Oh, Canada

Hey guys,

No recipe this time, although I have one all ready to go. I'm heading to Montreal tomorrow, though, and don't have a lot of time to post the full step-by-step right now. I have a date tonight with some Greek food and the movies.

When I get back, though, on August 25th, expect a recipe for Cucumber salad, a great thing to eat on those hot, dog days of summer. Too bad I'm a little late on that.

See you later!

Project Chicken Leftovers II: Chicken Enchiladas

So, I post today from the confines of my apartment. I'm waiting for a UPS delivery that I'm just hoping will actually come. Anyway, on to leftovers. (DOWN WITH UPS)

We decided last Thursday, that we needed to use all the rest of the chicken in one "fowl" swoop. Sorry for the bad pun. The easiest way to do this, for us, was to make gorgeous chicken enchiladas, based on a recipe found here.

 We made a few adjustments and additions to the recipe, and the result was fantastic. It also used almost exclusively things in our pantry: ranch dressing, sour cream, a little bit of mayonnaise. We had to get some tortillas, but that's not too much to ask.

I don't quite remember what the original recipe requires, but we added some drained black beans, a sliced cubanelle pepper (which we got from a local urban farmer: you can find them here), and some salsa.

The insides look gross, but this is definitely a leftover recipe that we will be using again. Sorry for the gross looking pictures, these were the leftovers I ate for lunch the next day.

So, one note on the recipe. You only need the insides of the enchiladas to warm up, so instead of doing the time that the recipe recommends, I suggest reducing it by about 5 minutes. As you can see, we got some burnt cheese on top. Maybe it was just the type of cheese (mozzarella and cheddar... it's what we had in the fridge) we used though.

Also, we weary when stuffing the tortillas, if you put in too much, you will really have a mess on the bottom of the pan.

Enjoy!

Project Chicken Leftovers I: Curried Chicken Salad a la Ruth

I can't take credit for this recipe. The final (delicious) results are were a combined effort or my girlfriend Alison and our friend Ruth. I had very little to do with this, except the part where I tore apart a whole chicken. It's not as therapeutic as you think it would be, it's mostly just gross.

Chicken salad is a great idea for leftovers, but it can be so boring. Alison and I remembered this one salad that we had once. It was a curried broccoli salad, made by Ruth. We decided that this would be wonderful, so we gave it a shot.

The recipe is simple enough. Take about a cup of shredded chicken, a third cup of broccoli, blanched but still crisp and three slices of bacon which you've cooked very crisp and chopped: combine them in a bowl. Then add a dressing you make of mayonnaise, sour cream (about half and half on those), some sugar, curry powder, and pepper. The salt in this recipe will come from the bacon, but you can add some at the end if you're not sure.

Mix together the dressing and other ingredients, making sure that you coat everything and then throw in a handful of golden raisins (or regular if that's all you have) and a handful of chopped almonds (for the crunch). That's it. Mix it up and let it sit in the fridge overnight and you will have a great sandwich for lunch the next day.

It's even better after two nights in the fridge.

Nom Nom Nom.

This Week is Project Leftover Chicken

Hey guys,

So, I'm in my new apartment now and it has an oven! YES! To celebrate, my girlfriend and I bought a 5 lb chicken to roast (it was on sale). The results were delicious, but that's not what I'm writing about. We were left with a lot of left over chicken, so this week I will be posting some recipes dealing with this problem.

You can look forward to some Curried Chicken Salad a la Ruth, and probably some chicken enchiladas. Anyway, I'll be posting some more soon.