Monday, Already?!

I don't mean for so many days to go by in between posts, but I guess that is life in the real world. :)  Last Thursday we had enchiladas.  I don't really have a go-to recipe for these.  I just use what we have on hand. This time I had Ortega canned red enchilada sauce and used their recipe as a guide line.  I browned ground beef and then added 3/4 of a can of sauce and some cheddar a cheese.  I had flour tortillas on hand, so I wapped up three 'ladas for the kids in their own pan cause I wanted to bring up the heat level for the grown ups.  For that I added a can of diced jalapenos and half a can of black beans.  (I love black beans, I will add them to anything! When I lived in Florida,  this place had the best black beans and rice, I guess that started my love affair with the black beans.  Or maybe I like eating the to remind me a little of that time in my life?  Who knows! But you should just eat your black beans cause they are good for you!!)  Back to the enchiladas... I filled them, covered them with another can of sauce and lots of cheese.  Cheddar is what I had on hand.  Bake, and eat.  Yum.  We had corn on the side.  Friday night we had leftover manicotti that I had made before Thanksgiving and froze.  Easy night!  Saturday we put up our Christmas tree and the past couple of years, Dear Hubby has made soup on this day.  Keeping the tradition alive, B made Chicken Barley soup.  I had a bag of Bob's Red Mill Pearl Barley in the cupboard and we just used the recipe on the bag as a guide.  I'll post the recipe as written with our changes in parenthesis.

Chicken Soup with Barley
2.5 cups of water
2.5 tsp salt
3 lbs chicken parts
(we just used 2 boxes of premade stock and cooked up some chicken breast tenders)
1.5 cups sliced celery
1.5 cups sliced carrots
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp dried Thyme (didn't have any, so we used poultry seasoning)
1 Bay Leaf
1/4 tsp pepper
1 lb fresh mushrooms (left it out since the only one who will eat 'shrooms is me!)
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Pearl barley

In a large sauce pan combine water, chicken, salt, celery, carrots, onion, thyme, bay leaf and pepper bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, covered until chicken is tender (approx. 1 hour).  Meanwhile, slice mushrooms and set aside.  Remove chicken from broth and take meat off bones; cut into cubes.  Return chicken to sauce pan and add barley and mushrooms.  Simmer, covered until barley is tender, about 50 minutes.  Serves 8.  (since the chicken was cooked in a separate pan, we just added it all and cooked for about an hour.)

Sunday night's dinner I made stuffed zucchini.  Saturday I did an impromptu grocery shop (no list, just wandered the aisles trying to figure out what to get {I don't recommend this method! :)}) and I dunno, the zucchini just sounded good.  I bought some bulk Italian sausage and decided I could wing the rest.  I used this recipe as my guide.  I did boil the zucchini as it recommends, and I don't know if I would do that again.  The end result made for pretty soft zucchini and I like mine to have a firmer texture.  I didn't have roasted red peppers, but a regular red pepper so I diced it and sauteed it in olive oil and garlic and oregano.  Then I added some tomato paste thinned with some water.  I set that aside then browned the sausage.  I didn't have an onion, but I have a huge Sam's size bad of French's Fried Onions, so I chopped some of those up in my Pampered Chef Food Chopper.  I combined everything with some Parmesan cheese.  I filled the zucchini boats with the sausage mix, sprinkled on a bit more parm, onions and then doused it with pizza cheese (mostly mozzarella in it).  Baked for 30 minutes.  We had broccoli and jellied cranberry sauce on the side.  Both kids ate every bite, no fight.  Woo hoo!!  :)  I thought for sure little B would complain about the spiciness of the sausage but he did not.   Impressive!

Hope your week is filled with great eats & treats.  Hugs.