Green Chile Chicken-bacon and Macaroni Skillet Meal

It's Wednesday...a crazy day wedged right in the middle of a busy week. If your days are anything like mine, you need fast meals in the middle of the week.  Well...this is one that never fails to make my family happy.  It's fast, hearty and satisfying.  Ace will even eat it if I don't mention the chicken too much.  It has a short enough list of ingredients, you might already have everything in your cupboard too!  So...speed walk over to your kitchen, throw open your cupboard doors with reckless abandon and swoon dramatically so your family thinks you are actually thinking about dinner.  I've got you covered.

Green Chile Chicken-bacon and Macaroni Skillet Meal

14 oz cooked macaroni noodles (well seasoned with Chef Tess All purpose Seasoning)
15 oz prepared alfredo sauce (use my condensed soup mix--prepared or store purchased of your choice)
16 oz chicken breast, cut in cubes (seasoned with salt and pepper)
2T butter or olive oil
1 onion
7 oz can diced green chile (or fresh peeled and chopped)
1/2 cup cooked crumbled bacon

2 cups shredded sharp white cheddar (or regular sharp cheddar)

Directions:
Saute the oil, chicken, and onions until onion is clear and chicken is cooked through.  Add the alfredo sauce, green chile and bacon.   Mix until smooth. Fold in the noodles.  Top with cheese.

Serve hot.

There you go.  Have a fast middle of the week skillet dinner. Smooches!

Enchilada Tortilla Skillet Casserole

Hey Wednesday is a good day to post a quick middle of the week meal. I for one am running around like a super geek. I think if I really wanted to, I could pull off wearing the Super Geek tights and cape (in a lovely lilac color) complete...with foil wrist bands and jalapenos dangling from my ear lobes. I will also require some highly reflective lime green go-go boots, kiwi scented hair gel and a bean burrito sized belt buckle full of super geek gadgets. That just seems to be a super geek necessity. Tell me I get a communicator badge like captain Kirk. Seriously...I'd roll from one galactic tragedy to another in my Super Geek suit. No, I would not be causing the tragedy. Yikes. Perhaps we could fashion some rudimentary cardboard wings and duct tape them to the magic mini van. It's a bird. It's a plane. Oh dear Land...it's Super Geek. Save yourselves!

I digress.

Hopefully this gives you some ammo in the kitchen as you get ready to face the last few days of the work week. We love it around here. It's a casserole that doesn't require turning on the oven. Now isn't that nice? Take it from a Super Geek...



Enchilada Tortilla Skillet Casserole
1 poblano* pepper, (or bell pepper works too.)
1 onion, chopped
1 lb hamburger, very lean (or well seasoned ground turkey or chicken)
2 tbsp Homemade Taco Seasoning
1 can organic(15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups organic thick and chunky salsa, (roasted variety has more flavor)
4 cups broken baked organic tortilla chips
1 cup (4 oz) organic shredded cheddar and Monterrey Jack cheese blend (for a lower fat version, try using only a 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar!)
Snipped fresh cilantro (optional)
Taco toppings like: fat free Sour cream, chopped avocados, fresh tomatoes and black olives (optional--but a must have around my house!)

1. Remove stem and seeds from poblano pepper, chop. Combine hamburger, onion, peppers and seasoning mix in a large skillet (12 inch or larger with a lid). Cook over medium high heat for 5-7 minutes until peppers are soft and meat is no longer pink.

2. Drain and rinse black beans.

3. Stir beans and salsa into hamburger mixture. Gently stir in tortilla chips. Grate cheese over casserole. Cover 3-5 minutes or until cheese is melted everything is hot. If desired, snip cilantro; sprinkle over casserole.
Yield: 6 servings

*Poblano peppers are dark green chilies with a rich flavor that varies from mild to slightly spicy. Poblanos are about 2 1/2 in. wide and 4-5 in. long, forming a triangular shape.

For a freezer meal: Put in a freezer safe casserole dish. Combine all ingredients according to recipe until you get to the last cooking time. Don't cook. Cover, label, and freeze. To cook, heat in microwave 15-20 minutes from frozen or 5-7 minutes if defrosted.

For solar oven/conventional oven baking: Bake 1 hour from frozen, or 30 minutes if defrosted. Allow an extra 15 minutes of baking for every time you open a solar oven.

This dinner is excellent served with a Mexican brown rice or a fresh spinach salad with roasted corn kernels, tomatoes, or fresh pineapple chunks and a lime olive oil dressing. Not sure how to make salad dressing? Check out the 4 Basic Pasta Salads and One dressing for some great ideas.

Double Cheeseburger skillet meal mix

Mix making Monday is crazy fun around here. I try to recreate mixes that are commonly used at home, but make them more natural and less expensive. So today is no exception. We've been playing around with the double cheeseburger hamburger skillet meal mix. The main expense is the organic cheese powder. Look for it on sale or it is also possible to use dry Parmesan cheese in it's place. Do You know the skillet meal mixes I'm talking about? They're the ones where you take a pound of lean hamburger and brown it in a skillet.

Then you add all this stuff and feed it to your family.

I know it's dang convenient. However, our mix uses a little less stuff.

Tess' Double Cheeseburger Hamburger Skillet meal mix
yield: 10, 1 oz sauce mixes

8 oz Organic Cheddar Cheese Powder (2 1/2 cups)
1 oz powdered milk (1/4 cup)

1 0z all purpose flour (1/4 cup)...For gluten free, use 2T cornstarch

1 1/2 tsp granulated garlic

1T granulated onion
2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions:

Combine all ingredients well. Use 1 oz (1/4 cup mix) to 3 oz of macaroni noodles (about 2 cups). I put the dry powder with the noodles in quart size storage bags with the label "cheeseburger helper".

When hamburger is browned, I add 1 cup hot water and 1 1/2 cup milk or soy milk. Bring to a boil and cover. Simmer 8-10 minutes until noodles are tender. Sauce will thicken a little more as it cools.

Your family may want more salt or seasoning. Adjust as needed.

If you are doing gluten free, use rice noodles and adjust the cooking time as needed.

Do you want to make it vegetarian with Meatless Wonders Hamburger Replacement? Add the meat replacement after the noodles cook instead of browning it, you just cook the noodles with the sauce mix and then fold in the 'veggie burger. Nice.

There you go my friends.