicious! This makes enough to feed a family of 6 for a meal, or a small crowd for an appetizer.

Empanadas

3 cups chopped, cooked chicken
1 (8-ounce) package shredded Colby and Monterey Jack cheese blend
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie crusts
Water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Lightly grease a baking sheet. In a large bowl, combine the chicken and next 7 ingredients. Unroll 1 piecrust onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 15-inch circle. Cut out rounds, using a 3-inch cookie cutter. Re-roll dough as needed. Repeat procedure with remaining piecrusts, making 12 to 15 circles total. Arrange 1 round on a clean, flat surface. Lightly brush the edges of crust with water. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of chicken mixture in the center of the round. Fold the dough over the filling, pressing the edges with a fork to seal. Repeat with the remaining rounds and chicken mixture. (Up to this point, the recipe can be made ahead and frozen for up to 1 month). Arrange empanadas on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

Chile Verde

This is another great family recipe. I am going to give credit to my husbands Aunt for this one, because frankly she deserves the credit! It is a hard recipe to master because there are not exact measurements. You kind of just throw it all together, and add more until it tastes good and looks right. So, I encourage you to branch out, test yourself and try it out! We served it with my favorite Spanish rice recipe from my friend Jamie. It is my favorite because it is the only Spanish rice that I have actually liked, so that's saying a lot!

Chile Verde

Pork Roast, cut up in small pieces
Small can of chopped jalapenos (or use fresh, that way you can control the heat)
Flour
Water
Tomato Sauce
Garlic Powder
Salt
Cumin

Brown pork roast in pan with oil and jalapenos. Sprinkle meat mixture with flour and cook slightly. Add water and stir until thickened. Add small amount of tomato sauce. Add garlic powder,salt and cumin to taste. Serve with flour tortillas, re-fried beans, and Spanish rice

*It should be a bit liquidy, so that you can scoop it up into a tortilla. I struggled making it this time, so the picture isn't good, it isn't liquid enough!

Spanish Rice

1 1/2 c rice
1 tbsp oil
3 c water
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 chicken bullion cubes
1 tbsp dried onion
1 small can tomato sauce

Fry rice in oil until browned. Add remaining ingredients, stir to mix. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 30 min.

Chicken and Corn Empanadas

I have been wanting to try these for a long time (since 2004, no lie). I finally got around to making them. They are pretty tasty, and the kids loved them! However, I think I will try them again with a few changes, which I will mention in the body of the recipe.

Chicken and Corn Empanadas

1 minced garlic clove
1 TBSP olive oil
1 cooked and shredded chicken breast (think you could also use ground beef)
1 cup cooked corn
1/2 c golden raisins (which I left out)
2 TBSP chopped cilantro
1 tsp salt
4, 9 inch pre-made pie crusts

Over medium heat, saute garlic in the olive oil about 2 minutes. Next mix in the chicken, corn, raisins, cilantro and salt. Remove from heat and set aside. With a four inch biscuit cutter, cut four rounds from one of the pie crusts and place 2 tbsp of the mixture on each round. Fold over and crimp edges with a fork. Continue with the remaining pie crusts. Bake for 20 minutes at 375.

The dough was a little thick for me, so next time I think I will roll out the dough a little thinner. Also, I am thinking the deep fryer will need to be used. Also, adding some cheese might be good too!

Taco Wantons

This is a great summer recipe. It requires few ingredients, and minimal cooking! This recipe is originally an appetizer recipe, but at our house we eat appetizers for meals sometimes, that's just how we roll.
This time around I made the wantons with ground beef, but you can also use chicken.

This is a great one for the kids to help with! 

Taco Wantons

12 wanton wrappers
1/2 package taco seasoning
10 oz of ground beef or 10 oz of chicken ( I used 8 chicken breast tenders)
ranch dressing
cheese
salsa
sour cream

Spray non-stick cooking spray in a 12 count cupcake pan. Place one wanton wrapper in each cup.

Beef method: Cook ground beef with taco seasoning. Remove from heat and mix in the ranch dressing to taste (you want it to be moist, but not runny).

Chicken method: Boil chicken in a sauce pan until cooked. Place chicken in a mixing bowl and shred. Add taco seasoning and ranch dressing to the chicken. Add dressing until mixture is creamy, but not runny.

