Lame but funny. Ahh! I’m so easily entertained. 😉
Happy Sunday everyone!
May 2, 2015
Monthly Mystery Munchies #1 with Gen
Category: Food
Ladies and Gentleman, we have a lift off!
Nothing is more exciting than to start the first day of the month with food as Gen of Eat, Play, Clove and I teamed up with our first Monthly Mystery Munchies (initially tagged to my Weekly Fabulous Friday Feature) whereby one of us chooses a theme or a few ingredients and we each cook a surprise dish and link to the other’s blog without knowing what the other has cooked.
Gen’s an awesome “experimeteur” (if that is even a word!) with food, but I’m sure you know what I mean and I’m over the moon that she has accepted to collaborate on this challenge.
This month’s theme is Mexican and Gen has cooked up some  sinister-looking Chilli Corn Carne that is looking just too good not to try. If I have been somewhere in South Africa, I might shamelessly drop by to have a taste of that juicy-looking, beefy dish, I swear!
Gen’s take on her dish:
Chilli Con Carne is hands down one of my top three favourite meals, both to cook and eat. It’s absolutely delicious. The inviting fragrant aroma of cumin and other herbs and spices mixed with the tangy taste of chillies, onion and garlic, simmered with tomatoes, ground beef and red kidney beans, makes for a mouth-watering food festival of flavour like none other. I’ve been cooking this recipe for years and the serving choices are plenty. My personal favourite is to top it with sour cream and wrap it in a tortilla. The Husband prefers it another way. You have the option of serving it in tacos, tortillas or with plain or spicy rice. Topping it with a smattering of guacamole is also a firm favourite. My ideal serving is to wrap it in a tortilla, drop a dollop sour cream on it, add a smidgen of guac and cheese and fold it up into one flavorful (and moreish) tortilla.
That’s just food porn at its best! Make sure you check out her recipe here.
I may be on vacation at the moment, but my head never, and I mean NEVER go on a break when it comes to food! Funny thing happened when we got back from Belgium today though and I just had to post this up as quickly as I can – much to the chagrin of Silver Bullet who probably gave me “the eye” when I fished out my laptop.
Turned out that the Mexican theme was also “observed” in my in-laws’ household today as my Mom-in-Law decided just a few days ago that she was going to make a Tortilla dish without any prior knowledge of the mystery theme we are having for this month and without telling us what she was going to make when we get back from Belgium.
Freaky, funny coincidence or what! It’s mysterious on a different level!
But I can’t complain, for we love Mexican. My MIL thought it was disappointing that the tortilla was a little too soft, but I thought that it was some pretty decent home-made meal! Thanks for feeding us, Mom!
 Here’s to more #MysteryMunchies to come!
May 1, 2015
Monthly Mystery Munchies #1: Real Cheesy Cottage Cheese Enchilada
Category: Fabulous Friday Flavours
It’s Friday! And it is a very special Friday as it marks my very project to collaborate with a fellow blogger and food enthusiast, Gen. She was game to buddy-up with me on this one where we will each feature a recipe based on an agreed theme.
The twist: Neither of us knows what the other person would be dishing up based on the theme chosen by the other person.
Gen has had the honour to choose our inaugural theme and she suggested Mexican.
Ooooooh! Mexican. We devour this often enough, but it’s something I have never ever attempted before. I felt a little out of my league, but damn! I’m excited to give this a go even though I have no idea what to start with.
After a little research, I decided on a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com and it would not be complete if I didn’t give this Cottage Cheese Enchilada recipe a twist of my own. Largely also because I cannot find any chipotle peppers in Bangkok and had to make do with a Taco packet seasoning mix instead.
All in all, it took me about an hour – but that was because I decided to make my own enchilada sauce.
Real Cheesy Cottage Cheese Enchilada
2015-07-13 14:49:37
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts – steamed with 1 bay leaf and a spoonful of Italian basil.
- 1 packet of Taco seasoning mix
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 pinch ground black pepper
- 9 (6 inch) corn tortillas
- 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
- 1 cup Mozzarella cheese
- 1 can red enchilada sauce (I substituted this with a home-made enchilada sauce – recipe to follow next week!)
Instructions
- Steam chicken with bay leaf and Italian Basil. When done, shred the chicken and set aside.
- Separately roast green peppers in the oven for about 10 minutes. Chop them up and then set aside.
- Heat oil in a pan over medium to high heat. Add onion, roasted peppers and the steamed shredded chicken till they are a little brown. Then mix in the taco mix from the packet. (I tried to make the taco seasoning on my own, but could not find all the ingredients here, so I resorted to buying the packet)
- Mix them well. Add butter to add a little grease and flavour and fry them up for about 10-15 minutes. Set aside.
- For the cheese mixture: In a bowl, mix sour cream with cottage cheese and season with salt and pepper. Blend them up with a hand-blender for a smooth texture. Set Aside
- Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
Assembling the Enchiladas
- In each tortilla, place about a spoonful of the meat mixture first, followed by the cheese mixture and top it with Jack Monterey Cheese and shredded Mozzarella at the top. Roll the tortilla.
- In a baking dish, slightly grease it up and arrange the tortilla next to each other.
- Top any remaining meat, cheese mixture on top.
- Spread the enchilada sauce over (be mindful of the spiciness of the sauce before generously spread them over. You might just want to spread it UNevenly at random places as seen in the deep dark red splotches above)
- Cover the top with the remaining shredded cheeses.
- Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and get all bubbly.
Grubbs n Critters https://grubbsncritters.com/
Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Ready to serve. Go ahead and cut the portion you need. Silver Bullet loves it and that is just good enough for me. 🙂
Wonder what type of Mexican stuff Gen’s going to cook up!
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This project would now be tagged to my regular Fabulous Friday Feature for every first Friday of the month. Next month is my turn to suggest a theme and I have yet to come up with something. Until then, I can’t wait for the next one, especially because I’m curious, excited and looking forward with what Gen would come up! 🙂
#FoodieFriDIYs #HomeMatters #MonthlyMysteryMunchies
Assembling the Enchiladas:
- In each tortilla, place about a spoonful of the meat mixture first, followed by the cheese mixture and top it with Jack Monterey Cheese and shredded Mozzarella at the top. Roll the tortilla.
- In a baking dish, slightly grease it up and arrange the tortilla next to each other.
- Top any remaining meat, cheese mixture on top.
- Spread the enchilada sauce over (be mindful of the spiciness of the sauce before generously spread them over. You might just want to spread it UNevenly at random places as seen in the deep dark red splotches above)
- Cover the top with the remaining shredded cheeses.
- Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and get all bubbly.