Super Simple Breakfast Burritos

I've had a craving for breakfast burritos for the past eight weeks (since I was 14 weeks pregnant). It was one of my first real cravings. My mom sent me an article about breakfast burritos and I had to have one right that very second—this was around 7 or 8 pm and unfortunately, Italy doesn't exactly have the Mexican fast food like they do in New Mexico. Working on autopilot, I quickly made, ate, and savored that burrito, and then repeated my actions  the next morning for breakfast. And then the next morning...and so on and so on. I can't get enough of these, and the fact that they're so easy to assemble is probably why I have them at least four times a week.

The directions below are a loose "recipe," but the method is the same despite what ingredients you use.

First things first: get everything together before you start. It'll make everything go a lot faster and smoother.

Ingredients:

Veggies 

(I typically use onions, mushrooms, and spinach, and then add other veggies depending on my mood. Sun-dried tomatoes, jalapenos, peppers, etc.) 

 Meat 

(2 pieces of bacon per burrito, cooked and crispy; 2 slices of Canadian bacon, chopped; or a small handful of cooked, reduced-fat crumbled sausage)

Cheese 

(1/2 an ounce to 1 ounce per burrito) 

Sauce 

(salsa, red or green chile sauce)

Tortilla 

(you need a good, burrito-sized tortilla. You can use these tortillas if you want breakfast tacos instead—equally as delicious!) 

Side note: do you grate your own cheese? It melts so much nicer than the prepackaged shredded kind. I shred a brick of cheese and then keep it in a Ziploc to use the rest of the week. Also, have whatever meat you want to use cooked and ready to go before you start cooking—it'll speed things up! 

Once you have everything ready to go, spray a light coating of cooking spray in a small pan and saute the onions on medium heat until they're soft and translucent. Next, add the rest of the veggies (except for spinach) and saute; season with salt and pepper as desired. 

After the veggies are cooked I add in my meat (not the bacon...bacon comes later). The meat I use is already cooked, so I add it in just to warm it up. Once it's warm, turn the heat down to low and spray a bit more cooking spray in pan. Add the eggs over veggies. (For one burrito I use two eggs; for two burritos I use three eggs.)

It's okay if the eggs break, because you're going to scramble them up anyway. At this point I season with a sprinkle of salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder. Use what you have and like.

I like my scrambled eggs dry or hard, so I cook them until all the moisture is gone. This also helps with not having a liquidy burrito! After the eggs are cooked, add a handful of spinach and mix it all up. The spinach will quickly shrivel up once its heated, which is my cue to add the sauce. I like things spicy, so I add a lot—add your sauce to taste, turn the heat up to medium, and stir, stir, stir. By doing this, you'll keep the flavor, but not the liquid. A burrito isn't fun when it's dripping everywhere! 

If everything is heated up and mixed together to your liking, turn the heat off and get ready to put it all together! At this point I put a little row of cheese on the tortilla and heat it up for about 15 seconds in the microwave. (If I'm having bacon as my meat I put one slice of cooked, crispy bacon on top of the cheese and the other one will go on top of the egg mixture.)

Now it's time to roll! I pick a side to be the "butt" and go from there, folding the bottom up and then the sides to ensure none of the mixture will fall out. Some people close both ends, but I leave one open since I plan on eating it right away.

There you have it! A super simple breakfast burrito!

*A special thanks to Casey from We Took the Road Less Traveled for taking the photos above!

Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

I grew up on my tias' green chile chicken enchilada casserole, but I never bothered to ask how they made it; I mean, why learn how to cook it when they'll make it for you? Actually, that's not true. I think I did ask—several times—but their recipe included "some" of this, "a little" of that, followed by a dash, a pinch, and a sprinkling of "those." They all swore it was "really easy to make," which is why they didn't have an actual recipe.

I'm the type of person who needs clear-cut directions. Spell it out for me in detail so I can check, double check, and then have someone else make sure I got it all right, otherwise you'll end up with salt cookies instead of sugar cookies. So a few weeks before I moved from New Mexico to Georgia, my mom and I practiced making green chile chicken enchiladas. It turns out making the casserole really is pretty freaking easy.

I've been making this now for more than two years and I'm proud to say I don't use a recipe for it anymore, which is why it's probably taken me so long to share this with you. I have the basics down, but sometimes I'll throw in a little something extra (it's great with an additional 1 cup of sauteed mushrooms) or play around with ingredients (sometimes I use whatever cheese I have on hand, and I love using leftover Thanksgiving turkey in place of the chicken). The recipe also works great cut in half, which is something I like to do when it's just me at home.

Like most casseroles, this tastes better after it's been out of the oven for a few hours and even better the next day. All the flavors have time to sit, mingle, and get to know each other, resulting in a party in your mouth later. If you do make it ahead of time, just pop it back into the oven for a bit to warm it back up. Serve with Spanish rice, calabacitas (coming this week!), and homemade tortillas!

Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

by The Tale of Two Kitchens

Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
2 (10 oz) cans cream of mushroom soup
1 batch green chile sauce (or 1-2 cups green chile, pealed and chopped)
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic
8 corn tortillas, quartered
1/4 cup your favorite salsa
12 oz shredded cheese (cheddar or Colby/Monterrey Jack blend)
1/2 onion, chopped (optional, but only if you absolutely, positively HATE onions)

Directions: 
Preheat oven to 350F (180c). Lightly spray a 9x13 casserole dish with non-stick spray.

In a medium-sized pot on medium-high heat, combine soup, chile, and (cooked) chicken. Add ground pepper, cumin and garlic; mix to combine. Once the mixture starts to boil thickly, take off heat, stir, and set aside.

