Enchilada Lasagna

Pinterest inspiration strikes again!  I was looking for a recipe that would help me use up a lot of things I had sitting around in my pantry.  This recipe from mogwai soup did just that, allowing me to use 3 cans that otherwise may not have been used.

I followed the blogger's basic recipe and method, but made a lot of changes, (which hopefully made it a teeny bit healthier).  Some of the changes include: reducing the canned soup to 1 can (rather than 2), reducing the cheese by half, reducing the tortillas, adding onions and canned tomatoes. Because of the addition of the tomatoes, the color of my filling was not as white and creamy looking as the blogger.  The tempting, cheesy top, however will definitely draw in the masses, who are bound to come back for seconds!  To counteract this slight color change, and to add to flavor, I think next time I'll be adding in a half (or maybe full) container of enchilada sauce.

Here is the recipe, heavily inspired from here.

Enchilada Lasagna

Ingredients:

1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 clove of garlic, grated
1/4 cup chopped onions
1 lbs chicken breast, chopped to bite pieces (marinated overnight in 1 tsp grill seasoning and 3-4 TB Zesty Italian dressing)
1 tsp taco seasoning
2 1/2 cups of mexican blend cheese
1 can of healthy request cream of celery soup (or cream of any other soup)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup canned and chopped green chillies (not drained) (reduce amount for milder flavor)
1 can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano (no salt added), drained
about 6 small corn tortillas
sliced, jarred jalapenos (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Heat oil in a skillet.  Add onions and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent, 3-4 minutes.  Be careful not to let the garlic burn.  Add chicken pieces only (not the liquid marinade).  Sprinkle with taco seasoning, and cook over high heat until brown, about 5 minutes.  (You don't need to cook it through completely because it will continue to cook in the oven).  Set the chicken aside, and let cool.  I chopped the chicken into a small dice once it cooled .

In a bowl combine cream of celery soup, sour cream, chicken and green chillies. Put 1/2 cup of cream mix on the bottom of the baking dish (I used 13 x 9) and spread. Layer a row of tortillas (cut to fill in corners) followed with cream/chicken mix and cheese. You should be able to make 2 layers like this (cream, tortillas, cream, cheese, tortillas, cream, cheese).  Top with jalapenos, if using.

Bake, uncovered for 20 - 25 minutes.  Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream, guacamole, or sliced avocado or whatever else you like to serve with your enchiladas (sliced onions, tomatoes, salsa, etc).

Malai Tikka Gravy (Creamy Indian Chicken)

Lazeez: This is a Urdu word, but there is no direct translation in English. It can be loosely translated to beyond delicious.  Lazeez refers to how tasty something is, but also that it is flavorful.  This dish is beyond lazeez.  :)  I got the recipe from my friend Fati Naz.  She has her on own page on FB called Delicious Bytes Love of Cooking.  Every single recipe of hers that I've tried has been super scrumptious.

With a little planning, this dish can be easily made on a weeknight.  Serve it with some plain rice and store bought puff parathas (or make them yourself if you feel so inclined).  This is a dish that rivals the best Indian/Pakistani restaurant and now you can make it at home!

Fati Naz's original recipe calls for bone-in chicken.  Did you know that I have an aversion to uncooked meat?  I love eating all meats, but there's just something about cleaning raw chicken and meat that makes me sick! So I always opt for boneless, skinless chicken breast.  I also always reduce the amount of oil/butter called for and I almost always substitute fat free half and half for cream.  I have listed Fati Naz's original recipe below, and noted the changes that I made in parenthesis.  Enjoy!

Look at the beautiful color!  It is derived from the tandoori masala (easily found in any Indian/Pakistani grocery store, larger grocery stores which carry Indian products, possibly World Market, or online here:  ishopindian), paprika, and red chili powder.  Generally I would clean my bowls off before photographing them, but as I mentioned, I have an aversion to raw meats, so I left it as is. I hope you can excuse the streaks of marination!

