Easy meal after work... enchiladas

This is one of my old standbys... so quick and easy after a long day at work. And... VERY adaptable to your audience (my vegetarian friends love the cheese version).

First off, the sauce is straight from a can and oh so good. It's the Old El Paso red enchilada sauce... mild, medium or hot (medium and hot are harder to find). I add some Cholula to the sauce for a little extra flavor.

Second, pick the ingredients you want in the enchiladas.... I usually go with cheese, chicken, or ground beef.

Okay.... now for the recipe:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Start with a small pan and put in some onion, garlic and olive oil. Add in some seasonings... I usually put in some chili powder, cayenne pepper, and a little cumin. Cook these together until the onions become translucent.

Next, the meat (if you want to include meat) :
-- ground beef: cook with some of the same seasonings mentioned above and some garlic powder.
-- chicken: you can use a rotisserie chicken (I usually don't bother adding any seasoning to this option) or cook a chicken breast with the above seasonings and shred it.

I use corn tortillas and heat them in the microwave for 20-30 seconds so that they are easier to roll.
Put cheese and some of the onion mix in each tortilla. Add the meat into the center as well if you choose to use meat. Roll the tortillas and pack tightly into a glass pyrex dish. A lot of the time the corn tortillas break when rolling them... don't worry, you can't tell once you put the cheese over it all.

Cover with the sauce (for an 8x8 inch pan, I use 2 small cans of sauce) and then top with some Cholula.

Top it all with a bunch of cheese and bake for 10 minutes or so... I usually just watch it while in the oven. The cheese should melt and the sauce should start to bubble... a little browning of the cheese is great too.

Enjoy. Great as leftovers as well. Tonight I served this with some refried beans (which I always mix with some hot sauce and cheese).

Happy bday to me!! What a day of food!!

We had dinner last night at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co. Here's what I think:


Location: 2121 North Clark

Food: What a unique pizza place. We started off with the Mediterranean Bread.... which is (per the menu) the restaurants most popular item and I can see why. WOW! It's a very thin piece of dough topped with a mix of herbs (including dried onion, oregano, garlic and... way more) and parmesan cheese.  The bread is huge and hangs over the side of the plate. It could probably serve up to 4 people but the 2 of us ate the entire thing. 

We followed that up with a pizza pot pie. We got the half pounder which was plenty to share after having the Mediterranean bread. It's cooked in a bowl with cheese on the bottom, topped with a meaty sauce and a few whole mushrooms (my favorite part) then covered with the crust which cooks over the side of the bowl. When they bring the "pizza" out, they flip it onto a plate to serve it so that it ends up looking more like a pizza with the crust on bottom.  I love the mushrooms, they are so fresh and are cooked whole so they don't get all dried out and rubbery. 

The menu also includes several salads and oven grinders. I haven't tried the grinders but I've had the chef salad once and I remember the dressing being amazing. 

Drinks: Not many beers on tap (Stella and Miller Light were the only 2) but they have a good selection of bottled beers.. including several from Goose Island (312, Winter, Honkers and Matilda). 

Service: Good. No complaints here. The guy in the front is a rockstar... no list of names but can somehow remember the order and number in the party. Impressive.  

Atmosphere: Dark, lots of wood. Cool old place. Busy but we only waited about a half hour. Open for dinner only during the week... open at noon on the weekends. 

Price: ONLY TAKE CASH. But reasonable. Plenty of food for $30-40 for 2 people. 

Another similar spot: I'll be honest.... I don't know of any other pizzas like this one. 

Birthday dim sum

For my birthday brunch today, my boyfriend and I headed to Chinatown for some dim sum at Phoenix. Visiting Phoenix on Sunday mornings has become a fairly regular thing for us. Phoenix has the traditional dim sum dishes that are served by servers on trolleys (or carts).

So... here's my first review: Phoenix Restaurant (for dim sum)

Location: 2131 S Archer Ave, Chicago (right across the street from Chinatown Square).

