Mexican Christmas Dinner

Fantastic meals often are a collaboration in our kitchens, and every year we celebrate Christmas dinner with two other families. This year it was an excellent potluck of seafood and Mexican, since doesn't everyone in Colorado love Mexican/Southwestern food? We made chicken enchiladas, cheese enchiladas, mussels, rice, salad, bread pudding, mexican wedding cookies and coffee chocolate brownies, and drank sparkling cider and good red wine. "Mexican" was just a guideline, I suppose. I may have eaten everything in sight without taking any pictures I recently made more enchiladas, and documented the progress, and I did at least snap a few of the cookies too.

My brother and I were in charge of the chicken enchiladas and the cookies, and my mom made the cheese enchiladas and the brownies. I am definitely a visual person, so when asked to make the dinner and dessert, I wracked my brain for the recipe book. All I came up with was "the book with the leaves at the top of every page" for the cookies, and "the recipe in green ink with a star next to it, and a star next to the previous recipe, too" for the enchiladas. It turns out that those are the Crème de Colorado Cookbook and the Colorado Cache Cookbook, respectively. This is exactly why I am keeping a blog - at least I know what I have written, and blogs conveniently have search bars, unlike our house. At the end of the post I have included both recipes, to keep it convenient for the future. 

Everything else was on the table or in the oven when we arrived, and we had a fantastic time playing games, chatting, exchanging gifts, and of course, eating. 

Speaking of games, if you're ever looking for something fun to play, Bananagrams is a low-stakes incredibly addicting word game, Word on the Street is an awesome team game, and Iota is brilliant and requires lots of strategy - it's basically a mix of Scrabble and Set (which, incidentally, is also a fantastic game). If you're looking for fun, engaging games, the ones that show up in in Mensa or at the National Association of Gifted Children Conference are definitely the ones to buy. Or just ask me - between my family and my friends, we probably own or have played every mind game out there. 

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Adapted from Crème de Colorado Cookbook

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup finely chopped pecans 

powdered sugar to coat

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Add flour, salt and pecans, mixing until the dough holds together. Make small balls of dough (about 1 inch)  and place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on a rack for a few minutes so you don't burn your fingers. Roll in powdered sugar until completely coated. Place the cookies in a container to preserve freshness and avoid rogue powdered sugar ending up all over every counter in the kitchen.

Chicken Enchiladas

Adapted from Colorado Cache Cookbook

2 large whole chicken breasts (raw or frozen)

1 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon minced garlic)

2 tablespoons butter

1 16-ounce can chopped tomatoes

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

1/2 cup chopped green chiles (I prefer medium or hatch chiles, but the mild ones in the work fine too if you're not one for spicy food)

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon basil

12-14 corn tortillas

2 cups (8 ounces) grated Monterrey Jack, Mexican, or Pepperjack cheese (the best enchiladas - and the spiciest - were the ones we made with hot pepperjack cheese)

1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) sour cream 

Note: We had frozen chicken and tried cooking the chicken in the microwave and poaching it, and the result was infinitely better poached. Also, the chicken was cooked more evenly and it didn't take any longer. It isn't a fine art - just cut into the chicken to check if it has any pink. If it does, add a few minutes.

Poach chicken breasts in boiling water until fully cooked, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from water and let cool. Chop onions and mince garlic, then saute in a saucepan with butter until soft and translucent. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, chiles, sugar, cumin, salt, oregano and basil. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Chop the chicken into thin strips - you need at least 12, but I usually chop more like 30 strips. 

From this point, you can either follow the book's instructions or mine. The book says to dip each tortilla in the sauce, both sides, then add chicken and cheese and roll and put the tortilla seam side down in a 9x13 pan. I ended up with fewer broken tortillas and less mess on the whole by warming up the tortillas first. Microwave tortillas in between layers of damp paper towels for about 20 seconds. Pour a thin layer of sauce into the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan. Spoon some sauce, cheese and chicken into warm tortilla. Roll and place seam-side down in pan. Repeat to make at least 12 enchiladas. 

Blend remaining sauce with sour cream and pour over enchiladas. Sprinkle top with remaining cheese. 

Cover and save for later, or bake immediately.

Bake covered at 350ºF for 40 minutes or until heated through and cheese is bubbly.