Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

If there is any kitchen appliance more helpful, cooperative and just plain satisfying than the good old slow cooker, I don't know what it is.  Sure, the food processor is all dramatic with the instant chopping, and the KitchenAid mixer is the 800 pound gorilla, towering over all the other gadgets.  And every once in a while, my trusty rice cooker comes out to work on some rice or oatmeal or grits.

But my heart belongs to the slow cooker, for two reasons.  First of all, pretty much anything you throw in there comes out tasting great.  Beef barley soup.  Bolognese sauce.  Even a chocolate pudding cake that I really am going to make one day and post up here, since I talk about it and then don't share.  (Sorry!)

And second of all -- and this happens to me every time -- you toss whatever it is into the slow cooker first thing in the morning.  Then you go off about your day while whatever it is cooks in perfect slowness for eight or ten hours.  Then you slog back in the door at the end of the day, weary from the  day, working up your energy to make dinner...and HAPPINESS!!  You've forgotten that dinner is already made because you put it in the slow cooker that morning.  And not only is it MADE, but it is scrumptious, because there is nothing to bring out the flavor in a whole lot of things like cooking them at a really low temperature for hours on end.

Which brings me to this soup, which is a spicy, hearty, easy mixture of shredded chicken, corn, chopped chili peppers, chopped tomatoes, some chicken broth and a bunch of spices that will open up your sinuses, and I mean this in a good way!  The chicken should be cooked already, so this soup is a perfect thing to have on the menu for a day or two after you are making chicken for something else - just throw a few more pieces on the grill or in the oven or where you are making it.    I serve it with a little bowl of crumbled tortilla chips right at the table so people can sprinkle some crunchiness right into their bowls.

So go find those slow cookers - I know you have one somewhere - and it give it some love!

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup, adapted from Allrecipes

• 1 pound shredded, cooked chicken
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed
• 1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups water
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen corn, or fresh if in season
• Crumbled tortilla chips

1. Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chiles, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir in corn. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on High setting for 3 to 4 hours.
2. To serve, sprinkle tortilla chips over soup...I like to have a bowl of these on the table so everyone can sprinkle their own!

 Print this!
 

Cheddar Jalapeno Huevos Rancheros in Tortilla Cups

Here's one of the many things I love about my little blog...one thing leads to another and I end up getting ideas and recipes from the most unexpected places. Take this little number, for example. Where would you expect something that has the words "jalapeno, huevos, rancheros" and "tortilla" to come from? Someplace south of the border, right? Someplace warm and sunny?

Someplace like this?

If you guessed tropical, sultry Vermont, you would be right. I wish I had a picture of it with a little more snow...this is actually what our cabin view will look like in the spring when things thaw out a little...but you get my drift. So here's what happened....I was singing the praises of Cabot cheddar recently in my post on Butternut Cheddar Soup. That particular recipe came from an ad for the wonderful Vermont Cabot cheddar, and the great folks at Cabot liked my post. They sent me a groovy package of stuff, including a recipe booklet full of things that you can make with Vermont cheese and Vermont sour cream and Vermont butter...including a recipe for Huevos Rancheros. Vermont style. Which means you need to use Cabot sour cream, and Cabot pepper jack cheese.

So before we get to this seriously wonderful recipe, just a little bit about Cabot. They are a farm family-owned dairy coop located in Cabot, Vermont, and they make some of the best cheddar cheese you will taste anywhere. You can find it in most supermarkets, and in wonderful giant hunks at Costco. They also make butter, sour cream, yogurt, and probably some other stuff that I don't even know about. Check them out here:

Cabot Vermont

Now on to the main event. You take some nice corn tortillas -- I used the 6 inch round guys -- and soften them up in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Tuck them into whatever nice round oven-safe dishes you have -- I have these little Pyrex bowls that are about 4 inches across. Just big enough to put a tortilla into and have it fit with just a little bit of nice curving along the sides. Now drop a good-sized handful of grated Cabot pepper jack in there. Be generous. Pop the tortilla bowls in the oven for about 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is just a bit crispy.

