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damn delicious, recipes I've tried and liked

Damn Delicious: Vegetable Enchilada Casserole

March 4, 2020

Does anyone make casseroles anymore? We should definitely bring back the casserole! You dump a bunch of stuff together and smear it with cheese and it comes out delectable. Dinner should be easy like this.

This Vegetable Enchilada Casserole, or ‘veggie enchies’ as I like to annoyingly call it, has graced my table for at least 5 years. It isn’t really much of a recipe, but it’s a good, stick-to-your-ribs dinner you can throw together to use up the extra veggies in your fridge and skip the meat-heavy meals every once in a while. It feels good, it tastes good, it’s easy to make and it makes ample leftovers. That’s a winner in my dinner playbook.

Here’s how you make it… the recipe looks a bit complicated, but I promise it’s really super easy. Much easier than making individually wrapped enchiladas. Who has time for that?

Ingredients:

  • 18 pack corn tortillas
  • About 2.5 Cups Pre-shredded Mexican Blend Cheese
  • 1 Large Can (28 ounces) Enchilada Sauce
  • Veggies. Go wild here, friends. You really can’t go wrong. I typically do one white onion, one zucchini, one quarter head of cabbage and one can of corn. I will say that I added shredded brussel sprouts to this version and it was a little overpoweringly brussel-y for my taste.
  • 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 Tablespoon of Taco Mix Seasoning
  • 1 Can (14 ounces) Black Beans, drained

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Chop veggies. Go for smaller, uniform pieces. These veggies are going to be the ‘filling’ of your enchiladas. Do you want to bite down on a huge piece of onion? Probably not. Dice pretty small, but don’t freak yourself out. Veggies cook down easy, so you can’t mess it up.
  3. In large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onions. Let them get nice and brown. Add garlic and stir for a quick minute.
  4. Add remaining veggies. If they’re all pretty uniform in size, you can add them all at once. Cook until the veggies start to get soft and release their juices.
  5. Add taco mix seasoning. Salt to taste. You want the veggies to have a lot of flavor because that adds the oomph to your enchiladas. If you want more seasoning, feel free to sprinkle on some garlic powder, a pinch of cayenne, black pepper. Go wild on the flavor train, but taste as you go so you don’t go overboard.
  6. Once your veggies are nicely browned, stir in black beans. Don’t overmix them or your beans will turn to mush. Turn off heat for skillet.
  7. Now it’s time to layer. Have you ever made lasagna? It’s like that. Prep your corn tortillas by tearing or cutting them into smaller pieces. Don’t overthink it. Maybe aim to tear or cut into quarters? I like a nice chunky bite of tortilla. I also zap them in the microwave for about 40 seconds covered with a paper towel to get them ready for the heat.
  8. Pour a layer of enchilada sauce to coat the bottom of the pan.
  9. Add a layer of tortillas.
  10. Add a layer of veggies.
  11. Add a layer of cheese.
  12. Repeat.
  13. If you still have more, repeat again, but DON’T PUT THE TOP LAYER OF CHEESE ON. Save that for later.
  14. Cover enchies with a layer of aluminum foil and pop in the oven for about 30-40 minutes. Once the enchiladas are heated through (but not dried out), add a final layer of cheese and return to oven without aluminum foil to melt the cheese.
  15. Let stand for about five minutes after you take them out of the oven to allow the flavors to do a final meld.
  16. Top with exorbitant amounts of sour cream and devour.

What’s your easy go-to meal to make at home? I’m always looking for new ideas to add to the rotation.

damn delicious, recipes I've tried and liked

Damn Delicious: French Onion Soup of my Dreams

February 27, 2020

Guys, this recipe is a dead ringer for the onion soup I ate in the amazing sidewalk cafes of Paris.

A dead ringer, I say!

This is a big freaking deal. I had almost resigned myself to a sad existence where I couldn’t find a soup that approximated the near-religious experience I had when I ate my first bowl of soup while in Paris. I had eaten French Onion Soup while in the U.S. and I liked it, but that soup on that rainy day took things to a whole new level and I couldn’t look back. And, I couldn’t face the thought that I would only find that soup on highly expensive, rare trips to Paris.

