Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

Hi everyone!

As you know from my "Mother of Two" post, I am playing mom this week to Mr. G's youngest siblings. It has gone pretty well for the most part, but I can see why a mother's patience gets tested at times... I feel bad for being so fussy about my food as a child, because now - for the first time - I am cooking for somewhat picky eaters. They're older, so they aren't too bad, but they aren't as willing as Mr. G to eat everything I put before them. The good news is that they are pretty self-sufficient, so I don't have to make every meal for them, but cooking steak for everyone last night was a bit of a struggle.

One meal they definitely liked was the first one I cooked - Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. I got it from my Spark Recipes app, which is known for its healthy recipes. All the ingredients in this (except the cheese) are, in fact, healthy - grilled chicken, fat free sour cream, fat free chicken soup, and veggies. And they were delicious!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 16 oz. fat free sour cream
• 1 can fat free cream of chicken soup (I used chicken broth)
• 1 tbls. fresh chopped cilantro (1/2 tbls. dried)
• 2 1/2 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast (I added a container of pulled chicken breast from the Mexican aisle that had its own sauce - good combination!)
• 1 can Mexican Rotel
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 16 corn tortillas (I only used 11, but I got the larger ones)
• 8 oz. shredded pepper jack and colby cheese blend (I just used a Mexican cheese blend)
• 1 can diced green chiles (I left these out)

Directions:

• In a saucepan, mix together sour cream, soup, and cilantro. Heat through and set aside.
• Combine the chicken, Rotel, onions and green chiles in a pan. Heat until onions are transparent.
• Warm the tortillas until flexible. Then fill each tortilla with about 2 tbls. of the chicken mixture and about 1 tbls. of the cheese (for larger tortillas, I did 3 tbls. chicken mixture and about 2 tbls. cheese).
• Roll tortilla up and place seam side down in an 8x11 dish sprayed with cooking spray (I also had to use my 9x9 pan).
• Pour over the sour cream sauce and top with the remaining cheese.
• Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until heated through.
• Supposedly makes 8 servings of 2 enchiladas each, but mine made 5-6 servings of 2 each.

I served the enchiladas with Mexican rice and refried beans. It was fantastic. Nobody else really liked the beans, but I love them, so I was very pleased.

We took the kids to see Rio last night (yay for cheap movie Tuesday!), and it was SO cute. In addition, I tried lacrosse and discovered a hidden talent for it. Finally a sport I can play!! Tonight we'll go swimming and tomorrow: tennis. I work both days as well, so this continues to be a busy week. The kids are home-schooled, so unlike Mr. G and me, they end up having a lot of free time. All I can say is, thank goodness we have a Wii!

As for my job hunt, I had two more interviews yesterday - 1 with a recruiter, and 1 for another internship. Recruiters are great resources, so I'm excited to see what comes out of that. And as for the internship, I already got invited back for a second interview on Friday. I'm feeling a lot more confident about my chances now - I'm bound to get something out of all these interviews. In fact, I'm starting to worry that I may end up with too many options to choose from... But that sure would be a nice problem to have. 

Wish me luck the rest of this week! ;) 

<3 Mrs. G

Mother of Two (for a week)

Hello, everyone!

TGIF! Hope you all have fun weekend plans. As for me, I will be working non-stop. Can't wait...

I will also become a mother of two for a week, starting tomorrow. Mr. G's parents will be in Wyoming all next week, so we will be watching his two youngest siblings while they are gone. I'm excited to spend time with the kids, and they are super excited to hang out with us. :) I just hope they get along well enough - they tend to butt heads a lot - and I don't know how good of a warden I can be... Either way, this will be good preparation for actual motherhood! Ha. Plus, his sister loves to cook and bake, so it will be nice to have a helper in the kitchen. Maybe she'll even show me some things...

While they're here, I'm going to try out a new recipe - low-fat chicken enchiladas with a side of refried beans (my fave!) and Mexican rice. I'm very excited; Mexican is definitely one of my top two favorite types of food, but for some reason, I don't cook it very much. I also hope to make some scones, because Mr. G's sister has an amazing recipe for them.

In other news, I had another interview today that went super well. I feel confident about all my interviews this week, so I am definitely hoping something works out soon... Keep me in your thoughts and prayers, if you think of it. While I am definitely thankful for interviews, I am starting to get a little disheartened. I know I'll find something eventually, but when I realized the other day that I am officially a year out of college without much to show for myself career-wise, it really got to me. I know I'm not the only one, but as some of you probably know, it certainly feels that way sometimes.