Meantime you are going to throw together a quick salsa of chopped tomato, chopped red onion, jalapeno, a little honey and some lime juice. Mix up a little cumin with some Cabot sour cream. Poach yourself some eggs. Still with me? Now you are ready for The Assembly.

1. Drop a good dollop of cumin sour cream on the top of the melted cheese inside the tortilla.

2. Line the inner edge of the tortilla shell with sprouts. (Now, I am of two minds about the sprouts. They certainly tasted fine, and they made a lovely contribution to the picture. But I did roam around the supermarket for an extra 10 minutes hunting them down, and they are a little pricy for being basically a garnish. Sorry, sprouts. If you want to use some chopped lettuce, feel totally free -- it will work out just FINE.)

3. Tenderly lay a poached egg in the center of the shell.

4. Put as much salsa around the egg as you need and want. Put a spoonful on top of the egg for good measure.

That's it -- you are ready to roll. I served these up to the Southern husband with a fork and knife, but we looked at the tortilla cups, looked at each other, looked back at the cups, and picked them up with our hands. It was messy and delicious and fun.

So the next time you are looking for great Mexican recipes? Vermont. Of course.

CHEDDAR JALAPENO HUEVOS RANCHEROS

2 medium vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 teaspoon honey
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup Cabot Sour Cream
1 teaspoon ground cumin
6 corn tortillas
8 ounces Cabot Pepper Jack, grated (about 2 cups)
6 large eggs
1/2 pint alfalfa sprouts

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. In medium bowl, combine tomatoes, onions, cilantro, honey, jalapeno, and lime juice. Season mixture with salt and pepper and set aside. In another bowl, combine sour cream and cumin and set aside.

3. Place one tortilla between two sheets of paper towel and microwave for 15 seconds to soften; Press into large custard cup or ramekin to form into bowl shape. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

4. Place cups or ramekins with tortillas on baking sheet and sprinkle one sixth of cheese in each. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

5. Meanwhile, poach eggs in pan of simmering water to desired degree of doneness.

6. To serve, place sour cream and some of sprouts in each tortilla cup; top each with poached egg and spoonfuls of tomato mixture.

Click here for printable recipe.

Kate's Taco Salad

Okay, I love love love this taco salad, and here's why. Not because it is ridiculously easy to make (and it is). Not because it tastes ridiculously good (and it does). It's because -- unlike 99.9% of most taco salads -- the crunchy part of the taco salad is actually worth eating. You know what I am talking about. Usually you order a taco salad and it comes in a giant tortilla "bowl." You say to yourself, Self, I'm just going to eat the salad part, and you work through all that good stuff in the bowl. The spicy taco meat, the avocado chunks, the chopped tomatoes, the cheese (ah! the cheese!!) and pretty soon your taco salad is gone and the only thing left standing is the tortilla bowl.

So you break off a piece of the side of it, and honestly? It's not that good. It's okay....but it's kind of bland and not that tasty...but it's there on your plate, and pretty soon you have picked off most of the sides of it. And so your awesome taco salad has ended with a whimper.

But in MY taco salad, my friends, that tortilla bowl is transformed into Fritos, which are added to the salad at the very end and tossed right into the salad along with everything else. So every other bite contains a hit of salty corn chip wonderfulness along with all the other taco salad taste sensations. Now there are those among you out there (my oldest friend? are you listening to me?) who will say Fritos are the work of the devil. And maybe they are...but DANG! they are good. And all I have to say is, if you are going to eat the taco salad bowl -- and you KNOW you are -- let's at least make sure it tastes pretty great going down.



These pictures show the ingredients before the tossing (and the lettuce is underneath all that other good stuff) just because it is more photogenic that way, but let me be clear -- you should be toss, toss, tossing all those great ingredients together so that each bite is a mixture of all those rocking taste sensations. So for all of you who like to walk on the wild side with the Fritos, here is my favorite taco salad recipe.

KATE'S TACO SALAD

• 1 pound ground beef
• Taco seasoning mix
• 1 head iceberg lettuce, chopped
• 3 chopped tomatoes
• 2 chopped avocados
• 1 cup shredded cheddar
• 2 cups Fritos
• Whatever else you like in your taco salad. Corn, beans, onion, etc etc.

