Slow Cooker Enchiladas

This is perfect for potlucks or a large family gathering, serving 8 to 10 (or more, at a potluck). It also reheats well so is a good recipe to make for a smaller family, providing lots of leftovers to tuck into the microwave. Remember that a slow cooker can be plugged in outside the kitchen (an attached garage, covered porch, or even a deck if you are around to monitor weather and stray animals!), so this is a good summer dish.

You will need at least a 5 1/2 quart oval slow cooker for this recipe: if you only have a 3 1/2 quart cooker, cut the recipe in half.

A note on the cheese: yes, the use of Velveeta is a more processed product than cheddar or similar cheeses would be, but it stands up best for this kind of slow cooker preparation, with no risk of clumping or separating that could occur with "natural" cheeses.

If you want to avoid processed cheeses, make a cheese sauce by preparing a white sauce and stirring in the cheddar, Monterrey Jack or other cheese just to melt. Use the resulting sauce in place of processed cheese.

Slow Cooker Chicken Enchiladas

15 to 17 corn tortillas, crisped in 350 degree oven
2 c rich seasoned chicken broth
1/3 c flour
1 15 oz can tomatoes and chiles, including liquid (see NOTE)
1 4 oz can diced chiles, including liquid
1 t cumin
1 c finely chopped onion
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c picante sauce, or to taste
6 to 8 oz American cheese, sliced thin--best to use a "block" cheese, like Velveeta in a one or two pound box, instead of pre-cut cheese slices
1 to 2 c grated mozzarella cheese
extra chicken broth as necessary
3 to 4 c diced cooked chicken

1. Toast the tortillas in single layers in a 350 degree oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, until crisp and just barely beginning to brown on the edges. Turn in the middle of toasting if needed. Remove from oven and set aside two or three of the most crisp tortillas for the topping.
2. Combine the broth and flour, blending well. Cook until thickened. Stir in tomatoes, chiles, onion, garlic, cumin and picante sauce.
3. Spread about a third of the broth and tomato mixture in the bottom of the slow cooker. Cover with a layer of tortillas, breaking up as necessary to cover. spread half the chicken over the tortillas and arrange seven of the cheese slices over the top. Cover with another third of the sauce. Repeat tortilla and chicken layers.
4. Spread about 1 cup of the grated cheese over the top and then cover with the remaining sauce.
5. Break the crisp tortillas that had been set aside into coarse chips and spread evenly over the sauce. Arrange the remaining American cheese slices over the top and sprinkle thickly with grated cheese. Spoon several tablespoons of the reserved chicken broth over the top. Cover and cook on low for 3 to 4 hours.

If desired, serve with sour cream (or plain yogurt), black olives, shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes on the side--and lots of hot sauce for those looking for even more heat.

NOTE: If you prefer less spicy enchiladas, substituted diced or crushed tomatoes for the tomatoes and chiles. Many brands of the tomatoes and chiles mixture have recently been reduced to 9 1/2 or 10 oz cans, so just using a smaller can will also reduce the heat.

Holiday Hospitality

Our Labor Day weekend weather was perfect for early autumn, with blue skies, a bit of crisp coolness in the air and breezes (that have been strengthening into full force winds this afternoon). Perfect weather both for eating out on the new deck and firing up the oven for the first home-baked bread in awhile.

The second of the "ever-bearing" raspberry crops is in full force, so I invited two friends over to help make another batch of raspberry jam. They would be staying for dinner, so I started the day cooking some beans for a soup to go with the freshly baked bread and still warm from the stove jam. The meal was a simple one but all the fresh from the garden flavors were perfect for the setting. Yes, we donned sweatshirts by the time dinner came, but it was still a delightful evening, topped off with a little more raspberry picking for my friends to take along with them.

Meanwhile, the freezer is filling up with the bumper crop of berries, so I took out a package of chicken leg quarters to thaw on Saturday night. I wasn't sure how I would use the chicken but thought that cooked, deboned chicken and broth would take up much less freezer space if all I did was cook it and return everything to the freezer.

Sunday morning, the five pounds of chicken (which had cost less than $3 on sale) was quickly trimmed of fat and skinned before putting it into the slow cooker on low, with just some poultry seasoning, some dried herbs, and seasoning salt. I rendered the fat and skin (that's a topic for another post) and then went off to church, leaving any further decisions about the chicken until later.

And there at church were some old friends from out of town visiting their daughter. After catching up a bit, we discovered they had time to come over for lunch before going on to a 3 pm appointment. They went home to change and make up a quick vegetable saute--zucchini, yellow squash and cherry tomatoes with some fresh herbs from the farmers' market--and I dashed home to do "something" with the chicken.

