Easy Enchiladas and Black Bean Salad

I love making these enchiladas, change up the meat or use veggies/tofu/beans as you like!

Chicken Enchiladas with Green Sauce

Makes 8 enchiladas

Canned Green Enchilada Sauce (medium heat), at least 20 ounces (large can or buy two smaller cans**)
1 Package large corn tortillas
1/2 package taco seasoning, or 1-2 Tablespoons
Finely shredded mozzarella cheese, 8 ounces
1 small can fire roasted green chiles
2 cups cooked chicken breast*, chopped or shredded (rotisserie chicken works great for this)

Mix taco seasoning, fire roasted green chiles, and 1/3 of the enchilada sauce into the cooked chicken. On a griddle/pan heat each side of the tortillas for about 30 seconds, not enough to brown but so they become pliable. Spray a large casserole dish with Pam and then spread about 1/2 cup enchilada sauce on the bottom of the dish. On a cutting board lat out a warmed tortilla, add about 3 Tablespoon cheese e and about 1/4 cup of the chicken/chile mixture. Roll up and place seam side down into pan. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top and sprinkle with a little more cheese. Cover with foil and bake in a 350* oven for 20-25 minutes. Uncover and bake another 5-10 minutes to fully melt cheese.

Serve with sour cream, chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sliced olives, and chopped cilantro.

*If you don't have any cooked chicken on hand, poaching a couple chicken breasts in just enough simmering water to cover with a little salt, garlic powder, and onion garlic for about 10-15 minutes results in nice moist chicken.
**Extra enchilada sauce? Freeze it in a ziplock bag to use another time. Be sure to label it!

Ground Turkey Enchiladas with Red Sauce

Make as above, substituting 12-16 oz ground turkey for the chicken and using Medium Red Enchilada Sauce instead of the green.

Cook the ground turkey in a frying pan over medium heat with 1/2 package of taco seasoning. Drain if needed (depends on how lean your turkey is). Add in 1/3 of the can of red sauce and a can of fire roasted chiles. Continue as above.

I used to make this salad all the time and then I kinda forgot about it. Not sure why it has lapsed, but I'm glad I made it again today and will do so again soon!


Black Bean Salad

1 can black beans
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1/2 small sweet onion, diced (or 4 green onions, chopped)
1 teaspoon taco seasoning
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 can fire roasted green chiles
1 avocado, diced
juice from 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste
red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper (optional)
1/2 cup canned corn, drained (optional)

Mix together all ingredients through the fire roasted green chiles. In a small bowl, place the diced avocado and pour the lime juice over, mix well (but gently). Pour the avocado and lime juice into the dish with the rest of the salad. Gently mix and add seasonings to taste. Store in the fridge to chill for at least an hour before eating (if you can wait that long!)

WIP Wednesday: Scrap Boxes Charity Quilt

I'm linking up with the always fun Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

I got a little bit behind in my do.Good stitches quilting. I'm on time every month with sending blocks in, but for the quilts I'm assembling I had two to work on at once. My Scrap Box quilt has been sitting around, basted for well over a month and I finally got around to quilting it this week. This quilt idea came from Squares and Triangles.

I asked for different colored boxes, any color except black and brown. For the backing I was finally able to use some Kona Steel that Kristin of Sew Mama Sew had given out to my guild when she stopped selling fabric. The strip that is showing on the back is a Brandon Mably print, and farther down I have a little bit of solid pink pieced into the flower print.

 I took to Instagram and FB yesterday to ask what I should use for binding. Lots of ideas but I think I have it narrowed down to either a solid aqua/turquoise or a solid pink. There were way more votes for the solid turquoise, but I like the idea of the pink since this is going to a girl and I have so much pink on the back.

And the other do.Good stitches top I had  I passed on to my friend Rachel to quilt. She's an amazing long armer and quilted my very first do.Good stitches quilt!

Quilty Flashback Friday: Pinwheels and Prairie Points

I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy for Quilty Flashback Friday! What a fun idea!

I made my first quilt 5 years ago this month. I'd been toying with the idea of making a quilt and my friend Kim was encouraging me to. When I found out one of my mom's co-workers was having a baby, and another co-worker gave me a charm set of Moda Oh-Cherry-Oh fabric by Me and My Sisters Designs, well that sealed the deal and I jumped in!

Kim found a Moda Bake Shop pattern for me and I went to it. I'd been sewing apparel and other projects since junior high, so the hardest part about quilting was that a 1/4 inch seam seemed so incredibly small!

 

It's kind of amazing how much I learned from the mistakes in this quilt. You can see that I reversed a few of the pinwheels, so you can bet I am very careful when I make them now. I did pretty well on the prairie points but haven't made them since then. And the quilting? Oh the quilting! I went to Montavilla Sewing Center and asked for a quilting foot. They sold me a walking foot. I assumed it was a free motion foot and attempted to do some meandering. Hilarity ensued. I didn't realize until much later that I had the wrong foot. Ha!

This is what a first time quilter trying to free motion with a walking foot looks like!

I'm still not sure that I've recovered from that mistake and rarely free motion now, but I do have the proper foot for it!

I made a fairly wide binding and chose to not make it continuous or mitered. I think that was a good choice, it's ok to do some things the easy way when you're learning! Overloading on trying to do everything "right" is a good way to burn out.

So, here I am a few years later. I'm not a master quilter, but I've improved so much, and I'm even President of the largest Modern Quilt Guild. Not bad for someone who free motioned a quilt with a walking foot five years ago!

My Medallion in Progress, Part 2

Here's an update on my Portland Modern Quilt Guild Medallion. This year our guild decided to do a Medallion Along, introducing a new round to the medallion each month, rather than a Block of the Month like we did last year. I wrote about the center and the first four rounds here.

This is what my medallion looked like at the end of Round 4/May:

June we did a simple border for some breathing space. I got slightly behind that month so don't have a pic of it on its own, but I used a fun orchid colored Kona cotton with some lime/turquoise MM Ta Dots for the conerstones.

For most of my background fabric I'm using Laura Gunn's Painter's Canvas in Platinum. I love her fabrics so much!  July's round consisted of 48 4.5 inch Square in a Square blocks. I actually made this round twice, since I was also working on the to-be-raffled guild medallion made out of Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics fabric! I'm really happy with this quilt, the colors are bright and happy, tempered with my favorite neutral--gray!

I'm typically a month ahead as we officers are making the quilt before we introduce it to our guild each month. I'll be adding August on soon! We only have August and September to go and then are giving people a few months to finish it up. Ultimately we want to have a really fun mini quilt show with these at our December meeting and then some of them will hang at Modern Domestic in the new year!