What's for dinner?

[Portia]

It appears you stuff the cheese in the corn tortilla, along with the meat or any other fillings. You smush the dough around the fillings to make a little ball. Then you fry it. You could get the corn flour from specialty stores, probably, or use another kind of flour if you prefer.

I don't think it's any more "ethnic" than enchiladas, personally. It's not spicy or made with highly exotic ingredients. I don't know how easy they would be to make. You can get really good ones near the Provo Frontrunner station on Freedom.

[Portia]

Here are some top-rated chicken recipes. Cutlets, kebabs, pot pie, and more. Kebabs are easy and can be adjusted to taste.

[Dragon Lady]

I never said I wouldn't like it. I never said that ethnic foods that are similar to ones I like would be gross. I said, " scary = generally ethnic food I've never before had. I've never had pupusas, or whatever it was you suggested that is now on another page. Thus it is currently too scary to be tried. It's really a simple definition.

(Also, thank you Uffish. )

[Whistler]

do you ever eat American-style burritos? You have chicken, beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and tomato (or whatever else you like on your burritos; I like rice and some people like sour cream). Each person serves what they want onto a tortilla and you wrap it up like a burrito. You can eat it hot or cold.

Recently I've been really into these cook-at-home tortillas you can buy in the fridge aisle. You could also make chicken quesadillas with your chicken, if that's a familiar food for you. I've been on kind of a cheesy-spicy kick I guess .

You mentioned you made lots of soup stock, and chicken soup is really easy to make with chicken and chicken stock (which I think someone else mentioned). Just add carrots and noodles and you are pretty much good to go.

If you like turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce, you might also like chicken sandwiches (like the dark meat) with cranberry sauce.

[Dragon Lady]

We eat lots of tacos, enchiladas, and burritos. And quesadillas. I'm kind of sick of them. (We also buy the cook-at-home tortillas. In bulk at CostCo.)

I've been toying with making soup lately. I just fear I over make those sometimes. But we'll probably have some tomorrow. White bean and chicken soup. Mmmm.

[Marduk]

Pupusas are usually grilled, not fried.

DL, I'd recommend an easy pot pie. About the simplest way to do it is to mix up the chicken with canned cream of chicken (with milk) and a bag of frozen peas and carrots. I also just use the Krusteaz pancake mix for a crust. The whole thing can be ready to go into the oven in about five minutes, and takes about 45 minutes to cook. (Of course, I usually do it a lot more complex than that, but that's me.)

[Whistler]

We eat lots of tacos, enchiladas, and burritos. And quesadillas. I'm kind of sick of them. (We also buy the cook-at-home tortillas. In bulk at CostCo.)

Look, you can have familiar foods and get sick of them, or try something new and not be sick of it. I'm not sure if you can have it both ways?

I was complaining to my husband about how you often ask for advice but rarely find any of the advice you receive useful. Then he came up with a bunch of uses for shredded chicken while I made excuses for why they weren't good ideas (his ideas were: plain chicken on bread with BBQ sauce, possibly with BBQ sides, pureed into chicken nuggets, etc.). I'm pretty confident you can find something to do with that chicken though .

[Portia]

Pupusas are usually grilled, not fried.

#TIL Where are your favorite ones?

[Dragon Lady]

We eat lots of tacos, enchiladas, and burritos. And quesadillas. I'm kind of sick of them. (We also buy the cook-at-home tortillas. In bulk at CostCo.)

Look, you can have familiar foods and get sick of them, or try something new and not be sick of it. I'm not sure if you can have it both ways?

I was complaining to my husband about how you often ask for advice but rarely find any of the advice you receive useful. Then he came up with a bunch of uses for shredded chicken while I made excuses for why they weren't good ideas (his ideas were: plain chicken on bread with BBQ sauce, possibly with BBQ sides, pureed into chicken nuggets, etc.). I'm pretty confident you can find something to do with that chicken though .

Haha. You're totally right. It's been a problem of mine for a LONG time. I ask for advice, then vocally shoot down all the advice I get. What people don't know is my brain is compiling all the advice and all the good parts of it and making solutions. But I'm really bad about letting people see the solution side of my brain. And I'm pre ally bad about always shooting down vocally. (Or visually, in this case.) I'm actually WAY better about it now that I was as a kid. As a kid my mom and I would both end up in tears EVERY SINGLE project in school. But I'd always end up with an awesome project that was a combination of all the things my mom had suggested, with the parts removed that wouldn't work. Thanks for reminding me I still have work to do in this regard. (But it makes me laugh that you did the same thing to him.)

