Got Leftovers? If you've bought a rotisserie chicken from the market and are looking for a recipe to use up the leftovers - like leg, wing and backbone meat, then read on for a delish dish with a Latin flare: my Creamy Cheesy Enchilada Casserole with Chicken, Corn & Peas.
If you cook with turkey pieces, they are too huge to use all at once, so take a bite out of the those leftovers, too.
Add a package of cheese, a tub of sour cream, frozen veggies like corn and green peas, plus a can of enchilada sauce, and you have a one pot meal for the whole family.
I use cans of enchilada sauce (sometimes listed as red chili sauce) quite often. It especially goes well with poultry in entrees like: Stuffed Bell Peppers and Chicken Tinga Stew.
Chicken is cheap anytime and turkey segments come on sale quite often, especially during the winter holidays. I get mine from my local Latin market.
Frozen veggies hold up better than canned when baking, so use frozen, or lightly steam fresh veggies for this Mexican-style casserole.
I can always find corn tortillas and sour cream at my local 99c only Stores. You should lightly brown tortillas in a pan to dry them out somewhat, so the enchilada sauce with sour cream does not dissolve away the tortillas (which happened the first time I baked this.)
You need an oven proof pan or dish, but don't fill it up all the way, it may bubble over - always leave an inch from the top lip. You may want to place a cookie sheet under the heating casserole dish in case it overflows.
Since the ingredients are pre-cooked, all you are doing is heating it up, so the baking time is quick, only about half an hour.
Try out my Latin-themed one dish entree, Creamy Cheesy Enchilada Casserole with Chicken, Corn & Peas, and save some leftovers for your weekly work lunches, too.
Ingredients (about 4-6 servings)
2 cups shredded cooked turkey - okay to use roasted or boiled chichen.
2 cups veggies - I used frozen (and defrosed) corn and peas. Okay to use any favorite frozen veggie combo. You can use fresh, lighlty steamed, veggies too.
2 cups enchilada sauce - 1 small can, add a little water or stock to bring up to 2 cups, if necessary. Okay to use red canned chili sauce.
1 cup sour cream - or cottage cheese. Light, low calorie, or regular.
2 cups cheese - shredded, sliced or crumbled. I used pepper jack cheese, but use any budget cheese you like.
6-8 small corn tortillas - whole and/or torn in half. Cut tortillas to fit a large casserole dish or deep pan.
1 to 2 tablespoons of oil - to lightly brown corn tortillas.
Directions
Start with firming up tortillas by lightly browning corn tortillas for 2-4 minutes. This will keep tortillas from dissolving or falling apart when baking with liquid ingredients. As tortillas heat up move on to assembling casserole.
Defrost frozen veggies. Either soak in water (then drain) or allow to come to room temperature. Shred cooked turkey or chicken into bite-sized pieces. Slice, shred or crumble cheese.
In a large bowl lightly mix 2 cups of enchilada sauce and 1 cup of sour cream, or cottage cheese.
Now time to bring it all together. In a large casserole dish or deep pan add a thin layer of creamy enchilada sauce. Next add a single layer of tortillas. Spread on a thin layer of enchilada sauce. Next pile on a layer of turkey, cheese and veggies. Spoon on another layer of enchilada sauce.
Layer on tortillas, sauce, turkey, veggies and cheese until you almost reach the top. I used 3 layers of tortillas total.
Save some cheese and sauce to top the Enchilada Casserole with. Also stop about an inch from the top of dish. You need some room as sauce and other ingredients melt and bubble. You may want a cookie sheet underneath casserole dish in case it bubbles over some.
Cover casserole dish with lid or foil. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. If you want the cheese lightly browned then uncover the baking dish during the last 10 minutes of baking.
Serve hot. A delish side dish is my Mom's Mexican Rice, recipe is a click away, here.
