Another night of Mexican food for the Kirks

If you follow me on Instagram you probably already saw this picture of these amazing beef enchiladas that I made last night, and how I explained that my poor husband eats Mexican almost every night.

In our vows I actually told him that I promised not to be mad at him if he didn't want Mexican if we cooked it the night before. 

A few of you asked me for the recipe...so here it is, but before I go through all the ingredients and directions you should know that every time I cook, I do it differently and I almost never follow a recipe. I am known to make "chopped" meals and throw together whatever we have, add some seasonings to it and that's dinner. Like my secret ingredient for this, I just decided to throw it in.

 I also don't measure anything ha ha.

This is also the reason I don't bake, baking is way too much measuring and paying attention to every ingredient, I just don't cook that way. Sometimes my meals work out and sometimes they don't.

This one as well as a few others, did!

Turns out all that time watching Food Network makes a difference after all!

Beef Enchiladas- The Kirk Way

Ingredients

-lb ground beef- browned & drained

-small can of green chilles-

-Green chili enchilada sauce-

-small can of sliced olives-

-minced garlic-

-tortillas- (flour or corn- I used flour)

-shredded cheese-

My "Secret" Ingredient

Seasonings

Taco seasoning

Cumin

Salt & Pepper

Chili Powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 375° 

Brown the ground beef in a skillet with minced garlic

Drain grease from pan, add green chilles, a little bit of taco seasoning to ground beef

 and keep on low heat.

In a small sauce pan, pour in the can of enchilada sauce on high heat

add a big spoonful of queso chip-dip (I used the wooden spoon to "measure")

Stir until blended

Add your seasonings

Add can of drained olives

"olive juice" might sound like love, but if you don't drain these olives you're going to hate it. I even washed mine off.

Turn on low heat

Warm up your tortillas

I like to wrap a few in tin foil and throw them in the oven while it's preheating- 5 MIN MAX

Spoon meat mixture into tortilla and drizzle with a little bit of the enchilada sauce, adding in olives

Top with cheese and roll up

Do this with 4-5 tortillas and put them all in a non-stick baking dish

After you've finished all your enchiladas, if you have any of the beef mixture left add it to the enchilada sauce and pour on top of all the enchiladas.

Throw it in the oven and make for 10 minutes

Cover with shredded cheese and bake another 2-3 minutes until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Want more recipes from the Kirk Kitchen? Click here

Chicken Noodle Soup (using leftovers)

Remember my post last week about the mini chicken pot pies?

Well, I THOUGHT I said "check back soon" for what I did with the leftovers and I realized I put check back tomorrow...so those of you who checked back, sorry about that.

BUT Here it is for all of you still wanting to know what I did, now that your leftovers are old & useless...

Let's just chalk this one up as a fail for Mrs. Kirk, the blog post not the recipe- that's a win!

Okay so here we go

The only thing you'll need is Chicken Broth & Noodles, since you're using what you have leftover

I added more chicken because I didn't have a lot left, but I just used some from a rotisserie chicken.

Start by making your broth on the stove top

I used chicken broth, and about a half cup of milk to make it creamy

Once it starts boiling, add the noodles

(I used egg noodles)

Once the noodles are almost cooked, pour in everything you had leftover

Keep on medium heat, stir often, add seasonings

Salt, pepper, onion salt...etc

When the noodles are done and everything is heated, your soup is done.

Serve with crackers or crescent rolls.

It was SO good! Try it and find out!

Mind your p's & "carrots"

Need a quick & easy recipe for dinner this week?

I found this recipe online last week, I wasn't planning on sharing it so I didn't get the actual link I got it from, but it's not MY recipe. I have made this twice, the first time I used biscuits and the second time I used crescent rolls, they worked out either way.

Best part of this meal? You'll actually use the left-overs!

INGREDIENTS//----serving size 4----- **you will have leftovers of the chicken mixture**

• 1 bag of frozen peas & carrots
• 1 can of unsweetened corn, drained
• milk
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 1 can of cooked chicken (you can use any kind of chicken but I didn't have any cooked so I used this)
• 1 can of biscuits 
• 6 cup regular muffin pan
• toothpicks to secure pies

Preheat oven to 375

Pour the can of cream of chicken soup in a pot, fill that same can with about 1/4 cup of milk and add to the soup, keep on medium heat. 

Add frozen peas & carrots, can of corn (drained).

Drain the canned chicken, and shred (it will pretty much fall apart in your hands...)

Add the chicken to the pot and bring to boil.