1. Prepare taco meat with ground beef according to taco seasoning mix directions.
2. Combine all ingredients except Fritos in large mixing bowl. The taco flavoring in the meat juices will serve as the "dressing" for the salad.
3. Add Fritos and toss again.
4. Throw caution to the wind and have seconds.

Click here for printable recipe

Chili Dog Casserole

I told myself that I really shouldn't blog about my chili dog casserole. For the good of your general health and well-being, because this is, um, not an especially healthy recipe. I make it about once a year when the Southern husband gets down on his knees and begs. It's never a pretty thing to see a grown man cry, so I always give in and put it on the menu in all its cheesy, bad-for-you goodness. So against my better judgement....here's the scoop.

This is your basic four ingredient dish. Hot dogs. Tortillas. Cheddar Cheese. Chili. You spoon some chili into the bottom of a baking dish. Roll up those hot dogs in the tortillas and lay them on top of the chili. Ladle more chili on top. Cover the whole thing with a nice generous layer of shredded cheddar. Cover it with foil and bake it up for about 30 minutes and voila! Cheesy, spicy, chili dog scrumptiousness, and not a vegetable in sight.

So as long as you promise...promise!...not to make this more than every six months or so, and to get on the treadmill right after, here is my very bad but very good chili dog casserole recipe for you. Proceed at your own risk.

CHILI DOG CASSEROLE

Serves 5

• 4 cups chili (or 2 cans prepared chili, if you want to totally throw caution to the wind)
• 10 hot dogs
• 10 flour tortillas
• 1 8 ounces package shredded cheddar

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Spread 2 cups of chili in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
3. Roll up each hot dog in a tortilla and place seam side down on the chili
4. Pour the remaining chili over the row of hot dogs
5. Scatter the cheese over all.
6. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
7. Serve immediately, and then eat nothing but salad and tofu for the next week.

Click here for printable recipe

Mexican Tuna Salad

Mark Bittman's fabulous Greek Nachos inspired me to go rummaging through my recipe collection to find one of our favorite no-cook suppers: Mexican Tuna Salad. Adapted from Family Circle's All-Time Favorite Recipes, it takes the same general approach as the nachos: take a standard recipe and shake it up a little!

In this case, we are taking your standard garden variety tuna salad -- tuna, mayo, celery -- and replacing it with ingredients usually found in a taco salad. So instead of mayo we used sour cream laced with a little cumin. Instead of celery we use salsa and chopped cucumber. All this sits on a bed of chopped iceberg lettuce. And instead of sandwich bread -- warm tortillas! I fold them into cute little napkin shapes and then let folks scoop the salad into them as they go along. Half tuna sandwich, half taco, all delicious and fun. And (as with all my weekday meals) -- ready in less time than it takes to eat it!

So between the chorizo pork kabobs, the Greek Nachos and the Mexican Tuna Salad, this has been a mini trip around the world, brought to you in living color, from my kitchen to yours. We will be returning tomorrow to beautiful, rainy Northern New Jersey with good old American macaroni and cheese, by popular demand and because I have an overload of cheese in my fridge. In the meantime, if you would like to stay south of the border for now, here is the recipe for Mexican Tuna Salad...

MEXICAN TUNA SALAD

Serves 4

• 4 flour tortillas
• 1 12 oz can tuna, drained
• 1/2 cup corn kernels
• 1/2 cucumber, chopped
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1/3 cup sour cream, extra for garnish
• 1/2 teaspooon cumin2 cups shredded iceburg lettuce

1. Heat oven to 350. Wrap tortillas in foil and heat in oven to 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, flake tuna (this is best done with your hands. Seriously. Do it this way and you will never try it with a fork again. It's just so much more efficient.) Mix in corn and cucumbers.

3. Combine salsa, sour cream and cumin in a separate bowl. Gently stir salsa mixture into tuna mixture.

3. Scatter lettuce on plates. Mound tuna salad on lettuce, top with dollop of sour cream. Serve with warm tortillas.