They say this is the cure for a hangover. Well, my Pozole video recipe is a cure for anything! Made with rehydrated pungent dried chili pods this deep red hued Mexican stew is loaded with flavor.
Pozole, in one form or another, has been a part of Latin American cuisine for centuries.
The heart of the recipe is hominy and chili pods. Hominy are dried corn kernels that are treated and soaked until tender. I get large cans of it from my local 99c only Store. Hominy has a slight nutty flavor, quite different than sweet fresh boiled corn. I compare Hominy to a starch, like rice.
The texture is a bit mealy, but it still holds up well for this recipe. I guess it's serves the same purpose as pasta or rice - more to absorb the main chile and meat flavors.
I made this Pozole with more expensive chunks of pork stew meat, and pork that's cut especially for Pozole (it has bones and some fat) from my local Latin market.
The cheapest pork is from a whole pork shoulder. I get mine for around a dollar per pound - hey, that's why I'm called The 99 Cent Chef. They come in at about 5-9 pounds per shank. There is a lot of skin to remove, along with the center bone. Even with a 6 pound pork shoulder, you can expect about 3-4 pounds of usable meat.
Next to pork shoulder, I like to use thick, country-style pork ribs when they come on sale. These ribs are mainly all meat with a thin bone part. It's easy to add to the pot with little preparation (okay to remove some of the more fatty parts.)
You can also do a cheapie poultry version with chicken breast, legs and/or thighs. It's all good.
The trick is to get some dried chili pods and rehydrate them. It's easy, really. Tear off the stem, scoop out and discard the seeds - that is where most of the heat lies. Then let the chiles set in hot water for 10 minutes. When the water and chiles cool down some, finally blender it all, and add it to the stew pot.
And as a bonus, rehydrated and blended chili make a fine fiery Chili Salsa, my recipe is here.
I used dried California and Ancho Chiles. It's okay to use any large red dried chilies. (For an easy substitution go with a couple cans of red chili or enchilada sauce.) Other chilies are New Mexico and Guajillo.
Click on photos to see larger.
Each chili has a slightly different flavor. Ancho chiles are darker and more pungent than the rest, while Guajillo is slightly hotter. California and New Mexico chiles are mild. Do stay away from the tiny red chili peppers, they are too fiery hot. (Most of the heat from dried chilies come from the seeds, so make sure to remove them.)
You then add enough water to cover the meat and add some sauteed onion and garlic with plenty of dried oregano. Cook the meat until tender then finally add a large drained can of hominy. Let it all cook for a few more minutes, while you get some fresh toppings ready.
Pozole is quite intense on it's own, so traditionally it's topped with fresh chopped onion, cilantro, and sliced greens like cabbage or lettuce. You can even add a slice or two of avocado, and finish it all up with a squeeze of refreshing lime juice.
This one-pot Mexican meal also freezes well, so you can come back to it another day, when you may really have a hangover that needs curing!
Pozole - VIDEO
Play it here, video runs 4 minutes, 2 seconds.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, justclick here.
Ingredients (about 4 - 6 servings) 3 pounds pork - pork butt, shoulder, stew meat or country-style ribs (the extra meaty type.) A cheaper substitution are your favorite chicken pieces, like thighs and legs. 1 large 29 ounce can hominy - drained. Any type will do, just make sure it's the cooked type (usually located by canned beans in the grocery shelves.) I used Mexican hominy. 6 dried red chiles - remove stem and seeds. I used California and Ancho Chili. Okay to use any type of dried red chilies, except for the very small fiery ones. Other dried red chiles are New Mexico and Guajillo. For an easy substitution use a couple cans of red chile or enchilada sauce. 5 cups water - for the stew. 2 cups water - to hydrate the dried chiles. 1 onion - chopped. Yellow or white, I used yellow. 1 tablespoon garlic - chopped. Okay to use garlic powder, flakes, or from a jar. 1 tablespoon dried oregano - okay to use fresh oregano. Salt and pepper to taste.
