Southwest Salad with Avocado Cilantro Dressing

This week for hometeam, our food theme was salad, soup, and sandwiches.  Well, I knew it was my opportunity to try the southwest salad that has been on my mind lately.  I had a couple starting points for my salad, but I ended up changing the ingredients in the dressing just slightly.  My original inspiration is from The Garden Grazer.  I left the dressing off of the salad, intially, so that my lettuce and veggies wouldn't get soggy while it all sat in my cooler during church.  The plan was to toss the salad at hometeam right before we ate.  Unfortunately, hometeam was cancelled at the last minute.  :(  I left the ingredients separate because this was a huge salad to toss for just us, and again I didn't want everything soggy.  We're just adding a bit of dressing as we make individual bowls for  now.  I must say... This is a delicious salad and loaded with good stuff.  Even the dressing, since the base is Greek yogurt and avocado!

Salad Ingredients:
1 head Romaine lettuce
1 orange bell pepper
1 pint grape tomatoes
5 green onions
15 ounces black beans, drained and rinsed
12 ounces Mexi-corn, drained
Santa Fe Style tortilla strips

Avocado Cilantro Dressing Ingredients:
1 cup cilantro leaves
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 avocado
juice from 1/2 lime
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
olive oil
sea salt to taste

Directions:
In a small food processor or blender, add all dressing ingredients, except olive oil, and blend well.  The original recipe called for 1/4 cup olive oil, but because I had changed the dynamics a bit with the added avocado, I wasn't sure how much oil would be needed.  I just began drizzling it in and blending.  I'd stop and check the consistency and add more olive oil as needed.

Coarsely chop the veggies and layer in a large bowl.  Toss in black beans and Mexi-corn.  Just before serving, toss in the tortilla strips and dressing.  You'll want to start with a large enough bowl that you can toss the salad well, making sure the lettuce and veggies are nicely coated.

Baked Stuffed Avocados

I've seen a few variations of these avocados floating around, but when I set out to make them yesterday afternoon, I totally winged it.  I thought they turned out really well and were a perfect compliment to Taco Soup (recipe coming soon!).  There was little to no measuring as I tossed this together, but I'll give some ballpark measurements below.

First, I sliced two avocados and removed the pits.  I made little boats out of a large muffin tin and aluminum foil for the avocados to sit in.  I was afraid of the avocados tipping/rollling over as they were coming in and out of the oven -- it worked pretty well.  I chopped up a couple handfuls of grape tomatoes and tossed them in a bowl with a few drizzles of olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, and dried basil.  Once those were nicely coated, I dropped in a couple handfuls of Panko bread crumbs, as well as about a handful and half of Parmesan cheese.  I mixed these well, to be sure the bread crumbs and cheese were coated also.  I baked these for 5 minutes at 450 degrees and then turned the broiler on for about 2 more minutes.  Watch these closely, as I'm pretty sure they could go from golden to toasted in seconds.

Homemade Salsa

I love this salsa recipe.  It's so simple to throw together and the flavor is very full and... well, you can't stop eating this salsa!  It makes up quite a bit, which is a very good thing.  I've recently started using Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, but I've also used just regular Diced Tomatoes.  I've considered using some of the tomatoes that have other flavors already thrown in, but since I use fresh green onions, cilantro, lime, and garlic, I usually end up getting plain tomatoes.  I'd love to try fresh tomatoes, but just haven't yet.  The bonus to that is it's usually easy to have the ingredients on hand.  Which is nice when you live 20 minutes from town!

Ingredients:
2 cans Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes
1 can Rotel
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 to 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2-3 green onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Serrano pepper, seeded and diced
sea salt, to taste
juice of one lime

Directions:
In a blender, blend tomatoes, Rotel, tomato paste, garlic cloves, Serrano pepper, sea salt, and lime juice.

Transfer to a large bowl and mix in (by hand) cilantro and green onions.

Store in clean mason jars or a glass refrigerator dish.

Nachos, revisited.

In a strange twist of fate... I made up my nachos last night on the exact same night that I created them one year ago.  Anyone else hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing the background?  ;)

I snapped a quick photo before devouring after eating a couple pieces and had plans on adding them here, then lost interest because the photos aren't the best.  But when I realized the crazy coincidence, I had to go ahead and push forth with a  new post!  I need to get back to this anyway, right? ;)  Baby steps, baby steps...

