Southwest Chicken and Black Bean Taquitos – the revenge of the Taquito craze…

Tags

baked, black beans, cheese, chicken, cumin, flauta, leftover chicken, shredded, southwest, taquito

I was pretty happy with all those taquitos I made this winter, I thought they were great.  Now I know they could be even better…

  

My moment of clarity came last week at work when we found ourselves with several pounds of leftover chicken salad from a banquet.  In stepped super-hero, Sous-Chef Ceasar (he’s a man of many titles) who said ‘lets make flautas.’  He added some of his special brand of love to that chicken salad (meaning beans, cheese and spices, get your mind out of the gutter), rolled it up into corn tortillas and took it for a dip in the deep fryer.  It was topped with some guacamole and cotija cheese and thus a beautiful appetizer special was born.  It sold like hot cakes all weekend.  

Now these little suckers were what flauta/taquito dreams were made of.  Perfectly crispy yet creamy, a veritable flavor explosion.  I think that the secret was that mayonnaise in the original chicken salad.  I decided in that moment when the first fauta, fresh out of the deep fryer, hit my lips that I needed to try to make these little suckers at home.

So creamy…

But before we get down and dirty, a little linguistic digression.  Latley, I’ve been working on improving my Spanish by asking my Latino co-workers clarification on words I wasn’t sure on and adding a few new bits of vocabulary here and there.  (Yesterday I learned that ‘chichis’ are nipples where as ‘tetas’ are boobies but ‘pechugas’ are what chickens have…)  So, I asked one of my coleagues what the differerence between taquitos and flautas was.  He said “Flautas come out of a deep fryer and taquitos come out of a microwave.”  Interesting.  Seeing as what I make at home are no where near authentic Mexican food, and I’m not busting out my deep fryer today, I’m going to keep on calling them taquitos.  

Southwest Chicken and Black Bean Taquitos – served with Spanish rice, slaw, lime sour cream and avocado sauce

Serves 5 – 6 – cost approx $1.26 per serving, including sides and sauces

Makes approx 40 taquitos – Batch costs $4.45 or $.11 per taquito

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked black beans – from 1 cup dry beans ($.40)
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken – a great use for leftovers ($.43 I got a whole chicken for $.60/lb because it was the sell by date, if you can be flexible in your menu planning or have room in the freezer you can take advantage of those killer deals!)
• 1 jalapeno, small dice ($.25)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, small dice ($.25)
• 1/2 onion, small dice ($.06)
• 2 cups/ 8oz shredded mild white cheese – jack, mozzarella, or white cheddar would be good ($1.20)
• 1-2 Tbs ground cumin, to taste
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise ($.50)

• 40 corn tortillas ($1.11)

Just mix up all the ingredients in the first set to make the filling.  

 

What happy colors! Maybe I’ll add some corn next time…

 

Follow the procedure outlined in my first taquito post (https://fullbellyfullwallet.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/pulled-pork-taquitos-im-falling-fast/) to roll up the little suckers.  From this point you can either freeze them for later use or bake them right away.  When you want to eat, cook at 400F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve with any sauces that you like and dig in!  These would be a great appetizer or could be a full meal when paired with some rice and veggies.

Southwest Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder – Superbowl Sunday Soup-day!

Tags

black beans, chowder, potato, roasted corn, southwest

Happy Superbowl everyone!  I hope you all get to enjoy the game with as much good nosh, drinkage and company as you can handle.  I’m super excited to be spending the day with my family and my Daddy’s awesome ‘Pizza Pie Dip.’  Since my Packers aren’t playing, I hope whatever team your rooting for (or put money on) wins… 😉

This hearty vegetarian chowder is yummy and will feed a crowd!  It was quite popular in my house because it’s flavorful but simple enough to please the picky eaters and the more adventurous eaters can jazz it up with their favorite hot sauces.

We really like hot sauce in this house…

If it were summer, I would love to use whatever sweet or spicy peppers I could find at the farmer’s market and to grill up fresh corn, but for a winter time soup it’s pretty darn tasty.

Southwest Roasted Corn and Potato Chowder – with lime crema

Serves 6 – cost approx $.57 per serving

Ingredients

• 1 cup dry black beans, soaked overnight ($.50)
• 3 cups frozen corn kernels ($.70)
• 3 Tbs butter or vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, small dice – onions have been so expensive lately! It’s really cramping my style… ($.43)
• 1-2 jalapenos, very small dice – use as much or as little as you want to control how much heat you want in your soup.  I seeded mine and it was fairly mild. ($.20)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 cup A.P. flour
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp ancho chili powder
• 1/2 tsp dry oregano
• 5 cups vegetable stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 lb potatoes, peeled and small dice ($.50)
• 2 cups milk ($.36)
• 1/4 cup minced parsley ($.10)
• 1/2 cup sour cream ($.25)
• 1/2 lime ($.12)

Begin by putting your soaked beans on to simmer in a small pot on a back burner.  Also, put on your broiler, spread out the corn kernels onto a sheet tray and brown them up under the broiler.  All broilers are different, so browning the corn may take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes depending on the aggressiveness of your broiler and how close the oven rack is.  Babysit your corn, and maybe turn it once during the browning.

Go for this color, browned but not burned…

Heat the butter or veg oil (or a combination of the two!) in a large pot on medium.  Sweat the onion, garlic and jalapeno for 5 minutes.  Add in the flour and all the dry spices and oregano, cook for 2-3 minutes.  Next, add in the vegetable stock and bay leaf and bring to a simmer, being sure to scrape the good bits off the bottom.  Add in the potatoes and a healthy pinch of salt and continue simmering for about 30 minutes.  By now the beans should be pretty darn close to being cooked, so check them and if they’re done rinse them off and add them to the soup.  Also add in the roasted corn.  Simmer another 10 minutes or so.

Add in the milk and parsley and bring to a simmer again for about 5 minutes to meld the flavors.  Adjust the seasonings.  Not too hard, right?

To make the lime crema, simply mix the sour cream with a pinch of salt and the zest and juice of 1/2 a lime.  Top your chowder with a dolop of the crema and the hot sauce of your choosing!