See What's Cookin' - Enchiladas

Hey y'all! If you haven't already grabbed this recipe from Jes's blog, Exposing the Drapes to My 20's (I guest posted there today) then grab it now.  You don't want to be without this one!   Enchiladas are something that my family makes when we want to treat ourselves. They are a little time consuming but easy to make with only a few key ingredients.  So let's get cooking!

So here's what you'll need:





2 pounds ground beef
1 large onion
2 pkgs shredded cheese
2 cans enchilada sauce
1 pkg corn tortillas
Vegetable oil

These amounts are what I used to make 20 enchiladas. Adjust accordingly, but you'll want leftovers. I promise. And, of course, you can use chicken instead of beef, leave out the onions, whatever your preference is. Make it yours. First, dice up your onion.

Brown your ground beef. Be sure to drain off the grease and set aside to cool.






Then I usually set myself up a station that looks like this to make things easier...

Next, add vegetable oil or canola oil to a pan and heat it up. Do the same for the enchilada sauce in a separate pan. You'll want the oil fairly hot because you want the tortilla to cook quickly; however, you only want the enchilada sauce warm because you'll be rolling the tortillas by hand and you don't want them scorching hot. Once your oil is heated up slide your tortilla into the pan. When you see it start to bubble up, give it a couple of more seconds. You'll actually hear the sizzle begin to slow down. Then pull it out, draining the excess oil.

Then slide same tortilla into your enchilada sauce. You simply want to coat the tortilla.

So when the tortilla is good and coated, transfer it to your rolling plate. I usually stack up about 5 or 6 of these at a time.   Once you start filling and rolling your hands will be really messy and washing them between each tortilla is just too much.  But if you stack up too many then the tortillas will start to stick together.

Then start filling your tortillas. Be sure to not over fill them or you'll never be able to roll them or transfer them to your casserole dish.

So I couldn't exactly take a picture of me rolling them up but once you roll them up individually, place them into your casserole dish side by side.

Once you've filled your pan, spoon a little enchilada sauce on top to keep them from being dry. And then with cheese and any remaining ingredients - don't waste it!

Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees just until the cheese on top is melted. Remember, all of your ingredients are already cooked. You just want to melt the cheese. Now, I owe you an apology because in all of my excitement of pulling these babies out of the oven I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product. You're just going to have to trust me, they look, smell and taste delish!   Enjoy y'all!

To print or save this recipe, click HERE.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

See What's Cookin' - Guacamole

Guacamole is one of my all time favorite things in the whole wide world.  If I had it my way, I'd have it available to me for constant snacking all day long, every day.  And because I love it so much, I thought I'd share my family's recipe.  You know, share the love and all that jazz.  It's super simple to make and pretty healthy as long as you don't eat a whole bowl at a time like I do.  It never lasts very long in our house.  Even my kids love it.  

Let's start with our ingredients:

     Roma Tomatoes

     Avocados

     Green Onions

     Sour Cream

     Tabasco Sauce

     Salt

Start by slicing your avocados in half.  Ripe avocados will be more brown than green on the outside and have a slight give to them when you squeeze them but still somewhat firm.  If they are mushy then they are just about rotten.  Don't buy those.  

I'll show you a trick for removing the pit.  With some pressure and for lack of a better word, WHACK your knife into the pit and then twist.  It should slide right out.  Forgive the photography error - terrible picture but wanted you to see what I was talking about.  Just have good aim and don't whack off a finger.

And here's another trick - I score the avocado before scooping it out.

With a spoon, scoop out the yummy goodness into a bowl.  This will make mixing up the dip much easier.

Now dice up your green onions....

... and your tomatoes.

Add your onions and tomatoes to your bowl of diced up avocados.  

Now, I usually only add a tablespoon or two of sour cream to the mix.  I like the creaminess that the sour cream gives but I don't want to really taste the sour cream.  I want to taste the avocados.  But you can add as much or as little as you like.  Also, same with the tabasco sauce.  If you like to spice it up then go for it.  And salt to taste as well.  Mix well.