For both: Place a spoonful of meat mixture into each wanton. Top with cheese and stick in a 350 degree oven until cheese is thoroughly melted (put the wantons on the lowest rack, so the bottoms have a chance get firm. If you don't cook it long enough, the bottom of the wantons can get soggy). Top with salsa and sour cream.

Cinco De Mayo: Homemade Taquitos

Cinco de Mayo sort of snuck up on me this year. I love to go all out and have lots of fattening Mexican food to celebrate. This year we did it a little mild. I made homemade cheese and chorizo taquitos with guacamole, salsa, and queso dip. I once had a recipe for homemade taquitos, but I don't kn ow what happened to it, so I sort of did it by memory and they turned out great!

Homemade Taquitos

About 1 lb of chorizo, ground beef, or chicken
6 flour tortillas
cheese; cheddar or pepper jack

Cook your meat. Then, take a flour tortilla (I used the bake your own from costco, and did not bake them before and they turned out perfect) and put a spoonful of meat, then a spoonful of cheese in the middle. Roll it up tight and secure with toothpicks on either side. fry in a deep fat fryer at 375 for about 5 minutes. You may have to flip them half way through. Let drain on a paper towel, and remove toothpicks before eating. Dip it in sour cream, guacamole, queso dip or salsa!

Fantastic Fish Tacos

I love fish tacos, I like to get them when we go out to eat. I have made them a few times at home, but I used frozen fish sticks (gross, I know). I was very excited to find this recipe in our church cook book for Fantastic Fish Tacos. I took me a while to make them, partly because I could not find orange roughy. I finally found it at Smith's. Now that I know what it looks like and taste like, I think any white, mild fish would work well for this recipe. I will for sure be making these again.

 

Fantastic Fish Tacos

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon lime juice
2 teaspoons fat-free milk
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons salt-free lemon-pepper seasoning
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon water
1 pound orange roughy fillets, cut into 1-inch strips
4 corn tortillas (6 inches), warmed
1 cup coleslaw mix
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded reduced-fat Mexican cheese blend
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro

In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, lime juice and milk; cover and refrigerate until serving. In a shallow bowl, combine bread crumbs and lemon-pepper. In another shallow bowl, combine egg and water. Dip fish in egg mixture, then roll in crumbs. In a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook fish over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side or until it flakes easily with a fork. Spoon onto tortillas; top with coleslaw mix, tomatoes, cheese and cilantro. Drizzle with mayonnaise mixture.

Slow-Cooker Tortilla Soup

This recipe was recommend to me by a friend. I pretty much love anything cooked in a crock-pot, so this was a must try recipe. It was very good, and a great meal for a lazy Sunday. The best thing about this recipe is it makes a lot, so you can have some now and freeze the rest for later, or have it for lunch all week like I am.

Slow-Cooker Tortilla Soup

1 pound shredded, cooked chicken
1 (15 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed
1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups water
1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 (10 ounce) package frozen corn
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
7 corn tortillas
vegetable oil
*I also added a can of kidney beans, but I think it would be good with black beans too!

Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chilies, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir in corn and cilantro. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on High setting for 3 to 4 hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Lightly brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Cut tortillas into strips, then spread on a baking sheet.
Bake in preheated oven until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes ( I actually deep fried mine for about 5 minutes at 375).  To serve, sprinkle tortilla strips over soup along with sour cream and cheese. 

Potato, Egg and Chorizo Burrito

This is another copy-cat recipe that my husband and I have created. This is a copy of the delicious chorizo burrito from Beto’s. This is about as close as you can get to Beto’s, though nothing is ever as good as the real thing. I did not capture a picture of this, but just imagine a giant delicious burrito.
Chorizo is a Mexican sausage. Sometimes it can be spicy; it just depends on who is making it. You can find this at the grocery store, but I suggest you either buy it in ground or sausage form at a local Mexican market. If you do have a local market that makes their sausage in house (like sunflower market) you can buy it there too.

Potato Egg and Chorizo Burrito

1 lb chorizo (removed from casing)
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 lb chorizo
6 eggs, beaten
Several tortillas (the bake your own from Costco or Wal-Mart are the best)
Shredded cheese and hot sauce

Cook the chorizo in a large frying pan (or sauce pan) over medium heat. When cooked through, remove chorizo and set aside. Add cubed potatoes to the pan and cook in the chorizo grease (you may need to add some extra oil). Cover the potatoes, and let cook until soft (about 15 minutes), stirring often. When potatoes are soft add the chorizo back to the pan, and add the beaten eggs. Mix it all together and let the eggs cook. When the eggs are done, remove from heat and assemble on your tortilla with cheese and hot sauce.