Because I used chicken breast instead of bone-in chicken pieces, I chose to skewer the cubes, put them on a wired cooling rack, atop a foil lined baking sheet.  (Note, while skewering, your hands will turn orangey-red.  Not to worry, a little soap or some fresh lemon juice will take away the color!) The chicken cubes had a bit of space between them so that the heat could get through and provide for even cooking.  Putting them on the cooling rack also creates the same effect (even cooking from top to bottom).

Ingredients:
1 kg chicken, 12 pcs. Slit the pieces for perfect marination (I used 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces cut a little bigger than one inch cubes)
3tb full thick yogurt
3tb fresh cream (I used 3 TB fat free half and half)
1 tbsp fresh ginger garlic paste (I used bottled ginger garlic paste)
2 tbsp Shan Tandoori Masala
1 tsp red chilli (I used 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), crushed in your palm
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp fine crushed cumin (I used ground and mixed coriander/cumin pwdr)
1 tsp fine crushed corainder
salt to taste
1/2 tsp meat tendrizer ( skip this if you r mariating whole night) i did for 2 hours only .. (Chicken breast cooks up quickly, so I skipped this)
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp melted butter or ghee (clarified butter)

For the sauce:
4 tbsp butter + 1/4 cup oil (I used 2 TB butter and 2 TB oil)
1 tsp ginger garlic
300 gms tomatoes, finely chopped (about 3 large roma tomatoes or 1 1/2 cups)
Salt to taste
2 green chilli, sliced
1/2 cup cream or more

Method:
Marinade:
Mix together all the ingredients including the chicken .Cover and keep it in fridge for 2 hours.

Pre-heat oven at 200C (400F) and bake the chicken (along with the left over marinade). Keep chicken pieces on oven grill & keep oven tray underneath. Bake chicken pieces on both sides, each side 8 - 10 min or until golden. (I put my chicken pieces on soaked skewers). Reserve its dripping ( as we have to use this with chicken in the gravy).

In a large pan,on medium heat, melt the butter with the oil. Add the ginger & garlic,1 green chili and fry a minute or so.
Add in the chopped tomato and cook till water dries out .
Add the chicken, the remaining marinade, salt, green chili . Keep on low heat, covered & cook for 10 mins. (Since I used chicken breast, I covered the tomatoes for 8 minutes and then added the chicken pieces, cooked for another 3-4 minutes and then followed to the next step).
Add the cream and cook for further 2-3 min.
Serve hot!
We enjoyed with Parathas

Rachael Ray's Gyros Loaf with the best tzatziki

This is one of my all - time favorite recipes.  It makes many appearances in my menu rotations.  I saw this recipe on one of Rachael Ray's shows (either the 30 Minute Meals or maybe her talk show) at least 3 or 4 years ago.  Since then, I must have made this recipe at least 20 - 25 times.  That says a lot because recipes that I regularly repeat are few and far between.    I love Middle Eastern/Arabic/Greek food.  We live in a location where if you ask for pita, they bring out some kind of meat and say, is this pita?  (Yes, this actually happened!).  So instead of driving 1 hour to get bleh Arabic food, I just make it at home.  This recipe will give you the flavors of a gyro, but remember, it is a loaf, not a whole piece of meat slow roasted on a spit.  :)

I started off making this with the frozen spinach, as the recipe indicates, but with ground chicken instead of the lamb. Almost a whole box of frozen spinach goes into this, which makes it so full of nutrition. Believe me, both of my picky children did not mind that there was spinach in there!  Once, I wanted to make this, but the box that I thought was frozen spinach turned out to be frozen butternut squash.  So I used chopped onions instead.  This dish is usally moist and delicious, but the flavor and added moistness from the onions made it even better!  I mostly make it with the onions now, but once in a while I go back to using frozen spinach.

Rachael Ray serves this with waffle fries and gravy and her version of tzatziki sauce.  I skip the waffle fries and have my own recipe for tzatziki (which is inspired by Ina Garten.  I know, I know. I'm all about the foodnetwork in this post!).

Pictured here with spinach.  The same loaf can be made with finely minced onions, if desired.