Rice was an easy decision for a side dish, as I could put that on to cook while I worked on the rest of the meal. There was still bread from Saturday night, along with plenty of jam, and I had cantaloupe, honeydew, and raspberries to make a fresh fruit plate for dessert. Now all I had to do was turn the chicken into something worth serving to guests.

The aroma of roasted chicken met me at the door (by adding no liquid, the chicken had developed a lovely browned, roasted, appearance, with the juices now a deep golden--and very rich--broth), and I decided to just prepare an old-fashioned gravy into which I would cut the chicken and serve over the rice. It worked beautifully, with about half the deboned chicken in the refrigerator for another meal. The best part? Lunch became a wonderful time for breaking bread and talking together with old friends, with very little fuss for any of us.

Both the soup and the chicken sauce were put together with very little measuring, but an approximation of how I made each of them follows.

Garden Vegetable Soup--Tomato Base

1 29 oz can or jar spaghetti sauce, your favorite flavor
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes and chilis
1 large onion, diced
2 medium to large carrots, sliced thinly
2 to 3 c frozen corn
3 c grated zucchini
3 c finely shredded cabbage
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 t Worcestershire sauce
1 T sugar
2 t vinegar
1 to 2 T mixed dried herbs (mine was a mixture of basil, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 c beans, cooked with little or no salt (see NOTE)
salt and seasoning to taste
water and bean liquid

Saute the onion and carrots in a small amount of canola oil until the onions are translucent and the carrots are barely tender.

Meanwhile, put the all the tomato products and other vegetables in a large slow cooker turned to HIGH. Stir in the onions and carrots and beans and liquids to reach desired consistency. (My soups like this often end up being almost as thick as stew!) For the liquid: Rinse the spaghetti sauce and tomato and chiles containers with a little water and add this to the soup. You may use as much of the bean liquid as desired in the soup too, depending on how much you want the bean flavor to predominate.

Add the seasonings and taste. Cook on HIGH for about half an hour or so and then turn to LOW, cooking another few hours or so. Taste for seasonings again after the mixture has been cooking for awhile.

NOTE: I had cooked a mixture of pinto beans, kidney beans, and black beans earlier in the day, but any beans would work for this soup. If you are using canned beans instead of starting with dry beans, be sure to taste before adding ANY salt!


Old Time Sunday Dinner Chicken and Gravy

2 c cut up cooked chicken
1 to 2 c chicken stock
2 to 3 c water
1 c instant nonfat dry milk powder
1/3 c flour
seasoning salt, poultry seasoning, and sage
1 t Worcestershire sauce--no more, as it will quickly overpower the relatively mild flavors of the rest of the dish
black pepper to taste
1 small onion, chopped
about 1/4 c green or yellow bell pepper, finely diced

Combine the chicken stock, water, and dry milk powder in a LARGE microwave-safe bowl. Stir about 1/2 cup of water into the flour to make a paste and stir this into the stock and water, stirring to be sure all the flour is dissolved. Cook on medium power three or four minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture bubbles and thickens. (You will need to watch, because these mixtures can boil over even very large containers very quickly!) Stir in the seasonings to taste.

Meanwhile, saute the onion and bell pepper in a little of the chicken fat until just tender. Stir the chicken and onions and pepper into the sauce and serve over rice. (If this were really traditional Sunday chicken and gravy, it would probably be served over piping hot biscuits or mashed potatoes.)

Frugal, Fast, and Fun for Fourteen Friends

Take eight children, ages six and under, and add six adults. Stir in a schedule that keeps the hostess away from her home for about 6 hours the day of the meal, bringing her home only an hour before the first guests arrive. Blend well with a lot of fun and informality and you have the makings of an altogether wonderful evening.

Really.

Sure, we are by now comfortable with this informality because we eat together about every two weeks. Still, I do like to think that every meal should reflect warm hospitality, but an especially busy week made last Wednesday's dinner a little more challenging than usual.

The hardest part was deciding what to serve. I provide the main dish while others bring the rest of the meal. This week, that would include a special first birthday cake for the youngest in our group. So how could I balance such a special ending with something simple and yet not too unhealthy?

