Angela's Awesome Enchiladas

It seems like it's been so long since I've made dinner so I had a hard time picking which of the recipes to make. I planned for four meals this week (Weekly Meal Planner #3) but then I realized that I will only be cooking two times this week so I had to choose which one to make. My family is always up for Mexican so I went with this enchilada recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com

Here's what I started with:



Angela's Awesome Enchiladas Recipe:
2lbs skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 (10.75oz) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 1/4 cups sour cream
1/4 t chili powder
1 T butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 (4oz) can green chilies, drained
1 (1.25oz) package taco seasoning
1 bunch of green onions, chopped, divided
1 cup water
1 t lime juice
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t garlic powder
5 (12 inch) flour tortillas
3 cups Cheddar cheese, shredded, divided
1 (10oz) enchilada sauce
1 (6oz)can sliced black olives
Directions:

Place the chicken in a large pot and add water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the chicken pieces are no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Shred chicken by placing two forks back to back and pulling meat apart. Set the shredded chicken aside. Meanwhile, combine the cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and chili powder in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, then turn off the heat and cover to keep warm. Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the shredded chicken, chopped green chilies, taco seasoning, half of the bunch of chopped green onion, and water. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the lime juice, onion powder, and garlic powder; simmer for an additional 10 minutes. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Stir 1 cup of the soup mixture into the skillet with the chicken mixture. Spread the remaining soup mixture on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Fill each tortilla with chicken mixture. Sprinkle Cheddar cheese over the chicken filling before folding the tortillas, reserving half of the shredded cheese for topping the enchiladas. Fold tortillas over the filling and place seam-side down in the prepared pan. Pour enchilada sauce evenly over the enchiladas. Cover with the remaining 1 1/2 cups of Cheddar cheese. Sprinkle the reserved chopped green onions and the sliced olives on top of the cheese. Bake in the preheated oven until filling is heated through and the cheese is melted and bubbling, about 25 minutes.
Modifications:
-While I used chicken breasts, I think this recipe would work fine with both ground turkey or ground beef.
-It took a while to shred this chicken, I think you could even use maybe 3 or 4 large cans of chicken (found by the tuna).
-I used the extra large burrito tortillas but you could also use whole grain, multi-grain, etc.
How I did it:
#1 While I was letting my chicken breasts thaw, I went ahead and cut up one onion.


#2 Once thawed, I placed the chicken breasts in a dutch and

#3 covered it with water.

#4 I let the chicken boil for 10 minutes and then I covered it.

#5 I turned it down and let it continue to boil away.

#6 I checked the chicken by cutting into it (I had to shred it anyway) and made sure that it wasn't pink in the center.

#7 In the meantime, I poured the can of cream of chicken soup in a saucepan.

#8 I added the 1 1/4 cups of sour cream.

#9 I topped it off with 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder and then mixed it all together.

#10 Next, I drained the excess water from the chicken and then put it back in the pan.

#11 I pulled the chicken off the stove and using two forks, I started shredding the chicken up. This process took quite a bit of time.

#12 I let the soup mixture start to bubble a bit and stirred it every once in a while.

#13 While the soup mixture was just bubbling, I melted the 1T of butter and browned the onions.

#14 I turned off the soup and covered it.

#15 Preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

#16 Chopped 1 bunch of green onions.

#17 After the onions had cooked for about 5 minutes, I put the chicken back in the pan. (I continued to tried to shred up the big pieces)

#18 The can of green chilies went in.

#19 The package of taco seasoning went in the mix.

#20 Next, half of the green onions went into the pan.

#21 I added in 1 cup of water.

#22 Everything was stirred together.

#23 After about 8-10 minutes I put in the onion powder. It said to add 1/2 teaspoon but I just kind of did 2-3 shakes. I also squeezed in 1 big squeeze of lime juice (forgot to take a pic).

#24 Ditto on the garlic powder.

#25 While the chicken mixture was stewing, I opened and drained the black olives. I didn't realize that the olives were whole black olives.

#26 Next, 1 cup of the soup mixture was added to the chicken.

#28 The remainder of the soup mixture was in put in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.

#29 I took one of the tortillas and added the chicken mixture and then topped it with cheese.

#30 Just continued this until the baking dish was full.

#31 Covered it with enchilada sauce.

#32 Covered it with cheese.

#33 The rest of the green onions went on top and then added the black olives.

#34 I popped it in the oven for about 25 minutes.

While the enchiladas was in the oven, I opened up a can of refried beans and a package of Lipton's Taco Rice to serve with it.

Review:

Just as I expected, my family loved this meal. Like I said, if it is Mexican then they will eat it. While this meal was easy to make, there were A LOT of steps to it (just look at all of them above). Altogether, it took probably close to 1 hour and 15 minutes to make this meal. This is why I said in the "Modifications" section that you could use either ground meat (turkey, beef or even chicken) or canned chicken. By using this small modification, you could cut down the cooking time without really taking away any of the flavor.