Zupa's BBQ Chicken Salad

It's been way too long since I shared a recipe, and since this one today made me so happy, I thought it was time again.

The instructions are from my mom, and are pretty simple:

Chicken, BBQ sauce, tomatoes, black beans, corn, black olives, tortilla strips, red onions, mixed greens, and ranch dressing.

What makes this recipe work for me is the combination of lettuce, BBQ sauce, ranch, and tortilla chips. Once you have those, you can add pretty much any vegetable and it tastes great. 

Lasagna

Time for another recipe -- lasagna! This one is a bit pricier what with the ground beef and variety of ingredients, but we sure like it and it sure lasts a while! So it's worth it.

I can't really think of any changes we make to it. I do really like the sauce you make to go into the lasagna, and I imagine if you're looking for a homemade spaghetti sauce recipe this would work really well.

Enchiladas

This recipe is from my friend Liz, but I love it so much I kind of want to claim it as my own.

Why do I like it, when I usually don't care about enchiladas? I think it's the sauce on top. The spices added to a salsa just make it so good! And hey, the filling's not bad either.

Here is the recipe:

Chicken Enchiladas – Serves 4

To make the filling and wrapping:
4 or 5 tortillas
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cooked and chopped into cubes (I usually end up using about 1 large boneless chicken breast or 2 smaller ones)
½ onion, chopped
½ C. sour cream (or ¼ C, just depends on how creamy you want the filling to be)
½ C. cream of chicken soup
½ C. shredded cheddar cheese, + some extra for the topping
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.
2. Saute onions with chicken in a skillet. Then, add all other ingredients (except tortillas!). Put filling into tortillas, roll up, then pour sauce (see below) over top. Sprinkle with leftover cheddar cheese.
3. Cook for ~20 minutes.

To make the sauce:
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
¼ C. water
3 tsp. chili powder
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 C. onion, grated
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. dried parsley
½ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. dried basil
¼ tsp. ground cumin
¼ C. salsa
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large sauce pan, sauté garlic and onion ~ 1 min. Add all other ingredients, then remove from heat once mixed.

Notes from me:
I tend to like less sour cream, so I use the 1/4 cup option. I once tried using yogurt instead, and it just didn't work right, so don't try that.
One important thing is to cook the chicken right. Kevin is a master at that! The trick is to watch it, basically. I guess you should use a meat thermometer if you don't want to risk underdoneness, which is much worse than overdoneness. But really, since we started caring about not overcooking chicken, we've enjoyed it so much more.

And that's that!

Chicken Pot Pie

Well, Joseph is still napping and I have nothing pressing to do (amazing!), so I think I'm going to share a recipe!

My awesome friend Camilla is also an awesome cook, and I like to look at her blog for new ideas. When she posted this chicken pot pie recipe, I knew I had to try it immediately, even though I had never made a pie crust before.

Guys, this is the best comfort food ever. I never knew what chicken pot pie was until I made this.

Here is the recipe. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Tacos

So, for the past few months, I've been thinking I ought to make my blog more useful. I've been trying to think of pieces of advice I could pass along (things like putting saran wrap over your cups before you use shortening to make cleanup easier, or spreading your food to the edge of the plate to heat more evenly in the microwave), but I didn't know if I had enough little pieces of advice like that.

But I have plenty of recipes. So I'm going to share them. One at a time. Starting now.

Tonight, we ate sweet potato tacos and it was better than I remembered. We first tried them at a dinner group almost a year ago and were pleasantly surprised by how something vegetarian could be so tasty and filling. Now, to tell the truth, when we make it we still cook ground beef because we like meat, but it's nice that the meat is able to go further thanks to the sweet potatoes and beans.

Here is a link to the recipe we use. I imagine there are dozens of similar recipes out there. We tend to like a little bit more seasoning, but this is a good base.

(insert gorgeous Instagram picture of our amazing tacos tonight. Who am I kidding even if I had instagram my food would like Martha Stewart's)

Best part is, even if you don't like sweet potatoes, you will probably like this! And if you don't, at least you got one bite's worth of beta carotene.