One of the best things about this recipe is that you can make extra and use the leftovers to make something new and equally satisfying.  I call it 'leftover makeover magic'.  If you go to my facebook page (ZK Food & Family), you'll find a whole album dedicated to leftovers and how they've been revamped.  Leftovers of this gyros loaf truly lend themselves to being transformed into yummy Mexican dishes.  Think quesadillas, tacos, and nachos.  I will show you how to do this in a future post.  For now, I'm sure my wonderfully creative readers will be able to use their imaginations and come up with their own versions.

I have left the recipe the way Rachael Ray created it.  I, however, being Indian and liking things spicier and more flavorful, like to reduce the meat by half (use 1 lb. ground chicken instead of 2 lb.) but reduce the spices only a little (rather than reducing the spices in the recipe by half).  So for example, the recipe calls for 2 TB of grill seasoning and 2 lbs of meat.  If you reduce the meat by half, you would generally reduce the grill seasoning by half as well.  I want my dish to be more flavorful, so I will put in 1 1/2 TB of grill seasoning rather than just 1.  I hope that make sense!

Here is the recipe, the way it was found on Rachael Ray's site (but minus the fries and gravy).  My version of the tzatziki sauce follows.  By the way, these pictures were taken before my brother let me borrow his fabulous camera, so the quality of pics is not as great as my other posts.  I'll be sure to update the pics when I make this again (and you can count on that being very soon).

1 (10-ounce) package frozen spinach (or 1 cup of finely minced onion)
2 pounds ground lamb
2 tablespoons grill seasoning, a couple of palm fulls
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin, divided
1 tablespoon chili powder, a palm full
1 tablespoon coriander, a palm full
1 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/3 palm full
2 to 3 pinches ground cinnamon
1 cup feta crumbles
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 small clove garlic, grated
1/4 cucumber, peeled and grated
1 lemon, juiced
2 vine ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
Hot pepper rings, sliced banana peppers, for sandwich garnish
8 pita breads


Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. (Edit:  For the ground chicken, I preheat to 400 degrees F).

Defrost spinach in microwave. Place lamb in a bowl. Add grill seasoning, 2 teaspoons cumin, chili powder, coriander, oregano, cinnamon and feta crumbles. Wring the spinach dry in a kitchen towel and add to lamb. Mix the lamb and form a long 3-inch roll on a baking sheet. Coat lamb with extra-virgin olive oil and bake 20 minutes. (For the ground chicken, I only cook it for 15 minutes, and make sure the chicken is at 165 degrees F).

Mix yogurt, a grated clove of garlic, cucumber, the juice of 1 lemon and 1/2 teaspoon cumin. Slice and reserve the tomatoes, cucumbers and drain hot peppers, chop and reserve.

Soften pita over open gas flame or under broiler.

Slice lamb loaf into 1/4-inch slices. Spread yogurt on pitas and top with a 2 slices of lamb, tomatoes, cucumbers and hot peppers. Serve 2 pitas per person. (I don't use hot peppers.  I do serve it with sliced onions as well and more feta cheese on the side).  Here I am serving it with store bought hummus, but making your own is not difficult at all.  I will provide my recipe soon!

My version of tzatziki (inspired by Ina Garten)

1 pound (1 pint) plain yogurt (whole milk or low fat) (I use Greek yogurt)
1 hothouse cucumber, unpeeled and seeded
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon)
1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic (I grate mine)
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh dill (I often use dried dill, about 3/4 tsp)
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
3/4 tsp sugar (optional - I add this to mellow out the tartness of the sauce. Ina Garten does not add this).

Place the yogurt in a cheesecloth or paper towel-lined sieve and set it over a bowl. (I use greek yogurt, so I skip this step). Grate the cucumber and toss it with 1 tablespoon of kosher salt; place it in another sieve, and set it over another bowl. Place both bowls in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours so the yogurt and cucumber can drain.

Transfer the thickened yogurt to a large bowl. Squeeze as much liquid from the cucumber as you can and add the cucumber to the yogurt. Mix in the sour cream, vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, dill, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper. You can serve it immediately, but I prefer to allow the tzatziki to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours for the flavors to blend. Serve chilled or at room temperature.