"

Take out your biscuits and carefully flatten & pull each biscuit, big enough to spread over the top of each muffin cup, spoon your chicken mixture onto the top of the biscuit (not too much or it will over flow), the dough will start to fall down but just use a spoon to scoop it back up around the chicken and use a toothpick to secure it, like this....

Keep in mind, not every single one of these is going to end up perfect but they're all going to end up delicious!

After you've secured each "pie" with a toothpick, sprinkle each one with pepper.

Throw them in the oven for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Take out of the oven, let cool, remove the toothpicks & enjoy!

I didn't serve these with a side or anything, and both me & my husband ate two each.

Check back tomorrow to see what I made with the leftovers :)

Chopped at the Kirk house

As you all know, we are big fans of the Food Network

One of my favorite shows is "chopped,"  basically each person gets a basket of a bunch of random food items and they have to make either an appetizer, entree or dessert out of whatever is in the basket, and they're timed. When the timer goes off, everything has to be plated & ready for the judges. They decide who is "chopped," which means your dish was the worst out of them all.

Well Saturday night, I had to make dinner with whatever was in the fridge

I told John this was a "chopped" meal...he knew what that meant, I'm hoping he wasn't too worried...

Here's what I had in my "basket":

• Grilled Chicken Breast Strips-frozen
• Frozen veggies (use fresh if you have them)
• a can of mandarin oranges
• two small cans of chopped pineapple
• Teriyaki sauce
• White rice

Here's what I made:

and here's how I did it

I cooked the white rice like it says on the box 

In a skillet (you can also use a Wok if you have one)

I tossed in a little olive oil and kept the heat on high.

I threw in my frozen vegetables (broccoli & carrots)

I drained the mandarin oranges & pineapples, I tossed those in with the vegetables and kept the juice I drained, in a separate bowl. Then I added the frozen chicken strips, a big spoonful of butter over the veggies and kept the skillet on high.

In the separate bowl, I added to the juice a little bit of brown sugar and a little bit of teriyaki sauce and mixed it up. It started to look "too" liquidy so I threw in some corn starch to thicken it a little bit.

Once my rice was done I removed it from the heat & kept it covered

Once everything in the skillet was all cooked through, I poured in the sauce I mixed up and turned it on high heat, covered it and let it boil for about ten minutes, then I took it off the heat and kept it covered to keep it thick. 

Now, It was time to plate it.

I put a couple spoonfuls of rice on my plate, poured the teriyaki mixture on top, sprinkled salt & pepper on top, and to finish it off I added a few sesame seeds.

So what's the verdict?

I was NOT chopped!

The "judge" loved it ;)

It was delicious, and one of the fastest & easiest meals I have made, try it out and see for yourself!

Amazing potato salad

My Grandma Selma on my Mom's side used to make this salad all the time and no other potato salad ever came close to it. Well, over the years my Mom has perfected it to taste just like hers! 

She taught me how to make it over the weekend, and I'm glad she did!

This salad is a great side at any BBQ, and I know the weather is getting cooler so throw a bbq one last time and impress your friends with this recipe and they won't be able to wait until the next BBQ to eat it again!

Let's start with the ingredients

(This recipe will serve 5 and we use a 2 quart glass serving bowl.)

• 5-6 red potatoes
• 3 green onions
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• a handful of cilantro OR parsley (we use cilantro in this)
• Mayo
• Milk

• Seasonings
• Pepper
• Paprika
• Onion Salt
• Cumin

Directions

Start by boiling the potatoes, you want them soft enough to stick a fork through but not TOO soft that they'll be mushy, we're not making mashed potato salad. Once you get them soft enough, take them out and let them cool. Now start boiling your eggs and take them out to cool when they're finished. Set aside

*They key to this next part is to make sure you chop each item (excluding the potatoes) very fine, you don't want any big pieces besides the potatoes*

Finely chop up a handful of cilantro (or parsley)- add to bowl
Finely chop up the green onions (entire onion: green & white part)- add to bowl
Chop up your hard boiled eggs- add to bowl




Add your first set of seasonings, about a couple shakes of each- and mix it up.
Use this time to check that all the pieces are small, and chop up anything that looks too big.

• Onion Salt
• Pepper
• Cumin

The potatoes!
Peel and slice into quarter cubes like this-

You don't have to use ALL the potatoes, you don't want to the bowl too full and it really depends on the size of potatoes you use.

Add the second set of seasonings- same as above.

