Black Bean and Chicken Chilaquiles

This is a great recipe for leftover chicken or pork. This recipe is one of Marc's favorites.

Ingredients

Cooking spray
1 cup thinly sliced onion
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 (7 3/4-ounce) can salsa de chile fresco (such as El Pato)
15 (6-inch) corn tortillas, cut into 1-inch strips
1 cup shredded queso blanco (about 4 ounces)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450°.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion; sauté 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add chicken; cook 30 seconds. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl; stir in beans. Add broth and salsa to pan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Place half of tortilla strips in bottom of an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Layer half of chicken mixture over tortillas; top with remaining tortillas and chicken mixture. Pour broth mixture evenly over chicken mixture. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 450° for 10 minutes or until tortillas are lightly browned and cheese is melted. Yield6 servings

The Juicy Lucy

I was watching the travel channel and they featured a burger called the Juicy Lucy. We have been making our own version of this for years. We use a generous amount of blue cheese or cheddar, but swiss or pepper jack would be excellent as well.

2 slices bread

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 lbs ground meat (we use buffalo)

cheese of your choice in the amount of your choosing

Chop bread in a food processor or blender. Mix breadcrumbs, milk, salt and pepper together. Add meat and mix well. Divide meat into 16 patties. Place the desired amount of cheese in a pile in the center of one pattie and top with another pattie. Pinch edges to seal. Repeat until you have 8 burgers. Grill 4 minutes on each side or until done. Serve on buns with your favorite fixings! Goes great with homemade fries.

Spicy Roasted Potato Wedges

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp dried oregano

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp crushed red pepper

2 baking potatoes scrubbed and cut into 8ths

2 Tbsp parmesan cheese

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl; toss well. Arrange potatoes in a singel layer on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes or until done. Sprinkle potatoes wit parm cheese and bake an additional 2 minutes.

Chicken Diable

This recipe is easily halved and smells divine! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.

1/4 cup mustard

1/2 cup honey

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp curray powder

1/2 tsp salt

8 chicken thighs (skin-on or skinnless)

Mix first 5 ingredients in a 13x9" pan. Add chicken thighs making sure to get sauce evenly on chicken. Bake at 350 for 1 hour basting once. Serve over rice.

Coconut Lime Chicken

Marinade Ingredients:

¾ c coconut milk (I used “Thai Kitchen Lite Coconut Milk”)
2 T. juice of one small lime
1 T. lime zest
1 T sugar
1 t. salt
1 whole chicken cut up (I’m not a fan of the “whole chicken,” so I used a package of chicken tenders)

Marinade Directions:

Mix marinade ingredients in a plastic bag and place chicken pieces in the bag. Shake to coat all pieces. Close the bag and refrigerate for 1-4 hours. Don't marinate overnight as the acid in the lime juice will make the chicken too tender.


Coating Ingredients:
1 c. Flour
1 c. shredded sweetened coconut
2 t. salt
2 T. lime zest

Coating Directions:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse four times to mix and break up the coconut. (Pulsing too much will make the coconut pieces too small. There should be some larger coconut pieces in the coating.) Empty the flour mixture into a plastic bag, add larger breast pieces of marinated chicken to the bag first and shake to coat. Remove and continue. Adding two pieces at a time, shake to coat and remove until they are all well coated.

Instructions (These are the given directions in the recipe. See the next paragraphs for what I did.)

To fry chicken, prepare large cookie sheet with a parchment paper, place a cooling rack on the cookie sheet on top of the parchment. Melt 5 T. bacon grease in a large heavy frying pan. Add chicken coated with flour mixture and fry skin side down until brown. Turn over and brown the other side. Remove and place on cooling rack in the cookie sheet. When all pieces are browned, place in a preheated 400° oven for 30 min. Test with a meat thermometer to make sure the internal temperature is 180°. Serve hot or cool for 2 hours uncovered in the refrigerator.

*I didn’t want to fry them, especially in bacon grease, so I baked them at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. They didn’t have the browning/crispness of the frying, but they tasted good, and were considerably more healthy.

*I had quite a bit of marinade and coating left, and didn’t want to throw it all away. I had a big bag of shrimp in my freezer, so I dumped the whole thing into the marinade for a few hours. I had enough breading to do all of the shrimp, too! I did cook those in a frying pan with a little bit of oil. I didn’t think those would be as good baked.

*I had a jar of Maui coconut-pineapple jam in my pantry, and used it as a dipping sauce. (A little goes a long way.) It was SO good! If you aren’t going to Maui anytime soon, you can purchase some at www.abcstore.com.