So, when I came home, I was a woman on a French Onion Soup mission. I tried making it in the crockpot. Good, but not close. I bought it at La Boulangerie. It was okay, but nowhere near as good. I even tried it when we were in Maui with Maui onions. Nope!

When I was deep in my onion soup resignation, I somehow came across a Smitten Kitchen recipe from almost a year ago. I read through it. It seemed so simple. I had to try again.

I decided to try my hand on a Friday at 7pm. It’s not exactly the time I recommend undertaking a French Onion Soup endeavor as my soup was ready around 9pm. But, wow, it was worth the wait.

Click over to Smitten Kitchen for the full recipe because she describes the process better than I ever could. I just want to add a few notes why I think this try took my soup over the top:

  • Cook the onions until you just can’t stand it. Mine were a deep brown when I finally deglazed the pan with the sherry. Don’t burn them, but don’t be afraid to get them to a deep, almost jammy brown.
  • Buy good broth! The best broth you can buy without feeling like you are a wasteful hedonist. I bought a bag of this beef bone broth from Trader Joe’s and also mixed in some of the Costco Kirkland Chicken bone broth. Because it’s such a simple recipe, the ingredients really matter.
  • Don’t skip the little things. I did the fresh Thyme and also the Bay Leaf. Deb says you don’t really need it. I think you might.
  • Buy good bowls that you’re not afraid to put under your broiler. I bought these from Amazon. It’s scary to put already boiling soup in a broiler, but when they come out all bubbly and delicious-looking, you’ll be happy.
  • Get the bread nice and toasty. I cooked my toasts in a pan with some butter and garlic powder and I didn’t regret it for one second.
  • ALLLLL the cheese. Put more than you think you need. Grating it helps with the ultimate meltage.

Do you love French Onion Soup? Obviously, I’m obsessed.

Image via.

damn delicious

Chicken Sausage Kale Soup

December 3, 2019

kale-sausage-soup-vertical-a-1600

I need to start this post off with a confession…

That photo above isn’t the soup I made, but it’s visually stunning and a close approximation for a soup that I made recently that was just so delicious that I need to share the recipe here even though I didn’t take a photo of it.

The weather has been rainy and cold lately here in the Bay Area. Add to the weather cold a delightful sickness cold that I conveniently contracted heading into the long Thanksgiving weekend and you can imagine that I was a prime candidate for a delicious, homemade soup. After dance class last Saturday, I headed into Trader Joe’s with a vague recipe in mind loosely based on this one from the New York Times, but with so many modifications that I just need to share the recipe cleanly with you all here.

It was GOOD and so healing. I hope you make it and enjoy!

Ingredients:

  • Italian or spicy chicken sausage, casings removed. You could absolutely use pork sausage if you prefer that.
  • A whole yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 Tablespoon of Butter
  • 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
  • As much Lacinto Kale as you want. I used about a half a bag.
  • 2 containers (64 oz total) of Chicken Broth
  • Parmesan rind
  • Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder to taste
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped

Directions:

  1. Cook your sausage for a couple of minutes over medium-high heat alone in a big soup pan until it starts to brown.
  2. Add the onions and let them brown along with the sausage. Once they stop releasing their juices, add butter and continue to brown.
  3. Add the garlic to the mix. Brown, brown, brown.
  4. Throw in the potatoes. You guessed it. Let it brown. Add some salt, pepper and garlic. We want to build in the flavor, so just add a little bit at a time.
  5. Once the potatoes have started to soften, add the kale. More browning. Once it all feels like the raw bite has worn off of the potatoes and kale, add the chicken broth.
  6. Integrate the chicken broth and scrape off all the good bits from the bottom of the pain. Add the parmesan rinds. Turn the heat down to low and allow the soup to simmer for about an hour.
  7. About fifteen minutes before you want to eat your soup, add the tomatoes. You might think that the tomatoes will get mushy and gross and thus be tempted to skip them. Add them anyway. They take the soup over the top.
  8. Taste and add more salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. Get it really tasty.
  9. Serve with fresh grated parmesan on top if you have it and a slice or two of crusty, buttered bread.

Image via.