Now for the mayo mixture, start with less and if you need more, add it as you go. You don't want too much mayo. Squirt about 1/4 of it into a small cup and (here's Grandma's trick) add milk and mix it to make it creamy. Pour over the potatoes and fold it in until you get the right consistency. You don't want it too sticky, and you don't want it too creamy- find a happy medium. Once you've got it where you want it, sprinkle a good amount of paprika on top- it should look like this. Throw it in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve it.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos

If you didn't already know, my other obsession is Mexican food.

I could eat it every single day, and it's not John's favorite but he lets me cook it every now and then cuz he loves me :)

Mothers Day was a really relaxing day for us, after church we came home & I was already thinking about dinner. So, I looked up a few different recipes, got the "jist" of it and made these!

I was going to take a picture of all three, and then I got busy eating the other two...oops

Ingredients

-Chicken breasts (I used two)

- A 16oz can of salsa

- 1 Lime, juiced

-Cilantro: 2-3 tbs

-Taco Seasoning- one packet

-Garlic

-Onion Salt

-Small corn tortillas (white/yellow)

Directions

In the crock pot mix the can of salsa, cilantro, lime juice, packet of taco seasoning and a little bit of garlic for taste. Once mixed, add in the two thawed chicken breasts, coat the chicken with the sauce and cover on High for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, check that chicken is cooked through, and then shred. Put the shredded chicken back in the crock pot and mix it all up, turn it to low for at least another hour.

Place 6 corn tortillas on a cookie sheet and place in the oven on 350 to warm them up- maybe 5 minutes if the oven is preheated.

Spoon the amount of meat you need, onto a non-stick frying pan and cook on medium heat to dry it out a little and soak in more of the flavor.

Take the tortillas out, place the chicken in the middle, cilantro on top and a little cheese.

Now, I made a sauce for ours. It looks like guacamole but it's a lot different. I really just threw a bunch of stuff together and mashed it up but it was delicious!

Here's the recipe for that!

Creamy yummy green sauce

 (it doesn't have a name yet)

Ingredients

-Sour cream (you can also use Greek Yogurt instead if you don't like sour cream)

-Avocado

-Onion salt

-Taco seasoning ( just a pinch )

-Lime juice

-Salt

Mix it all together, throw it on your tacos and ENJOY :)



What's for dinner?

If you ever have a hard time deciding what to cook for dinner, or want to try something new, this recipe app will knock your socks off! (seriously, I should be on an infomercial) I have the iPhone but I'm sure it's also available on Droid/Windows devices as well. It's called All Recipes (from allrecipes.com) The icon looks like this

 

I love a good iPhone app, there are just some I can't live without and this is becoming one of them! You can look through recipes that are In Season Find a recipe through Dinner Spinner -pick your dish type- -pick your main ingredient (meat, vegetables, dairy..etc) -pick your TIME! (I love this one) Save your recipes in the Recipe Box and create a Shopping List   Here are some snapshots from my phone

 

 

 

 

 

  How awesome is this? Seriously, I love it! "Change the amount of servings" is so great, I tend to cook feasts for just John & I, we always have leftovers, and sometimes we have food to throw out. I hate wasting food. So this, is awesome! Guess what? IT'S FREE! Go download it, and have fun planning dinner :)

Recipe: Lettuce Wraps

 Lettuce Wraps

Ever get sick of cooking the same thing every week?

Anytime we have ground beef defrosted it's either tacos, spaghetti, or stuffed peppers.

I wanted something fast, but different

Most people would consider this as an "appetizer" or a "side" but

 we only have to feed two so it's good enough for us.

Ingredients

1lb lean ground beef

head of lettuce

1 cup white rice

ginger

onion salt

garlic salt

carrots

peas *optional*

hoisin sauce

 Directions:

Start by browning your ground beef.

 In a separate pan, make a cup of white rice

Cut up your carrots into tiny little pieces, and mix them with the peas (if you have them)

Once your beef is cooked, drain it and mix in the cooked rice and veggies

Now...for your main ingredient, add in your hoisen sauce.

I did about 1/4 cup , it's very strong. Add more if needed

(This can be found on the oriental isle at your local grocery store.)

It looks like this...

Once it's all mixed up it should like this 

(we didn't have peas so I only used carrots)

Now, because I season everything when I cook, I recommend using ginger, onion salt, and a little garlic salt. Just sprinkle it on top and mix it up.

Now grab your head of lettuce, pull off some bigger pieces, rinse and dry them.

Now add the ground beef mixture to the lettuce, wrap it up and enjoy!

 *For extra flavor, add soy sauce*

Also, to substitute fresh veggies and rice you can use something like this instead
Just throw it in the microwave and add it to the beef