Pork Barbacoa Salad: Cafe Rio Style

This is one of my new favorite meals. I have to thank my friend Amanda for this knock off of a Cafe Rio recipe. I am not a fan of Cafe Rio, mainly because their food is not spicy and it taste like candy, so I was hesitant. My friend promised me that I would love this version, and that it is spicy and not too sweet. I trusted her, and I am so glad I did! Along with the pork barbacoa, I also made a Cafe Rio style rice recipe that I found in our church cookbook and then a version of the tomatillo dressing also from our church cookbook (the same one I made here). Together with all this I had black beans, fried yellow corn tortilla strips, shredded cheese, lettuce, and homemade taco bowls.

Pork Barbacoa

5-6 lb. pork roast
21 oz. Dr. Pepper (or Coke, do NOT use diet soda)
1 cup brown sugar ( I used 3/4 c)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
7 oz. can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
6-ish oz. red taco sauce (I used hot)
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Place roast in crock-pot, cover half-way with water and cook on low for 12 hours. Do not be afraid of the long cooking times... it really does turn out. A good thing to do is start this before you go to bed at night. After 12 hours, drain pork
Mix remaining ingredients until sugar dissolves. If you want it super spicy, you can add all the chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, but it will be super spicy, I did this, but I love spicy and it was perfect for me. (The chilies are found in the Mexican food aisle next to the other canned peppers). My friend did not keep the actual chilies, she dumped the can into a bowl and added enough Dr. Pepper to get all the sauce off of the chilies, then fished out the chilies and threw them out. She also rinsed out the can with Dr. Pepper for more adobo goodness.
Add Dr. Pepper mixture to the roast and cook on low an additional 4 hours. Shred roast, and cook for 2 more hours. At this point the meat was so tender it practically shredded itself.

Cafe Rio Style Rice

3 c water (or 6 if you are using a rice cooker)
4 tsp chicken bouillon (or about 2 cubes)
4 tsp minced garlic
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 can green chilies
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
1/2 onion
3 c rice
Blend cilantro, green chilies and onion together in a food processor. Bring water to a boil and add other ingredients. Simmer covered for 30 min. Or throw everything in a rice cooked, like I did.

Go here for the tomatillo dressing recipe

For the beans I just used canned black beans and heated them up in a sauce pan, liquid and all. The yellow corn tortilla strips were made from yellow corn tortillas (duh) and then deep fried at 375 for 5-6 minutes, then salted. The homemade tortilla bowls is my greatest invention yet. I used the cook your own tortillas from Wal-Mart or Costco, and squished into a oven safe bowl and baked it at 400 for about 10 minutes, it was perfect!

To assemble the salad and grab my taco bowl, filled it with lettuce and then layered it with the pork, rice, beans, cheese, dressing and tortilla strips. You can also load it all in a tortilla and eat it burrito style. It was all so good, I cried when I was full.

Oh, and this makes a lot of food, so be sure to invite a crowd over when you make it (and that better include me).

Quick Black Bean Soup and Jerk Chicken Nachos

This Black Bean Soup recipe is a great go to meal when you are looking for something quick and healthy. This recipe is a hit with the kids, even my picky eater chowed it down. Oh, and be careful about what salsa you use in the soup. I used some homemade bottled salsa and apparently it was the spicy kind because the soup was very spicy!

Tonight I paired the soup with the Jerk Chicken Nacho recipe from our church cook book. I love nachos, but have a hard time recreating restaurant style nachos, This recipe did that for me. It is awesome, and my kids who normally do not eat nachos (crazy I know) loved them. I definitely will be making it again soon.

