Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Leftover Magic and Improvised Refridgerator Cooking

There is something exciting about taking ho hum leftovers and creating something fantastic out of it. I also see the random left overs in the fridge as a bit of a challenge. Sour cream, whipping cream, half a box of vegetable stock....bring it.

We had went out Saturday night on a rare double date night with some new friends and came home with half of a chicken. I told him to order pasta but he swears he didn't hear me - but either way we came home with an entire half a chicken that he didn't touch much of. I do admit it didn't look good - neither of us enjoy picking meat off bones.

Sunday night rolled around and I was still looking for ways to use up the half a box of vegetable stock that has been in our fridge from a pasta sauce recipe we tried. Perusing through my evernote recipes for inspiration - it hit!

Half a left over chicken fully seasoned and cooked from the restaurant + vegetable stock + sour cream + 1/4 bag of tortilla chip crumbles = Enchilada Soup!

It is a recipe I have saved in my evernote account for awhile now that has sounded so good! Though at first, as it was cooking up I was skeptical - wasn't hitting me as great as far as smell or taste with just the chicken, store-bought veg stock and tomatoes. Not to mention that I forgot to grab heavy cream from the store - boo! Nothing else to do but improvise! Took advantage of the "cream of something soup mix" I had made up quite a while ago in the pantry - put in 2-3 tablespoons. And a few tablespoons of flour, a few tablespoons of butter - lots of salt and pepper.

But what really made this meal come to together are the add-ins. They take the soup from mediocre to sheer inhalatino-mode.

Here is what we added and suggest making mandatory if you plan on trying this recipe at all - of course they cannot be added on until last minute right before serving.

- crumbled tortilla chips (enough to make up for the thickness of the soup depending on how much chicken you put in etc - I never got the base to actually become creamy as the recipe states - of couse I didn't have heavy cream so this could why - no I take that back - it is definitely why - but I didn't want to NOT make it or run to the store again - so two handfuls of crumbled chips it is! 
- cheddar cheese
- monterrey jack cheese
- sour cream dollop
- green onion
- and inhale :)

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