Looking in the freezer, I decided on hot dogs on buns with a crockpot of baked beans. Along with the birthday cake, there was also a wonderful spinach salad and lots of sliced oranges. While I often make my beans from scratch, the week was so hectic that I used canned beans as the base. The turkey hot dogs were put in a 7 X 11 cake pan in the oven at 350 degrees, long enough to "grill" them; I then turned the heat down to 200 to stay warm until ready to serve. There were buns, ketchup, three kinds of mustard, two kinds of relish, and chopped onions to include most favorite toppings. (I know, no sauerkraut; I always forget that since it something I really don't care about. Maybe next time I'll remember.)

The food seemed rather like a picnic, even if the weather outside is still way too cold to think in those terms, so I pulled out my bright and orange plastic plates and put them on my sand-colored tablecloth to help us think warmer thoughts. The beans and franks were served buffet-style from the counter, while the salad and oranges sat on the table along with a fat candle lit for the occasion.

The end result was a lot of satisfied eaters and conversation—with the kids playing peacefully at our feet—until almost 9 pm. Gratifying too was the fact that the kids had chosen large servings of the healthier parts of the meal and there didn't even have to be any "no dessert until you finish your food" comments. In fact, six-year-old Sam proudly stacked up twenty-seven pieces of orange rind to reflect how much he had eaten of his favorite part of the meal.

Frugal? I had purchased the hot dogs and beans on sale over time and tucked them away on the pantry shelf and in the freezer. The hot dogs were lower fat turkey dogs so not as inexpensive as some brands might have been, but the sale prices meant that the three packages cost well less than $4. The total cost of the beans—which served us all with almost a quart left over—was also under $4. I bought the whole wheat buns at the bread surplus store for a total of $3 and still have one package left. The beautiful cake was made from a mix also purchased on sale for less than $1, with a basic cream cheese and powdered sugar icing, so it may have cost less than $3. We ate a four-pound bag of oranges that were featured this week for $2.50, and the salad was probably around $3 to $4. Even at the higher cost for the salad, the total food for 14, with a few pieces of cake and a lot of beans and buns left over, came to well below $20.

Fast and Fun? Sara says the salad was "really easy" to put together, the oranges were sliced while we put the rest of the food out, and the beans and hot dogs couldn't have been easier. The cake was probably the most labor intensive, but Michelle used this as an opportunity to teach one of the middle-schoolers in our church about cake decorating, so it sounds like the time they put into it was a lot of fun.

Healthy? Whole wheat buns, pinto beans added to reduce some of the overly sweet sauce in the canned variety, reduced fat hot dogs, salad and oranges on the side to balance the not quite so healthy finale, and milk for all the kids. Maybe not your perfect nuts and granola meal but still a lot of good nutrition overall.

NOTE: Everyone was aware of the potential choking hazard of hot dogs for small children, but we were careful to cut up these for the youngest among us, and none of the children was allowed to walk around with their food. When serving this meal to those under four, you really do need to exercise extra caution and watchfulness.

Quick Beans in a Pot
Serves 12 to 16

2 28 to 30 oz baked beans, any style (NOT "pork and beans")
1 29 to 32 oz can pinto beans, drained
1 to 2 15 oz cans pork and beans, drained (optional)
1/2 medium onion, chopped—about 1 cup
1/2 finely diced green pepper (optional)
Barbecue sauce to taste (optional)
Yellow mustard to taste (optional)
Dash of balsamic or cider vinegar (optional)

Open beans and put in a slow cooker. Add onion and green pepper if used. Turn to high for 2 to 3 hours (or low for up to six hours). Taste after a few hours of cooking and add barbecue sauce, vinegar, and/or mustard if desired. It is likely the beans may have more sauce than home-baked beans, so serve with a slotted spoon.

I used two different kinds of the local store brand baked beans—maple bacon and vegetarian—and found the combination to be especially good. I would not include the pork and beans next time; I tossed them in only because I wanted to be sure I had enough for everyone, but I don't think they add much more than sweetness to the overall mix.

Orange Smiles

Okay, so this isn't so much a recipe as a method. The point is that, where children are concerned, presentation can often be everything.

Oranges, preferably navel or other seedless variety

1. Wash the oranges and dry. Using a sharp knife, cut each orange in half from the stem end to the navel.
2. Lay the half orange face down on a cutting board and slice into quite thin half circles.
3. Arrange the oranges on a plate or on the cutting board—this is a good "helper task" for beginning cooks, as the end result can look quite festive.

Be prepared to serve lots of these orange smiles, allowing at least half an orange per person unless you have other fruits alongside.

CAUTION: This is a casual meal food, as you should allow—and expect—everyone to eat the smiles with their fingers. At a more formal dinner, the peeling should be cut off with a knife and then the orange can be eaten with a fork, but these are a lot more fun the casual way!