I only have two recipes this week, but they are good ones!
I’d seen Bubble Up Enchiladas on Pinterest (I mean really, what recipes don’t I find there?) and I’d been wanting to give them a try. Partly because they looked delicious, and partly because it is a Weight Watchers recipe. They were really good! But I have to admit that I pretty much got rid of everything that made them healthy. The recipe calls for reduced fat biscuits, low fat cheese, and lean ground turkey. I only got one of the three. I couldn’t find the cheese in low fat… apparently low fat cheese just isn’t in the cards for the Wal-Mart in Lexington! I’ll talk more about the biscuits at the end.
I made a salad with ranch dressing and red peppers as a side. I love the ranch and Mexican food combo!
As you can see, I added corn to mine, which was a recommendation on the recipe itself. I highly recommend it- I love corn! I also felt like sauteing and onion before cooking the turkey would be a good addition.
The other thing I would do is cut the biscuits up into smaller pieces. I think I just don’t really love refrigerator biscuits. I think they’re a good idea, but in practice I just don’t like them that much. Also, I wish that when recipes called for them, they would tell you the exact kind to buy. Ounces would be nice. I get there and there are a million different kinds: bigger, smaller, grands, buttery… I never know what to get! As you can see, I went with a smaller can that supposedly is more natural or something. It had less calories total than the only package of reduced fat, which was a bigger can. I would get what I got again because the chunks of biscuit aren’t my favorite anyway.
Chicken Pot Pie Mac
This was a slam dunk. It was DELICIOUS, I had everything in my apartment already, and I kinda made it up from meshing two recipes together. I’m gonna call that a win.
A few weeks ago I tried the Cheesy Chicken Pot Pie from IGE. It had all of the right elements, but no matter what I did, I could not get the biscuits to cook through, resulting in RAW DOUGH chunks that had to be removed. Gross. See above gripe with refrigerator biscuits. I wanted it to work so badly that I even tried it twice but I just couldn’t get the biscuits to bake all the way through.
But the sauce haunted me. It was SO good! I thought that maybe it would be good on pasta; it was a cheese sauce after all! So I basically followed the recipe with what I had at home, and sprinkled some bread crumbs on top from when I had made Baked Broccoli Mac and Cheese from Skinnytaste. You can read my fully modified recipe under the pictures.
Ingredients:
- 2 giant chicken breasts (or an equivalent amount of chicken)
- 1/2 pound/ box of pasta (I used Cellentani, made by Barilla. This is my favorite shape for cheese sauce!)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 tablespoon dehydrated onion
- 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
- 1 cup chicken broth (the mostly fat free kind)
- 1 cup skim milk
- 3/4 cup grated cheese (I had 1/2 cup cheddar and 1/4 Colby and Monterrey Jack mix, or you could use 4 oz. Velveeta like the IGE recipe calls for!)
- Bread crumbs (less than 1/2 cup)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook the chicken. I baked mine in the oven with salt and pepper, but you can really cook it however you want, you’re going to be cutting it into chunks or shredding it and baking it in the pasta later.
- Cook the pasta according to the directions.
- While those are cooking, start the sauce. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and stir in the flour, allowing it to cook for about 30 seconds to get rid of the flour taste.
- Slowly mix in the milk and chicken broth, whisking to get rid of lumps. I poured mine in 3 or 4 batches. Add onion and cook on medium heat until sauce is thick and bubbly, around 5 to 10 minutes depending on how hot the stove is. I measured the vegetables while the sauce cooked to let them sit out a little. Just don’t forget to stir!
- Remove from heat and add cheese. Stir in cheese until melted.
- Add pasta, vegetables, and chicken. I like to shred the chicken with two forks, but you could cut it into chunks as well.
- Transfer to a greased baking dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top in a thin, even layer.
- Spray top of breadcrumbs lightly with cooking spray and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling.
That’s it! I served ours with a salad with Ken’s Light Honey Mustard, my favorite!
Tell me guys: do you like these posts? Should I avoid repeating dishes, or is that okay? I get bored posting pictures of something that I’ve already blogged about. Let me know what you think!
We love the bubble up enchiladas. So good!
Look at you creating your own recipe! We will be trying that one soon.
And now I am hungry. :)
That Pot Pie Mac looks delish! I might have to make that this week! xoxo
I am going to have to make this last dish for my husband! He will love it! When I read the part about how you try to make each dish better. That is so me! I always plot out how to make recipes better until they're perfected!
I'm ok either way–if you perfect recipes or make substitutions I'd love to hear about it! I think that's helpful! :)
I love your recipe posts!! but now I am hungry!