But I promise, I've found good advice in everything here, too! And on Facebook, where I also asked. For example, I'm making chicken pillows tonight. (I can't remember which forum suggested that.) And Marduk's chicken pot pie I've actually made several times before in the past, but not this go 'round. And I've got a couple of soups in line. And I got the recipe for the honey/lime enchiladas we had on Sunday (unfortunately not made with my chicken) and plan on making them again sometime soon, cuz Yellow really liked those. And really what I should do is just freeze this chicken so I don't feel like I have to eat two whole chickens' worth of meat in a week. Haha. That would be smart. But then I think, "But what amount should I freeze them in if I don't know what I'm going to be cooking with them later?" (See? I shoot down my own ideas, too. It's not personal, I promise. )

[Whistler]

haha, okay, good, at least you're aware of it

[mic0]

Last time I got a whole raw chicken from the grocery store, it was SUCH A PAIN to actually take the chicken apart. Is it easier to dismember if it is slow-cooked? How did you slow-cook it? I boiled mine. I want to try again, because the chicken was very tasty and less expensive per pound. Just wondering. And do you put anything in the broth?

[Amity]

And really what I should do is just freeze this chicken so I don't feel like I have to eat two whole chickens' worth of meat in a week. Haha. That would be smart. But then I think, "But what amount should I freeze them in if I don't know what I'm going to be cooking with them later?"

I would freeze it in 1-cup increments in baggies so it's easy to pull out and defrost however much you need for a recipe down the line. Because, yeah, I would get sick of eating shredded chicken every day for a week. And this is coming from a person who mostly eats leftovers.

[Dragon Lady]

Last time I got a whole raw chicken from the grocery store, it was SUCH A PAIN to actually take the chicken apart. Is it easier to dismember if it is slow-cooked? How did you slow-cook it? I boiled mine. I want to try again, because the chicken was very tasty and less expensive per pound. Just wondering. And do you put anything in the broth?

I roughly chop an onion, 2-3 carrots and 2-3 stalks celery (I'm talking big pieces here. Like, quarter the onion. You're not eating these, so you want them easy to get out) and put them in the bottom of a 6-quart or larger crockpot. Then I put the chicken on top, spine up. (Make sure you pull anything you don't want out of the cavity.) Then I cover with water to the top of the crockpot (leaving maybe 1/8-1/4" headspace to account for light boiling). And cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Because it is completely full, and it only boils lightly, the chicken keeps its shape. So when it's done, you can easily pull the skin off the back of the chicken and pull out the spine. That's by far the worst part if you boil it in a pot. Because it boils harder and tears the chicken to pieces. Vertebrae everywhere.

When it's done I pull out the chicken and put it on a rimmed plate or baking sheet (there is stock inside and will spill out) (this part is actually hard, as it falls apart. Last time I used a cake lifter, because it's big, and a wide slotted spoon. It seemed to work well enough. Then I pull off the skin and spine and break up the rest of the chicken into large pieces, to help cool down faster. Then I pour everything left in the crock pot through a strainer into a pot. Stock goes in the pot, veggies and sometimes a bit of chicken and bones stay in the strainer. Once the chicken cools enough to handle, I pull the meat off the bones, which at this point is pretty easy, because most of the small bones are already gone, from the spine.

Voila!

(And then I can the broth, and bemoan my lack of creativity for shredded chicken. I really need to do this with someone else. Spilt the cost, they get the chicken and I get the stock. It'd totally be win-win.)

[Marduk]

Portia, I don't really care for pupusas that much. I'd much rather eat tamales.

DL, out of curiosity, why do you can your own broth? It doesn't seem worth it, cost wise, to me.

[Digit]

I once visited a friend in San Diego and he said, "Let's get some fish tacos." That combination of words sounded gross to my ear, but they sure were good in my mouth.

[Dragon Lady]

Portia, I don't really care for pupusas that much. I'd much rather eat tamales.

DL, out of curiosity, why do you can your own broth? It doesn't seem worth it, cost wise, to me.

I don't do it for cost. I do it to control what goes in. And for the insane health properties of broth.

[Marduk]

I should've been more specific. What I mean is the benefits that are provided with that additional control don't seem to justify the costs, dollar wise or time.

Canned broth is cheap and plentiful, and actually pretty good quality, because there's such a market for cooked chicken as parts of other foods. The only reason I can see to making your own is out of concern for sodium content, which tends to only matter if someone has high blood pressure.

So that's my confusion. I'm all for making things and canning them in order to control quality, that's why I can my own salsa. The quality difference between buying cans of broth versus making your own is negligible.

[Whistler]

homemade broth is WAY better than canned, and quite a bit better than "better than bouillon." Maybe you haven't had really good homemade chicken broth, Marduk?

[Dragon Lady]

I hate keyboard shortcuts right now. I've hit something twice now that opens a new site and I lose what I wrote. So, blah, blah, health, control, knowledge.

Also, it's not that time or money intensive. I spent maybe $10 and got 13 pints of broth and a huge bowl of shredded chicken. Forget about the chicken and I paid about 77¢ per pint of broth. Add in the cost of that much shredded chicken and the cost of the broth is negligible. As for time, active labor was maybe ... 45 mins? Most of that was the separating chicken and bones part for two chickens.

[Marduk]

homemade broth is WAY better than canned, and quite a bit better than "better than bouillon." Maybe you haven't had really good homemade chicken broth, Marduk?

To clarify, are you guys eating the broth as a soup, or using it as an ingredient in things? I don't do the former, and there's no difference for the latter.