* When served, Pozole is often topped with any combination of the following: sliced radish, chopped onion, slices of avocado, cilantro, some more oregano, greens like cabbage and lettuce, and a squeeze of lime.
Directions
Get the dried chilies ready, rinse them off if necessary. Bring 2 cups of water to boil. While the water heats up, prep the chiles.
Remove the stem and seeds. Just cut or tear open the dried chili and remove seeds and light colored membranes. Don't worry if the chili falls apart, you will just blend it later.
The seeds are not as hot as a jalapeno, but still don't rub your eyes. Make sure to wash off your hands with soap after handling them, especially if you are sensitive to spicy things.
Once the water is boiling add the dried chiles and submerge them. Cover the pot and turn off the heat. They need to soak and soften for about 10 - 15 minutes.
Roughly chop one onion, and about 3-5 cloves of garlic (or about one tablespoon.) Okay to used dried garlic or garlic from a jar.
Depending on the pork you get, cube it into about 2 inch pieces, if necessary. For country-style ribs you can cook them whole and separate the meat off the bone later (same for chicken - cook the pieces whole.) Okay to remove any excess fat from pork pieces, but leave a small amount for extra flavor.
In a large pot, over a medium heat, add a few pieces of fatty pork. This will provide the oil to saute the onion in. If the pork is lean, then just go right to sauteing the chopped onion in a tablespoon of cooking oil. Leave out the pork, you don't need to brown it. Saute and stir onion until soft, about 3-5 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and saute for another minute.
By this time the chiles should be soft, and the water will not be too hot for a blender. Add the chiles and chili water to a blender or food processor.
Blend until chiles are pulverized. It should only take a minute or so. It will be a soupy mix. There will be some very small pieces floating around (like red chili flakes) and that's okay. You don't need to turn every bit into sauce. Some recipes call for straining, but I don't go that far. Further cooking will smooth it all out.
Now time to bring it all together. Pour in 5 cups of water into pot of sauteed onions and garlic, and mix well. Add all the pork. Finally add the pureed chiles into the pork stew. Sprinkle in
the dried or fresh oregano. Salt and pepper to taste.
Bring it all to a boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cover the pot. Simmer for about 45 minutes.
Now time to add the hominy. Since it's already cooked, you just need to heat it up in the stew and allow the hominy to absorb some chili flavor.
Open a large can of hominy and drain it. Remove pot cover add the drained hominy to the pork and chili broth. Stir to mix.
Continue low simmering for another 15-20 minutes to reduce the broth a little bit, and heat the hominy all the way through. This will also intensify the flavors. If the liquid cooks down too much then add half cup of water at a time.
Take out a larger piece of meat to check for tenderness; just see if it cuts easily, to your satisfaction. Usually an hour total of simmering is enough, depending on the size of meat pieces. If the meat is not tender enough, then just cover the pot, continue simmering, and check back every 10 minutes or so.
Pozole is very intense, so I like to add some fresh chopped or sliced veggie topping when serving. Mainly, I use a little chopped onion. You can also add sliced radish and avocado, cilantro, some more oregano, and a squeeze of lime. Some recipes call for chopped cabbage (white and red) or lettuce. You can top the Pozole with any favorite chopped greens like kale or spinach, too.
If you have a favorite salsa then use that. Click here for links to my homemade salsas. You can also serve Pozole with fresh heated flour and corn tortillas, or tortilla chips.
Hindsight
You can soften and blend the dried chiles ahead of time - store in the refrigerator until ready to use. When you remove the chili seeds you have reduced the spicy heat. There is a little bit of spice left, though relatively mild.
(And, by the way, the softened and blended chiles are a rich homemade salsa! Just blend-in half a raw onion and a clove of garlic for extra flavor.)
If you don't want to deal with dried chilies then use a large can of enchilada sauce instead (a 29 ounce can or 2 fifteen ouncers).
