Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Soup is a creamy, delicious and easy soup recipe that’s perfect for hectic weeknights when there’s children to feed and homework to do. It’s also great for laid back weekends!
Where Did Enchiladas Come From? The roots of enchilada date back to the Aztec Empire. Its long history goes way back to pre-Columbian days when eating foods wrapped in a tortilla was the most popular way to eat in the Aztec Empire, particularly in the region of Mexico by the Yucatan.
Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Soup is a creamy, delicious and easy soup recipe that’s perfect for hectic weeknights when there’s children to feed and homework to do. It’s also great for laid back weekends!
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large soup pot/dutch oven over medium high heat.
Add in chopped purple onion and red bell peppers and cook until peppers are softened and onions translucent.
Pour in 4 cups chicken broth, 2 teaspoons ground cumin and enchilada sauce. Stir to combine and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium, add in diced tomatoes, black beans, green chiles, chopped green onion, and shredded cooked chicken. Stir and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Reduce heat to low. Add in cubed cream cheese and Horizon Organic Shredded Mexican Cheese. Stir to combine and continue to stir while the cheese melts and incorporates.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Garnish with chopped green onions, shredded mexican blend cheese
Elizabeth Goodwell, an American Cook in Philadelphia, who wrote down the first Lemon Pie recipe in 1806. According to some historians, the first recipe for lemon pie with a pastry base and lemon custard filling was written down in 1806 by Elizabeth Goodwell, an American cook in Philadelphia.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a 9×9 square baking pan with foil or parchment paper. Grease it well, set aside.
Using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes, until smooth and combined. Add flour and salt and beat until just combined (the mixture will be crumbly, but it should hold together if you squeeze it with your fingertips).
Dump the dough into the prepared pan and press it gently into an even layer. Be careful not to pack it in too tightly, or the crust will be hard to cut through. If necessary, moisten your fingers or palm with water to keep the dough from sticking. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. While the crust is baking, prepare the filling.
Filling
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat cream cheese until smooth and combined. Add sugar and flour and beat until well combined. Add eggs, lemon zest and vanilla and beat until combined. Slowly add the lemon juice (I like to do this with the mixer running), beating until the lemon juice is fully incorporated.
Pour the batter into the crust and return to the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the filling is set. Place the pan on a cooling rack, cool to room temp, then cover and refrigerate until completely chilled (several hours).
Notes
It is good to serve these slightly chilled. Remove them from the fridge 30 minutes before serving to allow the crust to soften up a bit. Serve topped with whipped cream.
Pizza dates back thousands of years, believe it or not, tracing its roots back to the flatbreads with toppings that were popular with ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. But modern pizza, the flatbreads with tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings, was born along the western coast of Italy, in the city of Naples.
Classic Eclairs – You haven’t enjoyed an éclair until you’ve tried a fresh homemade éclair filled to the brim with pastry cream and topped with chocolate icing.
History. The éclair originated during the nineteenth century in Lyon, France where it was called pain à la Duchesse (‘Duchess-style bread’) or petite duchesse (‘little duchess’) until 1850. The word is first attested both in English and in French in the 1860s.
In a Medium saucepan, combine 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk, 8 Tbsp butter, 1 tsp sugar and 1/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat then remove from heat and stir in 1 cup flour all at once with a wooden spoon.
One flour is incorporated, place back over medium heat about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes stirring constantly (to release extra moisture and partially cook flour), or until dough comes together into a smooth ball and a thin film forms on bottom of pan.
Transfer to a large mixing bowl and beat using an electric hand mixer on medium speed for 1 minute to cool the mixture slightly. Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time, allowing each egg to fully incorporate between additions. Beat until dough is smooth and forms a thick ribbon when pulled up.
Pipe eclairs over baking sheet lined with silicone using a 1/2” round tip. Pipe 18-20 (4” long and 3/4” wide) strips, keeping them 1 1/2" apart.
Bake at 425˚F for 10 minutes. Without opening oven, reduce temp to 325˚F and, bake 30 minutes longer or until golden brown. Transfer to wire rack to cool while making pastry cream.
Filling
In a medium saucepan bring 2 cups milk, vanilla bean and scraped seeds just to a boil, stirring to prevent film from forming.
In a separate large bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup corn starch and pinch of salt. Add 4 egg yolks and whisk until smooth, creamy and lightened in color – it takes a couple of minutes but it will get there.
Gradually (so the eggs don't curdle), while whisking constantly, add hot milk in a steady stream until all of it is incorporated. Pour mixture back into saucepan and bring to a boil while whisking constantly then whisk another 30 seconds until mixture is thick and pudding-like in consistency.
Transfer pastry cream to a medium bowl (whisk in 2 tsp vanilla extract if using). Cut butter into pieces and quickly whisk into the custard until fully incorporated Cover with plastic directly over the surface of the cream, let it cool slightly then refrigerate 30 minutes or until cool.
With a small pastry tip, poke 2-3 holes through the bottom of each cooled pastry. Pipe cream inside, scraping off excess. Refrigerate eclairs while making chocolate glaze.
Glaze
Place 4 oz of chocolate chips into a small heat-safe bowl.
Heat 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (in a saucepan or microwave) until it is just at a simmer then remove from heat and pour over chocolate chips. Let rest 2 minutes then whisk from the center outwards until smooth sauce forms.
Dip the top half of filled and chilled eclairs into the chocolate sauce, allowing excess to drip off.