Grab those chips and start munching!

I hope you make it and love it!  Enjoy, y'all!

To print or save this recipe, click HERE.  

I'm guest posting over at Exposing the Drapes to My 20's today.  You can head over there now and grab my enchilada recipe or come back here later today.  I'll post it here as well so that I can link it to my recipe page.  Goes great with the guacamole!  

See What's Cookin' - Chicken Lettuce Wraps

This has quickly become one of my family's favorite recipes. It's so quick, easy and adaptable - and HEALTHY.  I just had to share it with my readers.  You can thank me later.  :)  I promise, you'll love this.  Chicken Lettuce Wraps came from Joy Bauer.  You might recognize the name if you watch the Today Show.  She's their health/nutritionist guru.  Let's get cookin'!

Now, remember that I said this recipe is completely adaptable to you and your preferences as well as what you have on hand.  The recipe calls for celery and cashews.  I didn't have celery or cashews on hand so I left it out but it was still DELISH!  So don't worry if you are shy of a few ingredients.  Substitute something else or leave out what you don't like personally.  I used the following:

Yes, I cheated with the garlic.  I ran out of fresh garlic so I used the jarred stuff.  I also used ground turkey instead of chicken this go 'round.  It worked fine.  

Dice up all your veggies, garlic and ginger and throw them into a well-sprayed (keep it healthy and use olive oil) skillet.  You just want the veggies to get a head start so they aren't so crunchy.  So let them hang out there for about 5 minutes stirring often so they don't burn.

Then add your chicken (or turkey) and brown that up, seasoning it with salt and pepper.  The aromas will start to intoxicate you at this point.  Smells amazing!

Once that's browned, reduce the heat to low and add the plum sauce, the rice vinegar, and chili paste and stir to coat.  Simmer until just heated through.  Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the cilantro (and cashews if you have them).  Allow the mixture to cool slightly.

If you haven't cleaned your lettuce already, do that now and break off 12  individual leaves (trimming stems).  Fill each lettuce cup with roughly 1/2 cup of the chicken (turkey) mixture.  

Wrap that baby up and ENJOY, y'all!

To print or save this recipe, click HERE.

On another note, I'm guest posting over at Who Says 8 Is Enough? today while Debi and her family are away on a FAB vacation!  The post is an oldie but a goodie.  Debi is also giving away a prize to her biggest commenter.  Go check it out!

Greek Feta Burgers - Guest Blogger

My great bloggy friend, Jes from Exposing the Drapes to My 20's has agreed to fill in for a post while I'm on vacation.  A little about Jes, a Mississippi native, she is about 4 weeks away from graduating from a prestigious design school in Savannah, GA and her talent and passion for design already impress all of her loyal followers.  She will soon be unveiling a new blog dedicated solely to this passion and you don't want to miss it.  She walks with God daily and her love for her two Yorkies is sweet as pie.  And just so you know, I did not pay Jes much any money to say the following:

First of all, I feel very honored, excited, and also appreciative to be a guest blogger for Courtney today.  I truly enjoy her blog and I am very envious of her amazing photography skills and craftiness. We have become such great friends, and she is truly an AMAZING person.

Every now and then a girl needs a vacation, right?  So while Courtney is sitting on the beach soaking up some rays with a good book, I will be sharing with you a tasty burger for all your summer afternoons.  

Greek Feta Burgers

Makes 4 servings

Hands on: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound ground chuck

1 (6-ounce) package crumbled feta cheese

1 garlic clove, minced

¼ cup chopped fresh mint

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon chopped rosemary

Fresh Spinach leaves

4 Hamburger Buns with onions (optional Pita Bread)

2 plum tomatoes

1 small onion

Cucumber Dill Sauce

Combine first 7 ingredients; shape into 4 patties.

