Shrimp Enchiladas

Happy New Year!
Somewhere around Christmas I lost my camera cord...so I've got a camera full of recipes I want to share from the holidays, but I'm determined to find that cord first! My guess would be that the cats have found it and buried it in a couch cushion somewhere :)

I promised my sister and a friend of James's that I would get them my recipe for shrimp enchiladas, which I forgot to take a picture of, so here you go! This is one of my favorite recipes to make for company. It has so much flavor, and the shrimp are a nice change from your standard enchiladas.


Shrimp Enchiladas
Adapted from Annies Eats

Shrimp Enchiladas
Ingredients:
1/2 cup bell pepper, diced (I prefer to use red, orange or yellow...but green's cheaper!)
1/2 cup shallots (regular onion will work, I love the flavor of shallots though)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp. butter, divided
1 pinch oregano
1 pinch black pepper
A dash of cayenne pepper
1 pinch smoked spanish paprika
1 cup cream
1 ½ tsp. all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided

milk
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup tomatoes, diced
6 flour tortillas

Directions:

Sauce:
Melt 2 tbsp. of butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Reserve a few tablespoons of bell pepper for topping enchiladas. Add remaining peppers, garlic and ¼ cup of shallots to the skillet and sauté until crisp-tender. Add oregano, salt, cayenne powder, black pepper, and flour; blend well. Cook the butter in the flour for a few minutes until it starts to darken some in color. Add cream. Lower heat to medium and cook until slightly thickened. Add 1 cup shredded cheese and stir until melted. It will be very thick at this point. Set aside.

Shrimp:
In a skillet, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter. Add shrimp and remaining ¼ cup onion to the skillet and sauté shrimp until pink. Season the shrimp with salt and paprika. Remove shrimp from pan with a slotted spoon and chop; return to the skillet. Add 1/2 cup of the cheese sauce.

To build the enchiladas: (this gets messy!)
Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease an 8×8” baking dish.
Mix remaining cheese sauce with some milk (I eyeball this, probably somewhere from a few Tbs to 1/4 cup) to thin to a pourable sauce consistency.
Dip a tortilla into the sauce, flip to coat completely. Spoon some of the shrimp mixture onto the tortilla. Roll up tightly and place in the baking dish, seam side down. Repeat with remaining tortillas.
Top with remaining sauce, remaining cheese, and sprinkle remaining bell peppers and tomatos.
Bake for 30-35 minutes.
Serve with additional diced bell peppers and tomatos.

Pumpkin Dip

It hit me this morning as I was filling my ceramic pumpkin with pumpkiny, fluffy, goodness (for James's end-of-semester-teacher-potluck) that I have never blogged one of my most frequently used fall recipes. And fall is over!

I have taken this pumpkin dip to a lot of potlucks and here's what I've learned. Find yourself a pumpkin serving dish. Or a pumpkin plate, or put a plastic pumpkin on the plate next to the bowl. Just identify it in SOME way. Because it's orange, and I've found that people are slightly scared of unidentified orange food. So I gave in and bought this pumpkin to avoid James having to stuff an bites of this stuff into everyone's mouths at a party to force them to try it.

If they try it, they'll love it! It tastes like the good part of the pumpkin pie. I usually serve it with either cinnamon graham crackers, vanilla wafers, or my personal favorite - apple slices. Yummy yum! And it couldn't be more simple for last-minute potluck appetizers!

Pumpkin Dip

Recipe from Allrecipes

1 (16 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed (Cool Whip!)
1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (I use about a tsp of cinnamon, then a pinch of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger)

In a large bowl, mix together instant vanilla pudding mix, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice. Fold in the thawed frozen whipped topping. Chill in the refrigerator until serving.

I like to let it sit overnight, which gives time for the pudding mix to fully dissolve, otherwise it can be slightly grainy.

C is for Cookies!

Yesterday was the 2nd annual champagne & cookie swap Christmas afternoon with a group of my girlfriends and we had it at my house. My husband and coworkers were very happy about all the goodies I collected!

I love Michaels with all my heart :) I got these adorable chinese takeout containers and tied mini cookie cutters to each one for the girls to take their cookies home in!
To go with the cookies I made a couple of appetizers that taste much better than they look. (Uglyfoodblogger, are you still around? I think this may make the cut!) But they tasted so good, the girls still ate them all up! Recipes are below for BBQ pulled pork bites and pesto/sundried tomato spread.
BBQ Pulled Pork Bites

Recipe by me :) Made this one up.

1 1-2 lb pork tenderloin (or 1/2 whole pork loin, or 2lb pork butt or shoulder roast)
1 bottle of your fave bbq sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's original for me!)
1 cup water
2 packages of pillsbury crescent roll creations (the big flat sheet of crescent rolls)
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
1-2 cups shredded cheese

For pulled pork: (this is the recipe I use to make pulled pork for sandwiches too)
Place pork in crockpot (all in one piece).
Pour 1/2-1 cup bbq suace on top, enough to cover the top of it. Pour 1 cup of wateraround the sides of the roast.
Put the lid on and cook all day on low or 4-5 hours on high.
Take pork out, and shred with two forks (it should be pretty tender and fall apart easily).
For these appetizers, I first cut the tenderloin into 1-2 inch slices, and shredded each slice to make sure the pork shreds weren't too big for the appetizers.
Mix with another 1/2-1 cup bbq sauce until it is the consistency you want.