Depending on the fattiness of pork pieces, you can skim off some oil before serving Pozole. I leave some for lusciousness.
As I mentioned earlier, the cheapest pork is a large pork shoulder. They come with skin and a large center bone. So even a 6 pound pork shoulder may only have 3 to 4 pounds of meat to cook with. It's a little messy to work with, but with a sharp knife you can slice off the meat without much trouble.
Easiest to use stew pork meat, it's more expensive though. I also like to cook with country-style pork ribs, they're meaty and cost somewhere between pork shoulder and stew meat.
Some Mexican groceries sell cuts of pork (with some bone attached) that's especially used for Pozole, just go to the meat counter to see if it's there. I saw it for $1.69 per pound, while whole pork shoulder is often on sale for about 99 cents per pound (usually comes as a twin pack.)
Of course, you can always add as much meat as you want. You may want to add a couple more cups of water, three more chilies, and one more can of hominy, to double this recipe.
You can leave the pork in larger pieces (but cook it longer) and break it down later.
This Pozole recipe works well with chicken. If legs are on sale then use them - don't even worry about removing the meat from the bone. Use any favorite chicken pieces you like.
Uncooked Mexican chorizo has the texture of a meat frosting. Yeah, that's not very appetizing, but when cooked, its fragrance and flavor is intense with Mexican chile and sweetbreads. The ingredients list (try reading it with a magnifying glass) is not for the faint of heart: cheek, tongue, glands, and lymph nodes? Yikes! Nothing sweet or doughy there. But, sauteed with onion and garlic, man is it freaking tasty! Try my chorizo and egg taco sometime if you don't believe me (click here).
It's trendy now to cook "head to tail"
-- but Mexican cooks have been doing this quite a while. Nothing is tastier than a taco made with cabeza (meat scraped off the skull) or lingua (tongue) from an East L.A. food truck (click here for my Halloween video post featuring scary meats).
Even Top Chef 's hunky dude Ludovic Lefebvre created a "chicken marinated in chorizo" dish (I'm going to rip-off, I mean adapt) for his latest LudoBites 6.0 pop-up restaurant (great photos by kevinEats, here).
Most stuffed bell pepper recipes call for ground meat with tomato sauce -- sorry, but that's boring to this cheapie epicurean. How about a budget Mexican version with ingredients including: enchilada sauce, rice, ground turkey and chorizo? I recently came up with it, and it's delicious. Ground turkey is bland until you mix in sauteed chorizo, and enchilada sauce over roasting bell peppers makes a unique savory pairing.
If you can't handle (or find) Mexican chorizo, my recipe is adaptable - just adding enchilada sauce over your typical stuffed bell pepper recipe is a unique flavor combination and well worth a go.
Ingredients (serves 3 - 4)
1 pound ground turkey or chicken
4 bell peppers - medium to large.
1 small can of red enchilada sauce - about 10 ounces.
1/2 package of Mexican chorizo - about 5 ounces.
1 cup of cooked rice - white or brown.
1 package of Queso Fresco (4 oz.) or your favorite cheese - optional.
1/2 onion - chopped
1 large egg (or 2 medium).
1 teaspoon garlic - chopped, from jar or fresh.
1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin - optional.
Salt and pepper to taste.
* I had a few leftover mushrooms that I cut up and added - optional.
Directions
Saute onions (I added a couple of extra mushrooms) and chorizo until oil renders, about 10 minutes. Break apart and mix in ground turkey (or chicken). Sprinkle in ground cumin (optional) and chopped garlic. Cook about 7-10 minutes until turkey is no longer raw.
In a large bowl, add meat, cooked rice*, egg, cheese and mix well. Slice each bell pepper lengthwise, remove seeds and white membrane. Fill each bell pepper with meat mixture and set in a large roasting pan (or 2). Top each filled bell pepper with plenty of enchilada sauce.
Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour.
