So trying to get Nora to eat meat is the equivalent of plugging her nose, shoving it in her mouth and forcing her to gum it down her throat….ok, so we don’t really do that to her at all, but the stress of trying to get her to eat this type of protein brings almost that amount of stress. After consulting with our ped, he said to go ahead and try to give her meat that is mixed in with our food. So I took that as give her table food, like the real stuff. Oh man, so much easier to feed this child meat! And it is a lot easier than separately cooking the meat and running it through the grinder. With this in mind, I thought I would share some of the recipes I’ve made this week – one’s that Nora seemed to enjoy as well 🙂 and they are both SUPER easy!

Chicken Enchiladas: this is my lovely Mom’s recipe. I always used to get so excited when I would smell this divine, bubbly meal in the oven. I still get excited even when I make it now, and find it quite hard not to dip tortilla chips in the filling as I’m making it…Or just eat a whopping spoonful along the way… or lick the mixing spoon when I’m done…it’s whatever.

OK, so if you have left over chicken you can use that -OR- you can boil 4 chicken breasts and shred ’em up.
Throw those in a bowl along with 3 cups motzerella cheese, 3 cups cheddar cheese, 2 cups sour cream, 1 can of rotel, 2 can of cream of chicken soup and 1 medium onion (I like yellow onions) finely chopped.

***I am going to stop right here and point something out. If you do not chop your onion finely enough, your husband will crunch down into a semi-raw onion and will not be able to get the taste out of his mouth the rest of the meal. This will make him upset. Remember to cut onion FINELY***

Now, where were we…once you have the mixture nice and creamy, reserve about 3 cups in a separate bowl to top the enchiladas later on. Start plopping heaping spoonfuls of it into tortilla shells. This will make about 12-14 enchiladas. Once they are snuggled nice and tight into the pan, top them with the reserved filling. Cover them with foil and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 5 more minutes. This kind of crusts and bubbles the topping just right 🙂

I have also made this with ground beef and it’s pretty good. Although I prefer the chicken rendition. This recipe freezes really well, too, so if you want to divide it into two pans, you can bake one now and freeze the other for another time.

Stuffed Shells with Meat Sauce: I found this one on line – it is one of our favorites and I often will make freezer meals of this as well. Nora particularly likes the cheese filling in this one 🙂

Cook 12oz of pasta shells for half the recommended cooking time (I do mine for about 7 minutes). Drain them and stick them in cool water for a bit.
Heat up 2 TBSP of olive oil over medium heat and then add 1/2  FINELY chopped onion, 5 cloves of garlic (I always use the pre-minced garlic – I’m lazy!) and one pound of hamburger. Once it’s starting to simmer, add a bunch of Italian seasoning…I don’t know how much, I just go by how Italianie it smells.
Drain off the grease after it’s cooked and pour in 45 oz of crushed tomatoes (this WILL splatter on you. No matter where or how you pour it, it will get on your shirt – wear an apron! haha) then add 2 (or 3…or 4…) TBSP sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, some basil and parsley – mix it all up, cover it and cook over low-medium heat (you want it bubbling just a little bit) for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will start to smell good…REALLY good. Like, your husband will come home, sigh, grunt and then come and kiss you in anticipatory thanks for making this meal.
So while that is cooking, in another small bowl, combine 30oz whole milk ricotta (sometimes I use dry curd cottage cheese, but I don’t like the texture as much, but sometimes that’s all I have on hand), 6oz Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup Romano cheese, 1 egg, and a mixture of salt, pepper, basil and parsley.
Coat the bottom of a 9×13 (or bigger) dish with some of the meat sauce. Fill each of the shells with the cheese mixture. Place them face down in the sauce. Top the shells with the remaining sauce and sprinkle on extra Parmesan.
Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until it’s hot and bubbly.

I hope you guys enjoy these recipes as much as I do. Again, these are really easy to make and will leave your tummies happy 🙂