For appetizers:
Preheat oven to 350
Roll out crescent dough sheets onto 2 cookie sheets.
Mince 1 clove of garlic and put it in a small bowl with 2 tbs of EVOO. Microwave for 30 seconds. Brush the oil and garlic onto the crescent sheets.
Bake in the 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until it starts to turn golden. Remove from the oven, and switch to your broiler.
Sprinkle cheese on each crescent sheet, all the way to the edges.
Place under broiler for a couple of minutes until the cheese melts (it won't take long! Keep an eye on it!)
Cut each sheet into 2" squares.
Place about 1 Tbs of hot pulled pork on each piece.

I'm thinking it would look better with some scallions or chives snipped on top.

Pesto/Sundried Tomato spread

Recipe - if you can even call this a recipe - is by me. Got the idea from a storebought spread I had at a church party.

Ingredients

2 oz of cream cheese (I buy 8 oz, cut it in half, then cut that piece in half like I'm opening a hamburger roll or something)

2 tablespoons of prepared pesto (my favorite is the refrigerated butoni brand)

3-4 chopped sundried tomatos (the ones in a jar, packed in oil)

Directions

Take the tomatos out of the jar and drain them for a few minutes on a paper towel to get rid of some of the oil.

Mince the tomatos into small pieces.

Spread cream cheese onto serving plate (I just place the little 2x3x1/2" pice that I cut from the block onto the plate).

Spread pesto on top of cream cheese.

Place tomatos on top of pesto.

Serve with crackers and a cheese knife to spread.

This is a perfect last minute appetizer, the jarred pesto and tomatos last forever unopened in the pantry. We always have some of the refrigerated stuff on hand for quick dinners.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Reilly and Lilah

Thanksgiving Menu

After many drafts, I think I've finally got the menu set for Thanksgiving. This year, we are attending a lunch thanksgiving and then I'm cooking a dinner Thanksgiving! Should be a very busy day, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'll take as many pictures as I can remember to take and hopefully post more recipes this year!




Thanksgiving 2008 Dinner Menu



Appetizers
-Parmesan Pinwheels
-Deviled Eggs (Behlen tradition!)
-Veggie tray

Dinner
-Brined Oven Roasted Turkey Breast (same recipe as last year, but I'm going to attempt Spatchcocking this year! I'll try to provide pictures of the hilarity)
-Traditional Dressing
-Creamy Herb Mashed Potatos
-Sweet Potato Souffle (seriously. best. ever. sweet potatos.)
-Pioneer Woman's Fresh Corn with Wild Rice (Made a test run this weekend. Tasted good, but was....strange. Not going to risk it on TG.)
-Roasted Cauliflower and Green Beans
-Cranberry Applesauce
-Challah (Jewish Egg Bread. Judy Bread. Perfection)


Desserts
-Apple Pie
-Furr's German Chocolate Pie. (My husband would MUTINY if my Mother in Law didn't bring this. Seriously. I think he might just walk out on the whole thing. I made him one from scratch once, and it was close, but no Furr's. Sigh.)

Kitty time!

Okay, so it's not food related, but I just couldn't resist! Meet our new babies! The black kitten is a little girl named Lilah. The grey tabby is her brother, who James has yet to choose a name for. I'm guessing it will be some variation of Texas Tech Red Raider Graham Harrell Michael Crabtree Wes Welker.

They came to us from the Lewisville Humane Society last night. If you're looking for a rescue, I highly recommend working with HSL. They have a few extra steps in the rescue process, but they are VERY thorough and make sure that you and your new pets have the best chance of staying together forever.

They adjusted really well last night, immediately used their litter box, ate their dinner, scratched the scratching post, and snuggled in their beds. They have their own bedroom for now so they don't get into too much trouble while we're at work. Tonight we may let them explore the rest of the house!

Bruschetta Orzo Salad

I made this a few weeks ago for a dinner party. It was my first time to use orzo! I don't recommend making new recipes for dinner parties, but I was bound and determined to use the orzo in my pantry, and the flavors went well with the rest of my dinner so I went for it!

It turned out great, the flavors were good, the texture was great, and it was something different than the same old same old. I recently asked James to plant fresh basil over my grave the day I die. I would put it in EVERYTHING if he'd let me!

I'll warn you - the orzo should probably be done the day before, it took a while to cool. (I hate it when I get into a recipe the night I want to eat it and realize it's going to take days!)

Bruschetta Orzo Salad

recipe by: me! Made this one up from scratch

-1 cup of orzo
-1 cup cherry or grape tomatos

-2 large garlic cloves
-1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
-1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs olive oil
-1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
-1/4 cup chopped shallots (or onions)
-1/4 cup of crumbled feta

1. Cook and drain the orzo according to package directions. Toss with the 2 Tbs of olive oil and let it cool completely.
2. Heat up remaining 1/4 cup olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Toss in shallots and let them cook for a couple of minutes until softened and translucent. Toss in garlic and let it soften and flavor the oils, it will only take 30 seconds to a minute. Don't brown or burn the garlic!
3. Whisk balsamic vinegar into the oil, shallots, and garlic, and let the dressing cool completely.
4. Cut tomatos in half (If using roma tomatos, remove the guts, and dice the firm flesh)
5. Mix the cooled orzo, cooled dressing, tomatos, and feta cheese, breaking up the orzo with a fork. (all the steps to this point can be done the night before. Add the basil just before serving)
6. Chiffonade the basil by rolling up the leaves and slicing with a knife. Stir the basil into the salad.
7. Top with additional feta cheese and serve cold.