On a lighter note, I'm feeling more hopeful now after these interviews, and I definitely like living in the Twin Cities area. I hope to get involved in things soon - with church and with my sorority's local alum chapter. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted on everything.

Feel free to comment if you are in a similar job situation to myself and want to vent. Or if you know of any great contacts in the MSP area. ;)

<3 Mrs. G

Window Treatments & Life Update

Hello all!

My curtains are up!! Finally! Here are the choices I made:

• Guest room - Bamboo shades from Home Depot (same as my last post)
• Living room - White sheer curtains from IKEA for the window, and grey scroll Fieldcrest curtains from Target for the sliding glass door
• Kitchen - same IKEA floral curtains from the previous post

The last thing I need to get now is a sheer white curtain to cover my ugly but necessary (and expensive!) vertical blinds in the master bedroom window. I also still need to hem the IKEA curtains to the right length, so I'll post pics of all the curtains once they're done! They're up, though, and I couldn't be happier with my choices. I love the grey/white combination in the living room - it goes perfectly with my grey rug and modern-ish furniture. And the kitchen is so colorful and fun, while still letting in lots of natural light.

Confession time - I STILL haven't finished my crafts... But in my defense, I don't have a hot glue gun yet. I refuse to buy it anywhere but Family Dollar since I'm cheap, and they're all out right now. Haha.

But as promised, here is a photo of my tiles as decor:

In other news, I've had a lovely week. On Friday, I went out to lunch with my mother-in-law at Edina Grill by 50th and France. I had eggs benedict, and it was amazing - I think I will try making it sometime soon... We also stopped in at an adorable cupcake shop, the Monique Lhuillier boutique, and a yummy bakery called Breadsmiths, where I got my newest obsession: lemon lavender bread! So delicious. Now I feel inspired to try my hand at the lavender cupcakes in my recipe book. :) 

I had an awesome interview yesterday, and I have another one tomorrow as well as on Friday. I also played tennis with Mr. G yesterday. I was terrible at first but eventually started improving and had a lot more fun. We joined a beach volleyball league that starts next month, so I definitely need to work on my athletic skills ASAP. I'm excited, though!

As for more upcoming excitement, we officially have vacation plans for the summer! We will be spending a week at a beachfront cabin upstate with Mr. G's family at the end of June. And pets are allowed, so Molly can come with! I can't wait to take her swimming for the first time. She is truly my child. ;) The cabin is pretty far north, though, so I'm hoping the weather will be warm enough for swimming. It's about 60 miles short of the Canadian border - if my passport wasn't outdated, we could have gone over the border for a day. :( And speaking of Canada, Mr. G will actually be there in a couple of weeks. He is going for a work conference, so unfortunately I won't be going with. But he knows to bring back souvenirs.

Anyone else have any fun vacation plans for the summer? I'm also hoping to to hit up Nashville at some point... It's been too long!

<3 Mrs. G

The Art of the Fancy Sandwich: Croque Madame

Hi everyone!

It's recipe time! This was one of the last meals I made in Connecticut, and it turned out to be one of the most challenging I have ever attempted. Surprisingly enough, it was a sandwich - but don't let that fool you. The croque madame is a beast, though it is definitely worth the patience required to make it. Mr. G had to help me with this one, and thank goodness he did... I don't see how it's possible to make it with less than 4 arms. Timing is everything for this dish. After nearly burning the bread AND the sauce (which also seemed too thick), it was still the most delicious sandwich I have ever tasted.

I got inspired to make it after a wonderful date night in NYC with the husband. You see, once we made the decision to move to Minnesota, I told Mr. G we had to do 2 more things before leaving the East Coast - see a Broadway show in New York, and go to Boston for the day. Mr. G came through, of course, and New York was first up - my Valentines Day present this year was tickets to any show of my choice. :) I decided on Wicked, and it ended up being an all-around incredible night that started off with a surprise carriage ride through Central Park! For those of you who don't know, Central Park was where Mr. G proposed last January, and it was supposed to be after a romantic carriage ride; however, it was too cold for the carriages to run that night (1 degree too cold, in fact - they are unmerciful), so he promised me he would eventually take me on the carriage ride I was supposed to have. Thankfully, he remembered even though I had almost forgotten... I have a very romantic husband. :)

Anyway, after our chilly but sweet carriage ride through the park, we went to a cute little French restaurant called Maison. I had mushroom ravioli, and Mr. G had croque madame. My pasta was good, but his sandwich was out of this world! It looked easy to make, too, so I was determined to do it. Little did I know that sometimes the simplest meals can have the most complicated recipes...