Last night, I added some fresh guacamole instead of avocado chunks and left off the sour cream (only because I didn't have any).  I sprinkled Pampered Chef Chipotle Seasoning over the chicken before adding the salsa and cheese.  Everything else is the same as before.

Mexican Casserole

This is an old family favorite -- we've been eating this for as long as I can remember! Quick, easy, and delicious. Does it get any better than that?

Ingredients:
1 pound hamburger
1 medium onion
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can Fiesta nacho cheese soup
sour cream
salsa
shredded cheese
avocado

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a skillet, brown hamburger and onion. Making one well covered layer, place tortilla chips on the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan. Add refried beans to the hamburger; mix well. Spoon meat mixture over tortilla chips and then spread cream of mushroom soup and then cheese soup over meat mixture. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Serve with sour cream, salsa, shredded cheese, and sliced avocado.

Nachos

So, I was aimlessly wandering through HEB Sunday afternoon trying to buy enough food for lunches and easy dinners this week, but feeling very uninspired.  Somewhere in the bread aisle, I had a thought.  I grew up making very simple nachos in the microwave for snacks.  A few chips, a couple spoonfuls of salsa, some shredded cheese, zap them for a few seconds and we're good to go.  Well, I decided, how about that comfort food stepped up a couple notches?  Still a very simple dinner to throw together after work, but very filling.  I can see adding refried beans or a variety of other additions, but the idea was to keep it simple and filling, so I tried not to get too carried away.  Tip: I used a rotisserie chicken to make it even quicker to throw together... plus I have extra chicken for salads and such.  Or more nachos.  ;)

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Ingredients:
tortilla chips
salsa
shredded chicken
southwest seasoning*
4 cheese Mexican blend
chopped avocado (1 small or 1/2 of a large)
sour cream

Directions:
Layer tortilla chips on a foil lined baking pan.  Spoon salsa, distributing evenly on chips.  Add shredded chicken, again being generous and even.  Sprinkle with southwest seasoning.  Layer handfuls of cheese until covered to your liking.  Bake in a 350 oven for about 5 minutes, until warmed through and cheese is melted.  Layer chopped avocado pieces and spoon sour cream evenly over nachos.  Serve immediately.

*The blend I used was a southwest rub made by Adam's Reserve and contained: cumin, sweet pepper flakes, onion, chipotle, garlic, New Mexico chile peppers, black pepper, coriander, cilantro, and lime.

Guacamole

I used to be very simplistic with my guacamole.  Mash up the avocadoes, add some sea salt and call it done.  Sometimes I'd add tomatoes.  But, then I discovered this recipe.  And while I still revert to the "basic" guacamole when I'm in a hurry, I like to make this one when I have time and have the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients:
7 ripe medium avocados, peeled and halved
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 pint grape tomatoes, chopped
2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
juice from 1 large fresh lime
1/2 tablespoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt

Directions:
Sprinkle seasoned salt and crushed garlic over avacado halves.
Coarsely mash the avocados, leaving some chunks.
Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
 
Servings: 6

Chicken Enchiladas

One of my favorite recipes ever and an old standby.  One of my dearest friends and a college roommate, Jamie, gave me this one.  I think of her every time I make these enchiladas!  For the chicken, I often use a rotisserie chicken from the grocery deli.  It adds a really great flavor and eliminates the step of baking chicken breasts.  You'll have some chicken leftover, but hey -- who can't find something to do with those delicious chickens?!

Ingredients:
2 cups shredded/chopped baked chicken breast
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 small can of chopped green chilies
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
3 ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/4 of a medium onion, finely chopped
12 tortillas
1 1/2 cups Monterrey Jack cheese

Directions:
Mix together the soup, chilies, cumin, salt, sour cream, and milk.  A blender makes this mixture really smooth, but I often just stir by hand.  Set aside.

Combine chicken, cream cheese, and onion.  Wrap this mixture into about 12 warmed tortillas.  Lay in a 9x13 pan and pour soup mixture over enchiladas.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven, top with cheese and return uncovered to oven until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Servings: 6