Grill patties, cover with grill lid, over medium high heat for 5 minutes on each side or until done.  Place patties on spinach lined hamburger buns.  Top with tomatoes, chopped onion, and Cucumber Dill Sauce.

Cucumber Dill Sauce

Makes ½ cup

Hands on: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

¼ cup peeled, seeded, and diced cucumber

¼ cup sour cream

½ teaspoon chopped fresh dill

1 garlic clove, minced

Stir together all ingredients.  Cover and chill until ready to serve.

These burgers are delicious and are even more delicious with oven roasted potatoes.  Just sprinkle the potatoes with a little greek seasoning to compliment the flavors. Hope You Enjoy and Have a Wonderful Week!

Jes

Got Butter?

This past weekend was my husband's birthday and packed up the family and headed down to Tunica, MS to eat at Paula Deen's restaurant.  Now, if you've ever been to Tunica, MS you'll know that there's not much there aside from the casinos.  So it was a little bizarre to be heading there with my two kids.  Once we got there, we realized there was no way into the restaurant without going through one of the casinos.  So off we went with our two kids practically running through it to get to our dinner.  What strange looks we received, dragging our two small children through this place.  Of course, Keegan wanted to push all the buttons on the slot machines.  Once we reached the restaurant, we were relieved to see that there were other families there with their children.  So we weren't the only ones receiving strange looks that night.  

The food was incredible!  I mean it.  Incredible.  There were rows and rows of food and everything I tried was delicious.  

The ice tea was as tasty as it was pretty.  Probably some of the best sweet tea I've ever had.  And I'm from the south.  I know sweet tea.

And yes, there was butter.  Lots of butter.  I could taste butter in just about everything I ate.

The only thing that could have made it better is if Paula Deen had been there herself.  But I got a picture with my homegirl anyway.

The gift shop was a replica of her kitchen which I thought was so cool.  

Of course, I had to come home with a little souvenir .  I'm using this cup as I type...

After running the kids back through the casino and receiving more crazy looks from gamblers, we made it outside just as the sun started to set which enabled me to have a little fun with my camera and the Mississippi River and skyline.  

My Weight Loss Attempt

If you've snooped around my blog recently, you may have noticed a new link on my left sidebar to a new page, My Weight Loss Diary.  I have recently gotten mad enough at my body, my clothes, my insecurities that I've decided to do something about it.  I knew, however, it would have to be something drastic.  Something that would hold me accountable to getting up at 5AM six days a week to workout and eat healthy.  With our family vacation just around the corner, I needed to make a move and fast.  Vlogging popped into my head.  I'll make a video diary of each day of my workout challenge to lose the weight.  And post it on my blog.  For the world to see.  Wait - WHAT?!  

But I did it.  I decided to let all of you hold me accountable to this challenge.  I want to lose 19 pounds.  All of my stats (Lord, help me) are on my new page.  Go ahead and look now.  I'll wait.

So now that you're realizing just how crazy brave I really am, I hope to inspire some of you to join me in this challenge.  I've had a couple of friends already hop aboard so I added MckLinky to the page so we could all link up and help one another.  

In honor of my new challenge, I wanted to share with you one of my new favorite meals.  I originally made this with chicken that I had brushed with olive oil infused with basil and garlic.  I sprinkled a small amount of salt and pepper on it and threw it on the grill.  I then sliced it up and added the vegetables and stuffed it in a pita pocket.  However, I didn't realize just how tasty this little treat would be  so I failed to document it for a blog post.  But I made a variation of it for lunch today and had the camera ready.

Instead of chicken, I stuffed it with tuna and instead of mayo I drizzled the top with Kraft Greek Vinaigrette dressing.  This dressing is the trick.  It's so good and only 1 gram of sugar and 60 calories per serving.  You can stuff it with any veggies you like.  These are what I had on hand (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, spinach) and it was delish!

YUMMO!  I hope this inspires some of you to serve up a little healthiness to yourself today.  Link up if you want to be part of our support team.  HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!