Food: The options are endless.... some of my favorites include: turnip cake (see picture 1 below... which although it's called turnip, it's actually made of daikon and it is my favorite dim sum dish - an amazing savory flavor and just the right amount of crispiness), pan fried shrimp and chive dumplings, seasame rolls, lo mai gai (see pictures 2 and 3 below, sticky rice with pork and chicken wrapped and cooked in lotus leaf... yum!), rice noodle rolls (shrimp in a long rice noodle), and the deep fried seaweed roll (see picture 4 below, seaweed filled with shrimp, then deep fried... greasy but oh so good).  The food is good and the variety is awesome!

 Picture 1: Turnip cake

Picture 2 and 3:  lo mai gai

Picture 4: Fried seaweed roll

The food review wouldn't be complete without mentioning the chicken feet, which my boyfriend gets nearly every time we go to Phoenix. I'm not a huge fan but he likes them a lot. They kind of taste like the skin of a vinegar flavored hot wing. Not much meat and lots of bones. I'm not really a fan.

Drinks: The dim sum is served with a mild hot tea. I always finish the pot quickly!
A quick note about the traditions of the tea.... Always pour the tea for others before pouring for yourself. The way to thank someone for pouring the tea is by tapping your index finger (if you're single) or your index and middle finger (if your married) on the table a few times. 

Service: Decent. There are tons of servers. But if you get stuck in the middle of the room, it may take a while for the carts to get around to you.  The only other complaint (about the trolley type of dim sum in general) is that you never know what is going to come around... so if you have a craving for something, you're better off asking for it or you may never see it.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere is fun and it's entertaining getting to pick your meal as you go.

Price: The prices are good. Today we left totally full and our bill was around $32.

Another similar spot: Happy Chef (in chinatown square) - also great but you order off a menu instead of the carts going around. The food is equally as good.


We finished off the day with a bubble tea from Saint's Alp Teahouse (which is right next door to Phoenix). We opted for the green tea with milk and pearls. It hit the spot.

Getting ready to head out for dinner soon... which means... another review to come!

Our last meal of 2010

I recently bought a book by Pim Techamuanvivit called "The Foodie Handbook." In this book she goes over how to make a roast chicken. My boyfriend read the section on making a roast chicken and ever since, he has not been able to get it out of his mind. So when we were trying to decide what our NYE dinner should be, I suggested a roast chicken. It turned out perfect.... moist and tender with perfect mouthwatering flavor. So, for my first post, I will describe our last meal of 2010.

The menu:

Roast chicken with jus

Pan roasted potatoes

Steamed broccolini

Olive bread

Pumpkin cheesecake

How to make an amazing roast chicken (a synopsis from The Foodie Handbook):

I bought the chicken at whole foods fresh from the meat counter. It was approx 3.3 lbs. I washed it with water, then patted it dry with paper towels. Then I rubbed softened butter all over the chicken... and lots of it. Next, I rubbed kosher salt all over the outside (and inside of the chicken), as well as freshly cracked pepper. I stuffed it with about 5 cloves of garlic, 3 quarters of an onion, rosemary, and thyme. The chicken was placed ON ITS SIDE in a 8 x 8 inch glass pyrex dish and I put a few more sprigs of rosemary and thyme next to the chicken, as well as 2 heads of garlic (with the tops cut off). I then baked it at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. At 30 minutes, I pulled it out, basted it and flipped it over to its OTHER SIDE (and added a little more butter), where it baked for another 30 min. It then came back out of the oven and was basted and turned breast side up where it baked an additional 20 minutes. When it came out of the oven this time, it was finished. I placed it on a platter with the breast facing down and the tail up and covered it with aluminum foil for about 10 minutes before cutting it (Pim T talks about how this is done so that the juices settle down to the breast of the chicken). And man... it was GREAT!! The jus was then made by deglazing the pan with red wine and a splash of red wine vinegar. This was finished off with a little more butter. (The butter was definitely not lacking in this dish... I put a load of it in the roasted potatoes, too.) 

A quick note on the olive bread: it was made using a Clement Clayworks pot that I received as a Christmas gift. The recipe came along with the pot.... it was good (and not too difficult to make). The company that sells these pots is located in Springfield, MO. The email on the recipe card was: clementclayworks@yahoo.com, in case you're interested. 

Finally, a brief mention of the pumpkin cheesecake... it's a double layer cheesecake with a gingersnap crust. I got the recipe from a friend... not sure where she found it. Maybe I'll post it sometime soon.