Chicken Enchiladas and Cornbread

When we were making our weekly meal plan a few weeks ago I told my husband that I was in the mood to make chicken enchiladas and should I make cornbread to go with that? He gave me this look that said, "Uh, yes of course!" Well, okay. That was settled then. I'll start with the cornbread recipe. I found it on allrecipes.com and it's called Absolute Mexican Cornbread if anybody wants to search the recipe for themselves. As per usual, I've altered it slightly. Here goes:

1 cup butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
4 eggs
1 (15 oz) can cream corn
1 can green chiles (drained)
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I usually use the New Bothwell jalapeno cheese but I didn't have any this time around)
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I used marble here)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

So, I mixed up the butter and sugar in my trusty Kitchen Aid and once that was nicely mixed I left my mixer on and added the eggs, one at a time.

Butter and sugar together, before mixing and adding the eggs. I grated some cheese quickly...

And then added the cream corn, chiles and cheese to the butter and sugar in the mixer.

In a separate bowl I added all the dry ingredients together (flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt) and then added that to the corn mixture. I preheated the oven to 300 degrees Celsius, put the batter into a 9x13 baking dish...

 And baked for one hour. Once it's done it comes out looking like...

... this! So worth the wait. Too bad I didn't have any jalapeno cheese for that extra kick BUT it was still amazing. It's best served fresh on the day it was made but it does hold up well in the fridge for a couple of days.
So, while the cornbread was baking, I started whipping up the enchiladas. This recipe came from a cookbook that my work put together a couple of years ago and it's actually a recipe from a woman that I work with. I make it almost exactly to her specifications and they come out perfect every single time.

4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sour cream
2 cups prepared salsa
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar or Monterey Jack,I used marble again because that is what I had in the house)
2 cups shredded, cooked chicken (I think I used 2 1/2 breasts)
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed (I have used them frozen before - as I forgot to take them out ahead of time, oops - and it worked fine as well)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon dried Italian parsley (this was something I added)
salt and pepper to taste
4 green onions, thinly sliced
14 soft, round 6-8 inch tortillas (I used 9 here and made them a little more full)

First, I cooked the chicken in a pan with a little salt and pepper until cooked all the way through. Once they were done I set them on a cutting board to rest and cool off just a little bit. While the chicken was cooking I prepped the rest of my ingredients. I combined the cream cheese and sour cream until well mixed. Then I stirred in 1/2 cup of the salsa (the stuff that my mom and I made), and 1 cup of shredded cheese.

I then got to work shredding my chicken. The way that I shred chicken (or pork for pulled pork, same concept) is by taking two forks and tearing little layers off at a time.

Once the chicken was all shredded, I put it all in a bowl and added the corn kernels and all the spices (cumin, oregano, cayenne, Italian parsley, salt and pepper) and mixed that all up together.

I used about this much Italian parsley...

Here's a story about how I came to acquire this wonderful herb. A few weeks ago, a woman came into my work with this huge bag of Italian parsley that she had just got from her garden. She said she brought it in for all of us which was extremely thoughtful. At the end of the day only one other person had taken any and there was still a huge bunch left and since I hated to see it go to waste I just took it all home. Once I got home however I was unsure what to do with it. My wonderful mother saved the day and told me to chop it all up really nice and fine and then dry it out and then I would have all this wonderful Italian parsley to use. So that's what I did. I chopped it all up, put a paper towel on a baking sheet and put the parsley on the paper towel. It took a week or two until it was all dry and periodically I would just mix it all up so the stuff on the bottom would get dry as well and now I have this huge jar of fresh Italian parsley! Awesome! Anyway...
I mixed the chicken mixture with the sour cream/salsa mixture and warmed up my tortilla shells. I also pulled out a baking dish and put about a 1/2 cup of salsa on the bottom for some moisture. I started assembling my enchiladas by placing about 1/3 cup of filling onto the tortilla. I used a measuring cup to get it basically exact so each of my enchiladas would have about the same amount of filling.

I spread the filling out and rolled it up and placed them in the baking dish.

I then poured the remaining salsa over top (1 cup) and topped that with the rest of the shredded cheese (1 cup).

I baked these in the oven at 325 degrees Celsius for 20-25 minutes until hot and bubbly. Once out of the oven, add the green onions to the top.

Voila, our Monday night Mexican fiesta.

And now, just because they're cute, here's a picture of my cats Bonkers and Thumper...

We got Thumper (the little guy) a few weeks ago so our cat Bonkers (the big girl) wouldn't be so lonely. So far they seem to like each other as they're cuddling after all :)

- A