Archive for January, 2009

If you’re looking for a simple, yet delicious, enchilada recipe, you’ve come to the right place. (I felt obligated to post my recipe after I bought all that sour cream, cheddar cheese and Ro-Tel.)

This is my own recipe. I created it before one could look for a recipe online and find 20 great ones. Trust me, 1970 Betty Crocker, which was the book I had handy, just isn’t where you go for Mexican food recipes. Mine is more of a Mexifornia recipe.

Dolly’s Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients
2    cups    cooked chopped or shredded chicken
¾    cup    sour cream
1    can    Ro-tel* — drained
½    med    onion — chopped
2    cups    cheddar cheese — shredded
½    tsp    salt
⅛    tsp    pepper
10        corn tortillas
1    can    enchilada sauce (or homemade, recipe follows)

Instructions
Mix chicken, sour cream, Rotel, onion, *1* cup of the cheese (you’ll
be saving the other cup for topping), salt & pepper together.

Pour a couple tablespoons of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of a
9×13 rectangular baking dish. Move the dish from side to side to
spread out the sauce in a very thin layer, covering the bottom.

Heat tortillas in microwave until soft. Don’t over-do it.

Pour a little of the enchilada sauce into a pie plate or dinner plate.
Dip 1 corn tortilla into the sauce, flip and coat the other side. You
only want a VERY THIN coating.

Now, take a couple of heaping tablespoons of the filling and put it on
the tortilla. You aren’t going to spread this all over, just make a
nice straight row of it going from side to side. Roll the tortilla up
and place it seam side down in the rectangle baker. (you will be
making two rows of 5)

Continue saucing the tortillas and rolling the filling in them until
you’ve used all the filling.

Take the remaining enchilada sauce and pour it over the top of the
enchiladas. Top with the cup of cheese you set aside earlier.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees until bubbly, about 20-30 minutes.

Serve with salsa, sour cream, etc.

*If you don’t have any Ro-Tel, you can use a can of diced tomatoes and a small can of chilies, drain both.

Enchilada Sauce
Ingredients
2    tbsp    Oil
2    tbsp    Flour, White
¼    cup    red chile powder — mild
2    cup    beef broth — fresh or canned
2    cup    tomato puree — canned
½    tsp    Oregano
¼    tsp    Cumin — powdered
½    tsp    Garlic Powder
1    tsp    Salt

Instructions
Heat oil in large saucepan. Add the flour to the oil and make a roux. Stir and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes until it becomes brown in color. Add the chile powder, beef broth, tomato puree, oregano, cumin, garlic and salt to the roux and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Printed from A Cook’s Books — Recipe management for Macintosh

I don’t often make the trek to Kroger since it’s 3 times as far as my regular grocery stores, but they were having a particularly good sale. The “mega savings” deal where you get an extra $5 off when you buy 10 of the participating items is a winner in my book. Add to that sale prices and double-coupons (up to 50¢) and there were some great opportunities.

Here’s what I got for $10.55

Kroger Mega Savings - $10.55 buys a LOT

That’s 8 cans of Ro-Tel, on sale for .87 each, coupon for .30 off one (x2), plus .50 off per can for the Mega Savings = FREE

Eight bottles of mustard (ought to last us a year), on sale for 1.49, .50 off one coupon (x2), and .50 Mega Savings = FREE

5 cartons of Daisy Sour Cream, 16 oz., on sale for 1.99, coupon for .50 off one (x2), .50 Mega Savings = .49 each

4 blocks of Kraft 2% Cheese, 8 oz.,  1.99, coupon for .75, .50 Mega Savings = .74 each

3 pkgs Nestle Cookie Dough, 2.45, coupon for 1.00, .50 Mega Savings = .95 each

2 boxes, one each of Wheat Thins & Triscuits, 2.20, coupon for $2 off 2, .50 Mega Savings = .70 each

2 packages of Twizzlers, 16 oz., 2.17 each, coupon for $2 off when you buy 2 (this is the only thing that wasn’t part of the mega savings event)

Plus sales tax, not a bad haul, and well worth the trip. I did forget to get the Hormel Chili and Cottonelle TP, but will get them tomorrow when I’m off thrift store shopping with a friend.

Oh, and the best part, I got TWO catalinas worth $1 each off any Kroger purchase, so my REAL total was only $8.55.

I almost missed this sale! Apparently it started on Friday and I didn’t notice the ad until this afternoon (that happened to me a few months ago, too).

Once I saw the ad I looked up some stuff online and got my coupons together. It was a little tough to shop at Farm Fresh with coupons, though, since they changed their policy so that you can only use coupons on two like items. That’s too few. I could see maybe doing that with the dollar Qs, but not all of them. Their competition is Bloom (unlimited like items, limit of 20 Qs), Harris Teeter (4 like items, 20 Qs), and Kroger (don’t know their policy since they’re 11 miles away). Bloom & Harris Teeter both triple up to 75 cents, but they never do dollars, so it’s a trade off. I keep my dollar coupons to use at Farm Fresh (or Super Kmart).

Anyway, while it was more trouble, and I did go to a few stores (very close together), I only spent $2.46 on:

Farm Fresh 1-18-09, $2.46 for all this

I’m getting the hang of double dollar Wednesdays at Farm Fresh. I sure hope they continue it past January. There is even starting to be a following on Hot Coupon World.

The best deals this week were on the Quaker cereals (Life, Cap’n Crunch & Instant Oatmeal). There was supposed to be a great deal on the Campbell’s Microwave Soups, but the chunky variety (though it was what was pictured in the ad) was not on sale, so no coupons for it. Those would have been free. Bummer. I did get some “Soup at Hand” for a quarter each.

Anyway, my total, including tax was $2.67 for 6 boxes of Quaker instant oatmeal, 2 boxes of Life Cereal, 2 boxes of Cap’n Crunch, and 6 cans of Campbell’s Soup at Hand.

Farm Fresh Food & Pharmacy, double dollar coupons - See what $2.67 can buy?

Super Kmart is a bit of a drive for me, but since I was in that part of town picking up a few deals at Costco, I decided to go for it. They were out of a few of the items that I would have liked to get, but this wasn’t a bad haul overall. Had I not bought the two frozen pizzas ($3 each after Q) the total would only have been $2 and some change. Yup. $2 for: two packages of Nestlé Toll House cookie dough, 2 bags of Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses, 4 L’oreal eyeshadows, 2 cans of Endust, 3 bags of Luden’s cough drops, 2 packs of deluxe cotton swabs, 1 Hormel Compleats (that my teenage boys love),  and a 24-caplet bottle of extra strength Tylenol.

I had a $5/$50 coupon from Kmart, but since I realized I wasn’t going to use it I gave it to a lady who was shopping for a few little girls.

I love sharing coupons with folks. Sure beats letting them expire.

On that note, I am gathering expired coupons to send to a Navy base in Japan. They are allowed to use manufacturers coupons up to 6 months after they expire overseas.

Not bad for $8! If you leave off the 2 pizzas, it would have only been $2.