| courtneyb

Chicken, Spinach & Mushroom Enchiladas

Thursday, March 19th, 2009 | recipes | No Comments

This is a recipe I’ve adapted over time from ground turkey and red sauce to chicken with green sauce. These are generally quick and easy to make and also freeze well. They’re easy to adjust the proportions to use what you have on hand.

Flour tortillas (I use the Mission brand 96% Fat Free Heart Healthy ones)
1 can enchilada verde sauce
boneless skinless chicken breast
1 sweet onion chopped
fresh mushrooms, sliced or chopped
fresh spinach, chopped
1 8 oz block cream cheese (I use either fat free or Neufchatel 1/3 Less Fat)
grated cheese (I currently use the Weight Watcher mexican blend)

Saute chopped onion and shredded chicken in olive oil (if you really want to lighten it up, use the Pam olive oil spray). Season onion with Tony’s Creole Seasoning or your own blend of salt, red and black pepper, cumin, garlic powder, chili powder. Add mushrooms once chicken and onions are almost done.

Add cream cheese and stir until melted and blended through. Add fresh spinach and stir until spinach is wilted.

Spoon mixture into tortillas and roll tightly placing in glass baking dish.

Pour sauce over entire pan and sprinkle top with cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.

Tags: chicken, mexican, mushrooms, spinach

Mardi Gras Mambo

Monday, February 23rd, 2009 | recipes | No Comments

King Cake '09 It wasn’t until later this afternoon I realized why I’ve been such a crank ass today– tomorrow’s fat tuesday and I haven’t had any king cake yet. So i remedied that this evening by making two reduced fat Apple and Cream Cheese filled King Cakes. I’m sure there is something wrong with making them reduced fat, but it makes me feel better about eating it so it’ll do. I’m sure mine taste better than the two sad ones in the bakery at Giant this evening.

I have this one on the cake pedestal I bought for $10 at the “garage sale” at Suzie’s Bakery this weekend.

Tags: apple, baked, dessert, fruit, louisiana, mardigras

25 random things

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 | randomness | 1 Comment

i keep getting tagged in facebook to do this 25 random things post. i’m going to put it there, but i thought others may enjoy this…

i’m always always up for a spontaneous trip.
my friend Ramsay taught me to drive in his Ford Festiva.
i have an irrational fear of basements.
i can’t really cook without Tony Chachere’s creole seasoning.
i’ve been to two emeril live tapings– thanks kelly.
not sure i could live without ice cream and cheese.
i had a pet pygmy hedgehog when i was in grad school.
i think i weigh less now than i did in high school.
i wore bubba teeth on my first date with kelvin.
if i wake up in the middle of the night i have to brush my teeth before i can go back to sleep.
i broke the same bone in both feet five years apart.
dancing was to blame the first time; dancing and vodka were to blame for the second.
i don’t drink vodka.
i don’t write in cursive.
i’m allergic to asparagus and kiwi.
i’ve always wanted to sing well and in public.
i think most people who know me really well would agree i’m a pretty creative person.
i miss my southern friends.
i would move back to memphis in a heartbeat.
i have an irrational fear of my house catching on fire.
i’m better at teaching people to dive and knit that i am at actually doing these things.
my favorite cereal of all time is cap’n crunch
i can’t ever remember who sang a certain song or what actor/actress played a part but i can pretty much tell you what i was wearing (and maybe what you were wearing) on most days.
i love to chop things — onions, nuts, peppers — and obsessively make them a consistent size.
england, ireland, france, germany, belgium, st lucia, china, russia — it annoys me when i have to ask the immigration agent to stamp by passport.

Pear Muffins, are you serious?

Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | recipes | No Comments

I don’t usually go gaga over pictures of food; well sometimes I do, but not often. But these Glazed Pear Muffins on the WW website today make me want to skip work and go bake:

Glazed Pear Muffins

	2 spray(s) cooking spray
	2 large pear(s), ripe, Bosc, with skin
	1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/3 cup(s) sugar, granulated
	1 tsp fresh lemon juice
	1/2 cup(s) sour cream
	1 large egg(s), beaten
	1 tsp vanilla extract
	1/3 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	2 cup(s) all-purpose flour, unbleached
	1/2 tsp table salt
	1/2 tsp baking soda
	1 tsp baking powder
	1/2 cup(s) powdered sugar
	1/4 tsp ground ginger
	1/4 tsp vanilla extract
	3 tsp water, warm, or more if necessary Preheat oven to 375ºF and coat a 12-hole muffin tin with cooking spray or muffin liners. Core and chop pears into tiny cubes; place in a large bowl. Add cinnamon, granulated sugar and lemon juice to pears; set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together sour cream, egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and milk; set aside. In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Make a well with a spoon in center of flour mixture and pour in sour cream mixture and fruit mixture, alternating in small batches; mix until barely blended. Do not over beat. (NOTE: Batter will be very thick.) Drop batter by heaping tablespoons into muffin holes until about 2/3 to 3/4 full; bake until top is golden, about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes in muffin tin; remove from tins to racks and cool completely. (Or leave slightly warm to dip into glaze for easier preparation.) While muffins are cooling, make glaze: Mix powdered sugar, ginger, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and warm water together in a small bowl (add another teaspoon of water if glaze is too thick) . Spread a thin layer of glaze over each muffin. Yields 1 muffin per serving.

