Dinner for Derek and Lynelle

Last night we had over two dear friends, Derek and Lynelle.  They are the couple that Scott used to live with and whom I got to know quite well over the years of our dating.  We ran into them at a mutual friend's party and invited them over.  This is why I was preparing all that chicken stock last week.  They finally came over last night and we had a lovely time.  I cooked one of my favorite dishes from my southwestern cookbook along with a new recipe that I had never tried before.  What are the recipes?

Green Chile Enchiladas

Ingredients:
12 corn tortillas
Vegetable oil
4 cups cooked, skinned, and boned chicken breasts, diced (I just used my left over chicken)
1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp AP flour
1 cup chicken stock or broth
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
2 mild long green chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese

Procedure:

1) Heat just enough vegetable oil in a frying pan to lightly coat each tortilla and turn each tortilla in the hot oil just until soft.  Equally divide the chicken, Monterey Jack cheese and onion and place on each tortilla.  Roll up the tortillas and place in a lightly greased 9 x 13 inch glass baking dish.
2) Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet, briskly stir in the flour and cook over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring of whisking constantly.  Then add the chicken stock and stir well.
3) Add the milk, garlic powder, cumin and green chile to the pan, bring it to a rolling boil, then reduce the heat and cook over low heat until warmed, stirring to blend everything.  Pour the sauce over the rolled tortillas.  Sprinkle with the grated Cheddar cheese and bake in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the casserole is hot and bubbly.  Serve at once.

Red Chile potatoes

Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
4 large white potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp ground mild New Mexico red chile, or to taste

Procedure:

Melt butter in a frying pan, add olive oil, and saute the onion for 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the potatoes, salt, pepper and ground red chile.  Saute, for 20 to 30 minutes or until the potatoes are done through and lightly browned.

     Where to start?  Well, let's start with the green chile chicken enchiladas. I used the leftover chicken from when I had made chicken stock so it was already all torn up, measured and ready to go.  I also modified the recipe slightly and cooked the onion a little bit before I mixed it up with the chicken.  I also rewarmed the chicken in with the cooked onion.  This is the third or fourth time that I have made this recipe (maybe even more times) and I have found that if you don't cook the onion ahead of time it doesn't cook through in the oven.  Then you get a raw onion taste in your enchiladas and you mix out on the deliciousness of cooked onion.  Mmmm....  This was also the first time in all that cooking that I actually didn't set off the smoke alarm while cooking the tortillas.  Maybe it was because I had it on lower heat.  Maybe it was because I had the vent going on high the whole time.  Either way about it, I am very glad that it didn't go off.  I realized after the fact that somehow or another I hadn't cooked enough tortillas (although I swore I counted them up correctly!) and so I microwaved a few to get them soft and added them in.  The sauce was easy to make, too.  Just one word of note:  If possible, please use actually New Mexico green chiles.  They make a difference.  The canned ones suck!  I used about four or so to give it that good taste.  Oh, and I used a Monterey Jack already shredded blend from the Grocery store.  So good!  Derek and Lynelle really enjoyed them too!  Lynelle was impressed that I had made my own sauce!
     The potatoes came out great as well, although they were nothing fantastically special.  Just your normal potato kind of dish.  I didn't read until I put the recipe up that you were supposed to slice the onions, so I just roughly chopped them up.  I was very grateful to the food processor when it came to slicing all the potatoes, though!  I also only used half an onion as that was what I had left from the enchilada recipe.  Since I didn't have any red New Mexican chile powder, I used 1/2 Cayenne pepper and 1/2 Chile powder.  It turned out delicious!

Cooking dinner

Green chile chicken enchiladas



Red Chile potatoes



Our dinner plate

Lynelle and Derek enjoying a good meal

Scott happily eating his food