Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

Sometimes I see a recipe and every single word of the title makes my mouth water. That’s what happened when I spotted these honey lime chicken enchiladas. By the time I made it to the end of the title of the recipe, I was already adding them to our meal plan.

The flavors in these enchiladas are reminiscent of these pulled chicken suiza sandwiches, one of our favorite weeknight meals, so I knew we’d love them. Cooked chicken is marinated with spices in a combination of lime juice and honey, which gives it this great balance of spicy, sweet, and sour. Add in tons of cheese and a creamy, tangy green enchilada sauce, and you’re in for a real treat. These will be repeated in my house quite often!

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas
adapted from What’s For Dinner Tonight?

6 tablespoons honey
5 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 pound chicken, cooked and shredded (I used a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store)
8-10 flour tortillas
1 pound monterey jack cheese, shredded
16 ounces green enchilada sauce
1 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix first four ingredients and toss with shredded chicken. Let the mixture marinate for at least 1/2 hour.

3. Pour about 1/2 cup enchilada sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking pan. Fill flour tortillas with chicken and shredded cheese, roll them up and place in bottom of pan, saving about 1 cup of cheese to sprinkle on top of enchiladas.

4. Mix the remaining enchilada sauce with the sour cream and leftover marinade. Pour sauce on top of rolled enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until brown and crispy on top.

Crescent Sausage Egg and Cheese Bake

Well, since it seems I’ve been sharing breakfast-y things a lot lately, let’s continue in that vein, shall we? Today’s recipe is another one I think you’ll absolutely love -- we sure did. This recipe only contains five ingredients and it’s ready in well under 30 minutes, so it’s perfect for a weeknight when you’re craving breakfast for dinner (which is usually once a week in my house).

There’s just something magical about the combination of sausage and cream cheese. (Exhibit A, Exhibit B.) In this recipe, those two ingredients are layered with scrambled eggs and cheese between sheets of crescent rolls. It’s like a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich that you eat with a fork. What’s not to love?

Crescent Sausage Egg and Cheese Bake
slightly adapted from Hurricane Kitchen

2 packages of crescent rolls
1 8-ounce package of cream cheese, softened
1 pound sausage
6 eggs
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Lay 1 package of the crescent rolls in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 casserole dish, pinching edges together as needed.

2. Cook sausage in a skillet until browned, seasoning with salt and pepper as desired. Drain fat and add cream cheese to sausage, stirring until completely melted.

3. Meanwhile, scramble the eggs in a medium skillet (don’t cook them through completely, since they’ll be finishing in the oven). (Use your favorite method for scrambled eggs; mine is mixing them with salt and pepper, a little bit of milk, and a touch of hot sauce and scrambling them in butter rather than oil.)

4. Layer sausage-cream cheese mixture on top of the crescent rolls in the casserole dish. Top that mixture with scrambled eggs, then sprinkle with cheddar cheese.

5. Roll out the second package of crescent rolls and place on top of the cheese. Cook for 11 to 13 minutes according to directions on the crescent roll package, until crescent rolls are lightly browned.

Maple Sausage and Waffle Breakfast Casserole

I generally tend to shy away from breakfast casseroles that contain eggs in combination with any type of bread product. I’ve tried quite a few of them, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t like the resulting texture; it always inevitably tastes soggy to me.

But when I saw this recipe, I couldn’t resist giving this a shot. Waffles, maple sausage, eggs, and cheese, all in one delicious dish? I mean, how could I possibly not try it? And I’m really glad I did, because the waffles in this casserole don’t taste soggy at all. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that they’re toasted before the eggs are added.

I love dishes that manage to be both sweet and savory at once, and this casserole is a perfect example of that. I will admit to using plain old store-brand frozen buttermilk waffles instead of the Eggo waffles called for in the original recipe, and I had absolutely no issues whatsoever. I even took some for lunch the next day, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this tasted even better as leftovers than it did straight out of the oven.

We all loved this so much, I think this has an excellent shot at replacing the breakfast casserole I make every year for Christmas.

Maple Sausage and Waffle Breakfast Casserole

adapted from What’s Cookin’, Chicago?, originally from Cook’s Country

8 frozen waffles
1 small onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 pound maple sausage
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
6 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

1. Toast waffles in a toaster until browned. Meanwhile, brown sausage in a skillet until no longer pink and drain on paper towels. Transfer to bowl and set aside.

2. In the same skillet, sauté onions and peppers until softened. Transfer to bowl with sausage.

3. Coat an 8 x 8 inch square baking dish with non-stick spray or butter. Arrange 4 waffles in the bottom and sprinkle with half the sausage/vegetable mixture and half the cheese. Repeat layer, with remaining waffles, sausage/vegetable mixture and cheese.

4. Whisk eggs and milk in a bowl with the syrup, salt, and pepper. Pour egg mixture over the waffles layers. Cover with plastic wrap and set a weight on top (like a baking dish holding a couple cans of food). Refrigerate overnight or for at least 1 hour.

5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees, uncover casserole and bake 45 to 50 minutes until edges are puffy. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Weekly Meal Planning, Week of 3.28.11

Monday: Ginger pear chicken, steamed broccoli, rice. After I posted about this, I remembered just how good it was, and I had to put it on our menu this week.

Tuesday: Bacon pierogi bake, adapted from this recipe. I’ve made this four or five times now, and it’s always a huge hit. I’m going to post about it soon, promise!

Wednesday: Smothered chicken and rice pilaf

Thursday: Cuban sandwiches and sweet potato fries. I still have pernil in the freezer from the last time I made these sandwiches, so this should be a quick and easy (and incredibly delicious!) dinner for us.

Friday: Chicken bacon ranch pizza

Saturday: Creamy vegetable enchiladas

Sunday: Spring chicken roll-ups and roasted potatoes

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I love all types of breakfast food, but the problem is that I’m not really much of a morning person. The last thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning is make a huge breakfast. So breakfasts around our house usually consist of yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, smoothies, or frozen waffles. (I’m surely going to food blogger hell for that last thing, right?)

But on one recent weekend I woke up feeling motivated, and I wanted to make something different for breakfast. I realized I had all of the ingredients on hand for these pancakes, so I decided to make us a special breakfast treat.

And what a treat these were! How do I even begin to describe the deliciousness? I could start with the pancakes themselves, which have the perfect amount of cinnamon-y spice and aren’t overly sweet. Or I could start with the toasted pecans, which are pulsed with sweet maple syrup. Or maybe I should start with the yummy vanilla glaze?

Tell you what: Why don’t you just make these this weekend? That would save me a lot of trouble trying to describe how good they are. Seriously, the only thing I would do differently next time is double the recipe.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
from Elly Says Opa!

1 egg

1 cup milk or buttermilk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon butter, melted

2/3 cup pecans

3 tablespoons maple syrup

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

Drop of vanilla

Milk

1. Preheat a griddle or pan and grease if necessary. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, vanilla and brown sugar in a large bowl. Sift in the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder. Add the butter and mix lightly together with a spatula.

2. Spoon out the batter in equal amounts onto the hot griddle. Cook until you start to see bubbles forming around the edges and a little on the top. Flip the pancakes and finish cooking on the other side.

3. Meanwhile, toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat until they become fragrant. Put them in a mini food processor with the maple syrup and pulse until well combined and paste-like (adding more syrup, if you wish).

4. To make the glaze, sift the confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Add the vanilla and a little milk until you get the proper consistency.

5. To plate, place a little bit of the pecan-maple paste in between each stacked pancake and drizzle with the glaze. Add more pecans and some powdered sugar on top, if desired.