Here is the recipe I used - I got it from the Epicurious app on my iPhone:

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk (we used 1%)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper
• 1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 1/3 cups coarsely grated Gruyere cheese (we just used slices of swiss cheese - no Gruyere at Stop n Shop)
• 8 slices firm white sandwich bread (wheat and flimsy is also fine, but firm bread adds more texture)
• 4 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/2 lb. thinly sliced cooked ham
• 4 large eggs

Directions:

• Make sauce first:
• Melt 3 tbsp. butter in a 1 to 1 1/2 quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then whisk in flour and cook roux, whisking, for 3 minutes.
• Whisk in milk and bring to a boil, whisking constantly.
• Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, for 5 minutes.
• Whisk in salt, pepper, nutmeg, and 1/3 cup cheese until cheese is melted (this was challenging with sliced cheese... definitely get grated).
• Remove from heat and set out wax paper to make sandwiches.
• Make sandwiches:
• Spread 1 1/2 tbsp. sauce evenly over 4 slices of bread, then sprinkle evenly with remaining cheese (1/4 cup per slice, or just slap on a piece of swiss like yours truly).
• Spread mustard evenly on remaining 4 bread slices and top with ham, then invert them onto cheese-topped bread to form sandwiches.
• Cook sandwiches on skillet:
• Melt 1 tbsp. butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately low heat
• Cook sandwiches on skillet (we could fit 2 at a time), turning over once until golden - 3-4 minutes total.
• Remove sandwiches from heat and transfer to baking pan.
• Cook sandwiches in the oven:
• Preheat broiler.
• Top each sandwich with 1/3 cup sauce, spreading evenly.
• Broil sandwiches 4-5 inches from heat until sauce is bubbling and golden in spots for 2-3 minutes (ours took longer - depends on your oven).
• Turn off broiler and transfer pan to lower third of oven to keep warm.
• Fry eggs:
• Heat remaining tablespoon of butter in nonstick skillet over moderate heat.
• Crack eggs into skillet and season with salt and pepper.
• Fry eggs, covered (?), until whites are just set and yolks are still runny - should take 3 minutes.
• Take out sandwiches and top them all with fried eggs. Serve immediately, and enjoy!

See what I mean? Not as easy as it looks. But so worth the wait, trust me. Also, fun fact - if you leave off the egg, the sandwich is called a Croque Monsieur!

In other news, my DIY projects are coming right along. I've bought all my supplies (see below), and I've even painted 2 tiles already for the kitchen! And would you believe it - they look awesome! Hope everything else turns out as well. I'll post pics of the tiles once I finish them all.

I also went thrift shopping for the first time ever, and it was so much fun! I had a great day all by myself haha. Check out these cool things I found at Unique Thrift:

 

Unique is actually a pretty popular thrift store in the Twin Cities area. I was there yesterday, and it was PACKED - in the middle of the day on a Tuesday! People sure love their bargains here. I will definitely be going back, though. As for what I bought, the mirrors I plan on hanging in my kitchen (in place of the window/mirror I saw at T.J. Maxx - I actually like these better!). They have the look of cathedral windows, which I feel goes along with the Mexican-esque theme I'm going for in the kitchen. The blue candlestick is what I'll use as the base of a cake plate I'm going to make - yet another DIY project haha. I guess I can now go on the record to say that I am crafty... and thrifty! Everything in that photo cost a total of $7. Can't beat that!

I hope I'm not turning into one of those budget-crazy women who obsess over finding the best deals. There is no harm in being budget savvy, but extreme couponing? Really?? Come on, now. (I do kinda want to watch that show, though.)

That's all for now. Can't wait to finally get our couch tomorrow! Yay!

Goodnight!

<3 Mrs. G

P.S. I start work next week at the Mall of America, so (sadly) I probably won't be posting quite as often as I am now. But I'll try! Wish me luck at the new job! Still interviewing for others. I'll keep you posted!