Ummm whats for dinner?

So on my way to the gym the other night I was talking to Alex and mentioned that we should have leftovers for dinner, his reply : ummm you mean the salmon cakes and I said  yea, we'll make them into salmon cake sandwiches...... Alex: oh I took those to work for lunch today. So yea, no lefites, no dinner ideas, no time.  I started to look around, I had leftover chili in the freezer, some frozen corn and polenta I had seen a recipe very similar to this so I went with it, last minute.

1 tube polenta
about 2-3 cups chlii
1 1/2 cups corn
1 tbsp chopped green onions (for topping)

I was thinking cheese would go well but instead made a 'sauce' for the top..

1 cup greek yogurt
1 tbsp margarine/butter
4 tbsp salsa verde (you could use any salsa)
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
and lots of texas pete.

This took about 3 mins to prepare, it took longer to make the sauce. Preheat the oven to 375. Karen gave me a GREAT polenta tip and that was to cut it using the egg slicer, or polenta slicer as I like to call it. Cut the tube into thirds and just slice away..


Before




After

This gets the polenta into very pretty, even  and thin slices. It has changed my polenta life.  Moving on..place your polenta into you baking dish....I started to cover it in chili then remembered to take a pic..

After you cover in chili add more corn (my chili had a little corn in it already)

Pop it in the oven for about 20 mins, everything is fully cooked so you really just want the flavors to blend. If you are adding cheese which I'm assuming most people would, I would add it between the polenta and chili layer and a little over the corn

While that was baking in the oven, I added my sauce ingredients to a microwave safe bowl

Then just cover with a towel and place in the microwave for about 1 min, take it out, whisk it up a bit, then put it in for another few mins.  Once the polenta dish comes out, Pour the sauce all over the top.. The sauce reminds me of the creamy/fat sauce that you get on some mexican dishes at a restaurant. It added good flavor.

Top with green onion, then serve...We put it on lettuce to make it a fake taco salad...

Enchilada Soup!

So recently my Sundays have turned into Mexican crockpot Sundays...  This was a soup I threw together last minute before I played my FIRST 9 holes of golf ever. Alex is a great teacher and being the natural that I am, I got a PAR.

This was my victory meal later that night. literally took 13 minutes to prepare. Bring it Rachel Ray 30 min meals.

What I used (look no spices!!)

3 stalks of celery
1 zucchini
1 onion
1 green pepper
3 precooked chicken sausages
1 can black beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 24 oz can enchilada sauce
2 cups chicken stock

This recipe basically has two steps. Chop it all up. And dump it all in.

I diced my celery (not pictured), zucchini and chicken sausage. 

Before (sort of, I got antsy and started chopping)

About 25 seconds later...

I also chopped up the onions this small. Different sized veggies gave the soup some depth. For me it was mainly a vegetable soup and for Alex it was a chicken sausage/veggie enchilada soup.

Dump all of the ingredients, including your beans (strain out the can goop first) into the slow cooker.Add more broth/water as needed I cooked  it on low for about 8 hours.. 

.

This soup was really good, it was a bit spicy  (I think I got a hot version of enchilada sauce) so we added a little cheese to make it more mild. I served it was some homemade tortilla chips as well..

mmmm. VICTORY!!!

                                       

Mexican Lasagna (Crockpot, duh)

I guess Sunday turned into Mexican Sunday. Oh well :)

1 Box Whole Wheat Lasagna

Greek Yogurt+Spices

2 tbsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tsp Onion Salt
1 tsp Oregano
2 cloves crushed Garlic
3 cups nonfat Greek Yogurt
1/2 cups shredded cheese
24 oz Red Salsa
2 cans black beans
1 cup Salsa verde (the green salsa)
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 large onion
2 Green Peppers

So I know the ingredient list looks overwhelming but its really not. If you don't have all the spices on hand and don't feel like dealing with it, just go ahead and buy one f those taco seasoning packets and you are good to go.

Mix the greek yogurt and the spices in a mixing bowl. Then add in the shredded cheese and the Red Salsa. This should be pretty watery from the Salsa but that's what you want. Taste this mixture and make sure its spicy enough or mild enough to your liking.

In a separate bowl mix the black beans, the Salsa verde and the juice from the lime. I think I ended up using the entire lime bc I like the tang. Set aside.

Chop up your onions and green peppers. You're now ready to assemble


Use your empty Salsa Jar, Fill it with water and sort of mix it around to get all the remains from the salsa, and put a little of this on the bottom of the crock pot, about 1/4 cup. Then begin the assembling.

Break the noodles to fit into the crock pot. This won't be perfect but it doesn't matter. Then layer some yogurt mixture, then some chopped onion/green pepper, black bean mixture, a little more yogurt then noodle.

Repeat. For the top layer, I did noodle, some chopped onion/pepper and the yogurt sauce.

Cook on low for 4 hours. The great thing about this meal is there is 0 meat. I waited for Alex to be about half-way through to tell him, his response: " what... there's no meat?"Basically all the veggies and the beans make it so hearty no one has any idea whats going on. You could also layer in some Spanish rice if you wanted but I like the beans and veggies.