Bacon Ranch Chicken Soup – Okay, so whether this dish is a soup or a ridiculously creamy pasta is besides the point – we’re choosing for it to be a soup and it is AMAZING
People have obsessed over chicken soup since the domestication of fowl around 7,000 to 10,000 years ago in Southeast Asia. The Ancient Greeks also had their own version of chicken broth, and believed the soup to have those healing properties I was harping on about earlier. Today, the dish is a staple meal in cuisines from all around the world. You can practically feel tomato soup quaking with envy – always in second place, never in the spotlight.
Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat and sauté onion, carrot and celery until softened. Season with salt and pepper.
Add dry ranch mix and cook for 1 minute, stirring until veggies are evenly coated, then add chicken broth and chicken soup.
Stir together and mix in spaghetti, bacon and chicken, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes, or until noodles are cooked and veggies are tender, then stir in cheddar cheese and half-and-half.
Cook for another 3-5 minute, then serve and enjoy.
Where did the baking potato originate from? It is believed that baked potatoes originate from South America, or more specifically, Peru. The Inca Indians in Peru were said to be the first to originally cultivate potatoes and when the Spanish conquistadors conquered Peru, they brought the potato to Europe.
Georgia Pecan Upside Down Cake – There’s a type of cake that comes out of Georgia that’s chock full of pecans and coconuts and oh my… is it delightful.
Origin of the Georgia Pecan
Pecan nuts are the fruit of pecan trees (Carya illinoensis), a species of hickory in the walnut family. First grown commercially in Georgia during the late 1880s, pecans became one of the state’s most important commodities by the early 1900s.
Preheat oven to 350°F and line a 9×13-inch pan with aluminum foil, making sure it hangs over the sides a bit, then grease with non-stick spray.
Spread pecans, brown sugar and 1 cup of the coconut in the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and salt, and drizzle with vanilla extract and melted butter.
In a medium bowl, beat together the 2/3 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar on medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Continue mixing on low, and add eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla, mixing until thoroughly combined.
Add baking powder and salt, mixing on low until incorporated. Add 1/2 of the flour, followed by milk, and then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition.
Pour batter over pecan mixture in prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.
Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen and let cake cool in pan for 5 minutes. Invert cake onto a platter, using foil overhang as needed. Let cool 15 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
Soup Season! Soups and stews are meals we love to make, especially now. One soup we anticipate making rather often is our creamy Italian sausage and potato soup.
Who invented baked potato soup? A: You might just be able to trace this back to the Irish, or to the French, when lines of people gathered for food handouts and mixtures of cheap ingredients became a soup.
Modern variations of this soup emerged at the chains Steak & Ale and Bennigan’s and can easily be traced back to the question “what are we going to do with these left over baked potatoes?” Well, some became potato skins, with the insides scooped out to become mashed potatoes. Some leftover bakers were re-purposed into twice baked potatoes, but some also became soup. Speaking of delicious and hearty soups…
Soup Season! Soups and stews are meals we love to make, especially now. One soup we anticipate making rather often is our creamy Italian sausage and potato soup.
Brown and crumble Italian sausage in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Remove sausage with a slotted spoon and drain excess drippings from pot.
Return sausage to pot and add potatoes, chicken stock, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 10-12 minutes.
Use a slotted spoon to remove ½ of potatoes from pot. In a separate bowl, mash potatoes then return them to the pot. Stir in kale or spinach leaves, heavy cream, and more salt and pepper, to taste. Cook until kale is tender, about 2-3 minutes.
To serve, garnish with shredded parmesan cheese, freshly cracked black pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.
This is a wonderful Canadian dessert that originated in the Prairies in the 1920s. They called it Flapper pie because it was popularized in the same era as the Flapper girls – fabulous!
Flappers were modern, young girls in the 1920s, often with a slightly immoral behavior. Precursors of the 1920s flapper were both, the late Victorian ‘New Woman’ and the Edwardian ‘Gibson Girl’.
Mix the graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 cup sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon in a bowl. Reserve 1/4 cup for topping the pie. Press the remaining crumb mixture in the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Bake the crust in the preheated oven for 8 minutes.
Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium-high heat. In a non-plastic bowl, whisk together the 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks, and vanilla. When the milk is hot but not boiling, slowly pour the milk in a steady stream into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Return the custard to the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or a heat-proof spatula. Cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes over low heat until the custard has thickened. Pour the custard into the graham cracker crust.
Preheat the oven's broiler and set the oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source.
Beat the egg whites until medium peaks form; add 2 tablespoons of sugar and beat until the meringue is stiff. Scoop out the meringue on top of the custard filling. Sprinkle the meringue with the reserved graham cracker crumbs.
Place the pie under the broiler and bake until the meringue starts to brown, 3 to 5 minutes.
The wife of the owner of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago asked that they be created so she could put them in the lunch boxes of her women’s board for the World Columbian Exposition in 1893.
1boxbrownie mixBetty Crocker Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix
3tbspwaterfor mix
1/2cupvegetable oilfor mix
2eggsfor mix
4ozcream cheese
2tbspsemi-sweet chocolate chipsmelted (more for garish)
2tbspBaileys Irish Cream
4ozcool whip
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350° and grease a 12-cup muffin tin. In a large mixing bowl, prepare brownie batter according to package directions.
Add batter to muffin tin and bake 25 to 27 minutes.
Once brownies are out of the oven, press a shot glass into the middle of each, making a shallow cup. Let cool completely.
Make Baileys filling: In a medium bowl using a hand mixer, beat together cream cheese, melted chocolate, and Baileys until smooth. Gently fold in Cool Whip.
Scoop filling into cooled brownie cups and top with more mini chocolate chips.