Submerge quartered tortilla pieces in salsa one at a time and place along the bottom of the casserole dish so the whole thing is covered (it takes around three and a half whole tortillas per layer—it's okay if there are some spaces or if they lay on top of each other). Spread half of chicken mixture over tortillas. Sprinkle half the onions over chicken mixture, then add around a 1/4 of the cheese over the onions. Repeat layers with remaining ingredients ending with the cheese.

Bake, covered with foil, for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for an additional 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly. Let cool, slice, and serve! (It's often not very set when we eat it straight out of the oven, but it still tastes great and will firm up for leftovers!)

Buffalo Chicken Salad

Last week we put our house up on the market, which means that we're trying to keep it as clean as possible. If you've ever been in our shoes, then you know how frazzled I feel about keeping our kitchen clean. I love cooking, but I'm not always the cleanest cook. Actually, I'm a really messy cook, which now presents a problem.

One night, when I didn't know what to make for dinner because I wanted to keep things mess free, my husband reminded me about a meal we love that is ridiculously easy to make. This salad is filling, spicy, tangy, and is a meal even guys will sink their teeth into.

I love it, because it's a healthy alternative to devouring hot wings submerged in ranch dressing. My husband likes to skimp on the ingredients (just chicken, lettuce, cheese, and dressing for him), but I like including whatever veggies we have on hand. Consider the following more of a "how-to" instead of an actual recipe. In other words: tweak as you see fit!

Buffalo Chicken Salad

by The Tale of Two Kitchens

Ingredients:
Breaded chicken breast tenderloins
Buffalo wing sauce (Frank's RedHot Buffalo tastes great, but we actually use the store brand)
Lettuce
Blue cheese crumbles (reduced fat tastes just as good!)
Ranch or blue cheese dressing
tomatoes (optional)
green onions (optional)
celery (optional)
avocado (optional)

Directions:
Cook chicken in oven according to directions, flipping once to get both sides crisp. While chicken is cooking, prep salad bowls with lettuce and other ingredients. When chicken is finished cooking, set aside to cool. In a medium sized bowl, pour about 1/4–1/2 cup (to taste) hot wing sauce (you can always add more!). Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces and place in bowl with hot sauce. Toss to coat; place buffalo chicken on top of lettuce. Add desired amount of salad dressing; enjoy.

Sweet Chili Tilapia

In our household, we enjoy eating fish at least twice a week for dinner. The problem with having it that often is that white fish can sometimes taste boring if it's not seasoned well. And we all know that boring food leads to dinner ruts, which leads to scrapping the fish idea and just eating out instead. So we have to get creative with what we put on our fish.

Enter Sweet Chile Sauce (found near the soy sauce in most supermarkets). We LOVE this stuff and put it on everything from fish and poultry, to rice and pasta, so expect to see more of it in the future. It has the perfect amount of zestiness to sweetness and enhances food so well. For this particular recipe, I use a 1-1-1/2 ratio. For every tablespoon of sweet chili sauce, add the same amount of soy sauce, and half the amount of Worcestershire.

Sweet Chili Tilapia

serves 4

Ingredients:
4 tilapia fillets, thawed (can use any white fish)
4 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium, if possible)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
garlic powder (to taste)

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl. In a shallow baking dish, lay fish out evenly, without touching. Sprinkle desired amount of garlic poweder over fish. Pour chili mixture over fish; marinate for about 10 minutes. Flip and marinate other side for another 10 minutes. Bake for 10-15 minutes until fish is white and flaky. Serve and pour excess sauce over fish. Enjoy!

Egg Florentine

As a military wife, I have to learn to cook for one when my husband deploys or goes on business trips, which is much easier said than done. Lonilness usually kicks in around meal time and it's so simple and tempting to pick up a bag of chips or snack on cookies rather than eat a wholesome meal. After he leaves I try to make "bulk" meals like soup, spaghetti, or casseroles, basically anything I can keep in the fridge and easily reheat for later.

I saw Pioneer Woman's Eggs Floreninte Casserole and wanted to try it out, but I knew I'd get bored eating the whole thing day after day, so I cut the recipe in half and changed a few things here and there. The end result was tasty and substantial—I didn't get hungry again for several hours, which is always a good thing.

Consider the recipe below as a base to add other veggies or swapping out different meats—sausage would be fantastic with this, but I was concerned with keeping the WW points low. Next time I may add some mushrooms and green peppers to bulk it up even more. If you're making this for a larger group, just double the recipe or check out  PW's original version. And if making your own hash browns is too intimidating, skip the hassle and just use frozen hash browns!

Eggs Florentine Casserole

adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
1 russet potato, shredded (about 1-2 cups)
½ onion chopped
1 ounce diced green chile (or jalapenos)
6 strips bacon, crumbled
2 teaspoons oil
salt and pepper (to taste)
8 eggs (or two cups of egg beaters)
1 cup cheese
1 ½–2 cups of spinach

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees; lightly grease a small baking dish with cooking spray. Cook bacon until crisp; set aside on paper towel. Shred/julienne potatoes (you’re going for hash browns here, folks!) Heat butter and oil in skillet; add potatoes; season with salt and pepper. Leave in skillet for about five minutes or until crispy; flip. When both sides are cooked, add onion; mix until onions are translucent. Transfer potatoes mixture to baking dish; layer crumbled bacon and green chile or jalapenos. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together eggs and ½ cup cheese; add spinach and mix together more. Pour egg and spinach mixture over casserole. Bake for 20 minutes or until eggs are set. Once eggs are cooked, sprinkle remaining cheese; bake for an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.