*If you do not have cooked rice on hand, here's a simple rice recipe -- add 1/2 cup of rice in 1 cup of water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes. Allow to rest covered for another 5 minutes.
I just picked up blue corn tortillas at my local Latin market for 99 cents (three dozen), and created a colorful enchilada dish, using orange hued salmon from a can and green enchilada sauce. All my ingredients were cheap of course, but this dish is very rich in flavor.
It's a little messy to make but tasty to eat. You can use metal tongs to dip and coat the tortillas, but they may tear them, so I just used my hands. I also used green enchilada sauce (although typical red sauce can be used). Green enchilada sauce is mild but more citrus/tart, and not as spicy as red.
Normally tortillas are brittle and must be heated in oil to soften for stuffing then rolling up; but I have a lighter and easier method -- just loosely stack and microwave for 30 to 45 seconds until soft.
So if you are looking for a flavorful (and lighter-than-normal) Mexican entree, try out The 99 Cent Chef's Salmon Enchilada.
Ingredients (serves 2-3)
6 corn tortillas
15 oz. can of enchilada sauce - I used green, but you can substitute with easier-to-get red sauce.
7 1/2 ounce can of salmon - drained. The can size (or soft pack) of salmon you use will determine how many enchiladas you can make.
7 slices of cheese - about 7 ounces. You can use any favorite, including American cheese. I used white Monterrey Jack that was on sale.
1/4 onion chopped - optional.
1/4 bell pepper chopped - optional.
1 tsp. of chopped garlic fresh or from jar - optional.
Salt and pepper to taste.
1 tsp. oil for sauteing onion and bell pepper.
Directions
Saute chopped bell pepper, onion and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes. Drain can of salmon and loosely break it up in a bowl. Slice cheese into strips, or shred cheese if it is in block form. Microwave loosely stacked tortillas for 30-45 seconds until soft and pliable. On a large plate pour enough enchilada sauce to almost cover.
Dredge tortilla in enchilada sauce on both sides. Place sauced tortilla into baking casserole dish and add enough cheese and salmon to cover middle of the tortilla. Add a teaspoon of sauteed veggies. Fold two sides of tortilla and place seam side down. Repeat this paragraph's steps for the other 5 tortillas. Once all the tortillas are stuffed and assembled in baking dish, add the rest of the cheese, any leftover sauteed veggies over the top and pour on the extra enchilada sauce. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees about 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling. When done, allow to cool for a minute then serve.
If you are not a salmon lover, then substitute with cooked chicken from a can, fresh grilled or poached, and shredded. You can also use sauteed (and cooked through) ground turkey, or beef, mixed with a packet of taco seasoning.
In less than a week The 99 Cent Chef serves up a scrumptious "August Hot Dog Month." And it will be a tasty selection of some of the best hot dog joints in L.A.
In search of encased meat, this cuisinier treks from Fab Hot Dogs in the Valley (where the Chef has a comedic radioactive reaction to the Day-Glo relish on a Chicago Dog), to Earlez Grille on Crenshaw Blvd. in South L.A. for a Spicy Beef Link Dog with all the fixings, and to Carney's on the Sunset Strip for a zany and boozy Beer & Hot Dog Happy Hour -- all shot on video in Chefscope!
You will have a ravenously good time the whole month long checking in for the latest video (3 done and more on the way), and I'll throw in a hot dog recipe or two along the way. Ever have a bacon-wrapped, grilled pepper-and-onion-topped L.A. Street Dog slathered in mayo, ketchup and mustard? The combination shouldn't work, but it does, and The 99 Cent Chef will take you step-by-step through the creation of a Los Angeles street corner culinary classic.
So check back the first of August for a month of mouth-watering videos, photos and recipes.
Normally tortillas are brittle and must be heated in oil to soften for stuffing then rolling up; but I have a lighter and easier method -- just loosely stack and microwave for 30 to 45 seconds until soft.