Quick Black Bean Soup

• 1 cup jarred tomato salsa
• 2 15 1/2 oz cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 c chicken broth
• sour cream, salsa and lime for garnish

Heat salsa in a large sauce pans over medium heat, stirring frequently for about 5 min. Stir in beans and broth and then heat to boil. Reduce heat to low and then cover and simmer for 15 min. Use an immersion blender to blend part of the soup. If you don't have an immersion blender then go buy one, or you can cool the soup a bit and put half of it in a blender. Serve with sour cream, lime, and salsa.  Serves 4

Jerk Chicken Nachos

• 6 c tortilla chips
• 2 c cooked chicken, diced or shredded
• 2 c cheese
• 2 1/2 tbs Jamaican jerk seasoning- divided
• 1 small red pepper diced
• 1 tbs fresh cilantro
• 2 tbs lime juice divided
• 1/3 c sour cream

 Preheat oven to 400.  Arrange the tortilla chips on a baking sheet, slightly overlapping. Mix the chicken, cheese and 1 tbs of the jerk seasoning and sprinkle over chips and place in oven until the cheese is melted. Combine the red pepper, 1 tbs jerk seasoning, 1 tbs lime juice and cilantro and then set aside. Mix sour cream, 1/2 tbs jerk seasoning, and 1 tbs lime juice and set aside. When cheese has melted, remove nachos and top with red pepper mixture. To finish, spoon the sour cream mixture over the nachos (or you can put it in a zip lock bag,, and cut at the corner to drizzle over the nachos).
 

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

This is another recipe I wanted to try out from our church's cook book. What I loved about this recipe is that it is so simple. It had few steps and was a breeze to make! Overall, the recipe was okay. As I have mentioned before, I am very sensitive to food that is too sweet, and this was one of those meals for me. However, overlooking the sweetness, it was really good. So, I am still posting it because I feel like most people will like, or love this recipes, I am just weird about the whole sweet/savory thing. Oh, and my kids loved it!

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 large limes squeezed
1/3 c honey
1 can green enchilada sauce
1/2 c heavy cream
12 corn torillas
cooked shredded chicken
Mexican cheese (I just used cheddar with some rec pepper flakes mixed in)

Mix garlic, chili powder, limes, honey, enchilada sauce, and heavy cream in a  bowl. Spread half the mixture on bottom of a 9x13 cake pan. Roll shredded chicken into tortilla with some Mexican cheese. (Hint: to soften your corn tortilla in order to make it more manageable, microwave in a wet paper towel for 30 seconds). Place into the baking dish and pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the tortillas. Top with more cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve with sour cream.

Chimichangas

I cannot think of chimichangas without thinking of Napleon Dynomite "chiminy-changas". This is a recipe I have been wanting to try for a long time. My good friend has raved about her chimichanga recipe, so I was very happy I finally decided to try it. Oh, and happy we all were when we tasted them. Everyone in my family liked them, and they were not too hard to make either, which is always a plus for me. These are not exactly healthy, but you can make them small if you want, and you don't feel as guilty. These have just the right amount of spice, and frying them makes them seem light and fluffy.

I am beginning to cook through a cookbook my church put together several months ago, so this is the first recipe I am making from that. So if you locals have any recipes in the cookbook, you may see yours on here very soon!

Chimichangas

21 oz cream of chicken soup
8 oz diced green chilies
2 tbsp lime juice
1 8oz package cream cheese
8 oz Monterrey jack (I did not have any, so I used a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella with some red pepper flakes)
3/4 package taco seasoning
2 lbs boneless,skinless chicken breasts
10 flour tortillas
4 c vegetable oil (or a deep fat fryer)
8 oz cheddar cheese
8 oz sour cream

Boil chicken in salted water for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (or if you want to do it quick, the chicken will be cooked through in about 10 minutes of boiling, it just won't shred as easily). Shred chicken. Pour the cream of chicken soup into a blender along with the green chilies, and lime juice. Puree until smooth, then pour into a saucepan, and warm over medium-low heat while proceeding with the recipe.
In a large bowl, stir together the cream cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, and taco seasoning until well blended. Fold in the chicken. Evenly divide mixture among the 8 tortillas. Fold each tortilla into a rectangular packet around the filling. The easiest way to do this is to fold in the two "smaller" sides and the roll up from one of the "larger sides".
Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry 2 chimichangas at a time until golden brown, then drain on a plate lined with paper towels. We cooked ours in the deep fat fryer set at 375 for 4 min or until dark golden brown.
To serve, place a chimichanga on a plate, and ladle the warm sauce over-top. Sprinkle with Cheddar cheese and green onions. Finish with a dollop of sour cream. (We used Guacamole instead of sour cream)