Chicken Enchiladas

I know, I'm supposed to be making creative leftovers out of turkey. Instead, I'm decorating for Christmas and making enchiladas. Mmm...I do have an awesome cranberry chutney recipe to share, though!
This is Annie's husband Ben's favorite recipe, so she named them Benchiladas. I'm pretty sure that there aren't any foods that work with Norris' name. Any ideas??

Look at her pictures--they are much more appetizing than the one I took! I served these with saffron rice, which was so good! I like the filling of these enchiladas, but I think I prefer enchiladas with sauce over the top. The Taste of Home light enchiladas will remain my favorite overall, but I'm thinking a combo of these two would be delicious. I'll let you know!

Cheesy Chicken “Benchiladas”

Ingredients:

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

8 oz. reduced fat sour cream

8 oz. Ranch salad dressing (used reduced fat)

flour tortillas (10-15)

jar of salsa

shredded mexican cheese (I used about 1 cup)


Directions:

Cook chicken breasts by preferred cooking method until cooked through. Set aside to cool a bit.
While chicken is cooling, mix up the sauce. In a large mixing bowl, combine half of the sour cream and half of the Ranch dressing. In a small bowl, combine the rest of the sour cream and Ranch dressing. Stir both until well combined. Shred or chop the cooked chicken and add to the large mixing bowl. Mix well with sauce.
Preheat the oven to 375°. Grease a 9 x 13″ pan (and possibly another, smaller pan if needed). Take one tortilla and top with a little less than 1 tbsp. of the sauce from the small bowl. Spread over the tortilla in an even layer. Add some of the chicken mixture to the center of the tortilla. Top with salsa to taste. Sprinkle with shredded cheese, to taste. Roll up tortilla and place, seam side down, in the prepared baking dish. Repeat with remaining ingredients (usually makes 10-15 enchiladas).
Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes (30 for a crispier tortilla). Allow to cool a few minutes before serving.

Local "celebrities":)

The article on my kids came out in our little local paper this weekend! Here is the link:
http://www.arkvalleynews.com/web/isite.dll?1259179539628
I must have been too relaxed, or frazzled, when I spoke with the reporter, and used the word "cool"--I made myself sound really professional... oops!
I think the kids will be excited to see this--they deserved it!
It will soon be on our cable channel--I'll let you know!

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad had a monumental birthday this year (but I won't tell how many:). We had a great celebration for him and actually got to celebrate with him twice! Love you Dad!

DIY Christmas Decoration

I almost waited until after Thanksgiving to post this, but, well, I didn't. I had a couple friends over and we made these while watching the terrible K-State game this weekend.

They are much bigger than they appear in this picture, and we all think prettier in person hanging up rather than on the carpet!

If you have 8 bucks, an hour, and a wire hanger (the wire hanger was the hardest part of this equation to find!!), then you can do this too!

We followed Eddie Ross' instructions, except we unwound the tops of our hangers because we couldn't figure out how to do it otherwise. Definitely follow the part where it says to first glue the tops onto the ornaments, or they will pop off all over when you bend it to put it back in a circle! We bought all Dollar Tree ornaments and ribbon, so it wound up being about 8 dollars per wreath. Hope you like them!

Let's Say Thanks

This is a great thing that I remember Xerox doing last year too--you just click, and they will send a card to our troops!

http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html

I know, not food again! We are making some Mongolian beef and Oven Chicken Parmesan today, so hopefully they'll be good enough to share!

Biscuits

I finally did it! I made non hockey-puck flaky layered biscuits!

These are like those kind you get in the can that says layers on it--except for way better!

We made homemade sausage gravy to go with them. We couldn't think of anything for dinner and were scouring the cupboards and found some sausage (in the freezer, not the cupboard..). Decided to go for breakfast for dinner--good choice! Joy of Cooking had the perfect biscuit recipe. The only difficult decision was deciding whether to put jam or gravy on them..mmm strawberry apple rhubarb jam. I definitely went for both. oops.

Flaky Rolled Biscuits

it made 8 big ones

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Sift together into a large bowl:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder (I used a touch less)

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

Cut in, using a pastry blender or 2 knives, until the size of small peas:

6 tablespoons chilled butter or shortening, or a combination (I used unsalted butter)

Make a well in the center.

Add all at once:

3/4 cup milk

Stir just until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board.

Roll out with a lightly floured rolling pin to about 1 inch thick.

Cut with a 1 1⁄2-inch biscuit cutter dipped in very little flour, and place on an ungreased baking sheet.

If desired, brush the tops with:

(Milk or melted butter) ..helps with browning

Bake until lightly browned, 12 to 15 minutes.

Happy Veteran's Day

Thank you so much to everyone who has served. We so appreciate what we have because of you.

Here are a couple of videos of returning soldiers that I just loved...the first is soldiers surprising their kids at school, and then the others are how excited their dogs were to see them. The first will require tissues:) The others are just hilarious!

Surprising Kids

Crazy Dogs

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=147_1223108811

Thank you Veterans!