Enchiladas for the season

Do you want to know how to make these? 

Pumpkin Enchiladas

 

I hope I’ve intrigued you just a little, because when I saw these on I’m an Oakie, I immediately tagged the site and counted the days until I could recreate!  Having a guest in town sounds like the perfect occasion so that’s what I made for Natalie and the hubby Friday night  

Let’s talk ingredients: 

Ingredients (adapted by me ): 

• 7-8 medium-large flour tortillas (I used large La Tortilla Factory tortillas that were 100 cals each)
• Shredded Chicken  (from 2 medium-large chicky breasts)
• 1+ cup enchilada sauce (I used Trader Joe’s enchilada sauce)
• 2/3 can canned pure pumpkin
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 2 small yellow squash, chopped
• 1/2 to 1 cup shredded fat-free cheddar cheese
• Sharp cheddar cheese from block
• 1 packet taco seasoning
• Ground black peppa
• Tapatio sauce, to taste

Preheat your oven to 400deg while you prep your veggies and boil your chicken.  Boiling is the fastest/easiest way to shred chicken.  Yep, it’s totally unappealing, but you can pretty much boil it and forget about it for quite some time.  Then let it cool and use two forks to shred. 

Meanwhile, saute all your chopped veggies in a bit of EVOO in a large non-stick skillet.  Sprinkle about 1-2 tbsp of your taco seasoning onto your sautéed veggies for flava!   Transfer to large once cooked, but still slightly crunchy.  Scoop in hefty amounts of pumpkin (1/2 to 2/3 can): 

Pumpkin and veggies

 

Make use of your available skillet and place your shredded chicken inside, add 2 tbsp taco seasoning and a bit of water and let cook at very low heat just to incorporate the seasonings. 

Here chicky chicky

 

Now take your block-o-cheese and make 1 oz slices (one for each one of your enchiladas). 

It’s time for some assembly!  Lay your tortilla flat, scoop a hefty amount of your pumpkin veggies on the bottom, add some of your shredded chicky, and your 1 oz slice of cheddar. 

Eyeball the fixin's for your enchilada

 

Roll it up all nice and pretty and place in 9×13″ casserole dish.  Continue to do the above and tightly pack all your enchiladas together.  (Note, I did not ‘grease’ the casserole dish, but I did drizzle some enchilada sauce on the bottom to prevent sticking).  Now that they are all snug, poor as much enchilada sauce as you’d like  

Time to bake!

 

And now you bake at 400 deg (uncovered) for about 8-10 minutes.  Remove from oven, sprinkle the top with your shredded cheese and bake for another 5 minutes. 

Serve with chips and TJ’s corn salsa.  Serve yourself up a sizeable portion.  Smile. 

My plate (messy and tasty)

 

Do you make enchiladas home?  If so, any suggestions or links for variations? 

What’s your favorite Mexi dish? 

Check me out on Heather’s Faces of Beauty   You should do it too!

Tofutti and Tortillas

Has anyone else noticed the influx of sweet treats, blizzards, and fro-yo on the blogs recently?  I have and it’s makin’ muh belly screeeeam!  Ever since moving to Cali, I haven’t had quite the craving for ice cream as I once did.  Crazy, I know, but Cali’s weather isn’t all that hot most of the time.  It’s not like when I lived in Wisconsin and you’d walk outside and the air would slurp your face like a basset hound.  Yeah, that’s really how bad the humidity is there!  Well in NorCal, it is dry, dry, dry and I <3 that big time.  My waist probably thanks the lack of ice cream cravings too. 

Side note:  I grew up in Madison, WI and we lived 1.5 blocks from a Dairy Queen.  I do not think it’s an exaggeration to say that I probably had 50 blizzards annually.  I freakin’ loved those things.  My favorites were always Reeses PB cup, cookie dough, and the toffee cappuccino.  And did my pint-sized little body order the small?  Heck no, I always got the medium!  Because that’s how I roll.  My stepdad’s motto was always “I buy, you fly”.  Right-o, I’ll walk to DQ and come back with treats for all.  Oh how I miss those days… 

Back to the blog.  So after seeing all these sweet treats and actually having a pretty warm day here in Sunnyvale, I thought I’d dig into a Tofutti Cutie ice cream sandwich (from TJs of course!).  Then I thought how could I make a marriage out of the Tofutti and this: 

PB2 meet Tofutti, Tofutti meet PB2

 

Have you tried PB2 yet??? I only heard about it through the magic of foodie blogs and am ecstatic that I bit the bullet and ordered the requisite minimum 4 jars from Netrition.com   What it is is peanut butter in powder form.  No oils or water added.  To bring your PB to life, you just add a little water.  Best thing about it is that it’s only 45 calories compared to your standard PB at 190 calories for the equivalent 2 tbsps.  How cool is that?  And guess what else?  It tastes goooooood! 

With a little creativity (and I do mean little), I created this: 

PB ice cream sandwich...in a bowl

 

Yeah, so it’s not that pretty right.  But my taste buds don’t understand pretty — they understand yummy.  Different languages you see.  And this was YUMMY!  My little sweet treat came in a 175 calories and I can account for all them since I did indeed lick the bowl afterwards.  Another note, a round head does not fit into a square bowl easily  

So that was my dessert.  Before dinner.  

We’ve been pummeled by pork leftover this week and that was NOT what I wanted for the last meal of the day.  After some excavating in the pantry caves, I came up with these items: 

I see Mexi food in my future

 

And off I went, dicing the white onion and tomato and sauteing on low-medium for about 10 minutes in a bit of EVOO.  I threw in some salsa for good measure as well.  Removed the veggies from the pan, and placed my cheese-spreaded-La-Tortilla-Factory-tortilla in the bottom.  Reload veggies.  Add a tortilla topper.  Cook for about 5 minutes and you, my friend, have a healthy quesadilla!  Neat, right? 

And because I was feeling especially casual tonight, I ate my food on a paper plate.  Yep, stylin’ I know.  

Cat. Quesadilla. Wine.

 

I think my cat Myko is looking at my food  in disgust for the following reasons:
Why didn’t I get any cheese?
Yeah I can sit up here, whose gonna make me get down?
Wine already momma, really?
Those paper plates are reserved for my wet food so back off!
Despite the rather pathetic looking meal, it was TASTY!  

What’s the last yummy dish you made from excavated cupboard items? 

Does your cat/pet rule the house like mine does?

La Tortilla Winner(s)!

Hi blog world!

I’m still stuck in Bethesda, MD, but trying to keep up the blog world.  Most importantly, I am announcing the winner of the La Tortilla Factory low-cal, low-carb give-away. I must admit, I’m heartbroken a wee bit disappointed I didn’t get more entries. Tis okay because better chance to win!

The Winner's Reward!

I’m giving two winners:
1) To Meg of Sunshine n Spice for the coupons I was given.  I hadn’t intended on giving these away, but Meg mentioned she was gluten free and while I don’t have any physical GF give-aways, I know La Tortilla does offer them and I’d love for her to try them
2) And to my other winner, Kara at My Well Nest .  I threw all your names in a bucket and pulled them out.  Very creative and systemmattic I know.  But I’m happy to know I’m giving my tortillas to a La Tortilla Virgin..hehe

So, lovely ladies, please email me at shannamccord@gmail.com with your full address and I will get your goodies in the mail.  They may not go out until the 6th (as I am out of town), but no worries, the ‘goods are good’ until well past then.

Thank you so much for participating in my lil give-away attempt XOXO!