Tags: baked, baking, food, fruit, pear, ww

Random photo of me

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 | randomness | 1 Comment

another benefit of this snow day is the time to just surf. in the process, i found this post about the Moodle Meeting on the NITLE website. that’s me… from last year.

Snow day

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 | randomness | No Comments

first snow day of the year, so why was i so cranky about it this morning?

because seriously lafayette, k got a text from his school around 5:40 letting him know school there was cancelled. i called our number at 6:28 and no message. so i showered, dressed, fixed breakfast for us, got my lunch ready, had my gym bag packed. i was dropping my phone in the purse and thought; i’ll check email one more time. that’s when i got the email from my boss letting me know a meeting was cancelled since work was closed.

i guess i should be glad i checked email before i left for work, but it still made me cranky. i sat on the couch and fummed for a little longer before i went up and changed into clothes that appreciate a nice coat of dog hair.

it’s possible being awake and ready did help me use my snow day a little more wisely. i did a few things for work (thank the heavens for the VPN), upgraded to WP 2.7 for this blog, paid bills, cancelled two magazine subscriptions, baked yummy banana oatmeal bars and made some chicken, sausage and okra gumbo for lunch.

here’s the part of the afternoon when the wheels are likely to fall off this productivity wagon. so i’ll put on some coffee and check on facebook…

Tags: baking, rant, snow, wordpress

G’s Shrimp Mold

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 | recipes | No Comments

1 small can of tomato soup
1 Large Pack (8oz) of Philadelphia cream cheese
Cooked shrimp (about 3 dozen)
½ cup celery
½ cup green onions
1 cup of mayo
2 packs of unflavored gelatin
¼ cup of water
Note: I use a food processor to chop the shrimp, celery & green onions

Heat soup until it starts to boil, add cream cheese, and stir until the cream cheese dissolves. Cool for a few minutes, add shrimp,celery,onions & mayo, mix well. Mix the ¼ cup of water to the 2 packs of gelatin, then add to the rest of the ingredients, mix well. Chill for 3hours

Tags: appetizer

Happy (early) Anniversary to us!

Monday, December 15th, 2008 | randomness | No Comments

Celebrating our 6th Anniversary

As is his usual MO, kelvin had a fun weekend planned for us to celebrate our anniversary this weekend. We left Saturday morning and stopped to leave Braut with our friends E&A before getting on the road. I had no idea where we were headed so when we got on 78 headed east I thought maybe NYC or maybe upstate NY somewhere. But then we turned off and headed south in New Jersey. The weather was beautiful and we ended up at the Seaview Resort just outside Atlantic City.

That evening we had a great dinner at Bobby Flay Steak inside the Borgata. We enjoyed some Prosecco, Le Colture ‘Brut Spumante’, Valdobbiadene n.v. that I hope to find at a wine shop somewhere. We started with a lobster crab cake and the romaine salad. Then moved on to our NY Strips. I splurged for the Philladelphia style sitting on a provolone cheese reduction with three little mounds of carmalized onions. We really didn’t even need the wild mushroom mashed potatoes with truffle oil or the butterscotch and chocolate layer cake with raspberry sauce we shared for dessert. The pastry chef added a Happy Anniversary plaque and a candle.

Kenny Rogers Christmas show

Though the dinner was amazing, we weren’t finished yet. Kelvin had tickets for us to see Kenny Rogers at the Taj Mahal. We certainly were outliers for the demographic, but the show was great. He came out and many of his big hits or medley’s of them. Then while the band played a holiday tune, he changed and came back out to do a Christmas show. It was so fun to see him, and the fact that Kelvin admitted to having a good time was great.

We finished up the weekend yesterday with a trip to the hotel fitness center and the amazing Sunday Champagne Brunch at the SeaView– mimosas, lobster claws, oysters, shrimp, and I splurged on a yummy biscuit.

The weather was beautiful for our drive home, and we stopped at one of the big malls to finish up some shopping. Just spending time together always reminds me how lucky I am.

Tags: concerts, food, photos, travel

All we want for Christmas

Sunday, December 7th, 2008 | randomness | 2 Comments

Unbelievable that we’re already well into December– where is the month going? and where has the past year gone? We’ve been busy this year, and it absolutely shows.

At Zach's holiday party, Dec 6, 2008

After Christine's holiday party Dec 9, 2007

I made lifetime at weight watchers this week. All that means is that I made it to a goal weight and have maintained that for six weeks. It’s pretty exciting to see the changes in both of us captured here in photos taken almost exactly a year apart.

The best part isn’t how we’ve done it, it’s that we have. We’re probably more healthy now that we’ve ever been in our lives.

We were in Delaware. Kelvin helped Zach get ready for the holiday party while I did a little shopping. It was great to spend some time with the Delaware crew.

Kelvin’s made plans for us to celebrate our anniversary a little early next weekend. I have no idea what we’re doing, but his track record is pretty solid so I’m sure it will be great.

So all we really want for Christmas we have– our health, our love and our friends and family.

Tags: photos, ww

Northpole Cake Recipes

Friday, November 21st, 2008 | recipes | No Comments

My Aunt sent me a link to a Website called Northpole.com that has a whole collection of cake recipes. A few of them sound intriguing, but I’m sure they’re not very healthy.

Tags: dessert

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