Chile Relleno Casserole

So being from Texas, I love some good Mexican food, or Tex-Mex. LOVE IT. Well, the part of Georgia that I live in doesn't exactly have any amazing Mexican food to offer. It makes me so sad. Great for the diet, but not so great when you're craving something authentic. Well, I learned a trick or two and I can produce some pretty authentic tasting yummies.

With that being said, I have had a hankering something fierce for a good chile relleno. Well, when I was in the grocery store the other day, I decided to remedy this. Now, while I will usually go all out with my authentic dishes, I didn't so much feel like it this week. There's a lot going on, and I wanted flavor AND convenience. So my solution was a casserole. Of course it was... I'm surprised I didn't try to come up with something crock pot related (stay tuned, and I just might).

The result?

Oh my goodness. Oh. My. Goodness. OHMYGOODNESS. I felt like I was eating a chile relleno. The real thing. Straight from Texas and all. Now, this may be that I have been out of state for so long, but this may be my best casserole recipe yet.... even better than my Fiesta Casserole. Oh yes. Is it possible to have a mouthgasm? I think it happened.

So here's how to create this amazingness...

Ingredients:

1tsp chipotle chile powder
1tsp cumin
6 eggs
1/4 cup masa flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 cups milk

4 poblano peppers, roasted and seeded
8oz canned diced green chiles (2, 4oz cans)
1 yellow onion, chopped
16oz queso fresco (fresh mozzarella) sliced into 1/2 inch, or so, pieces... or shredded mozzarella
16oz CHORIZO (all caps, muy importante! I used Ole brand, see pic)

 Instructions:

Set oven to Broil, High. Roast poblano peppers on a piece of foil, about 3-4 minutes on each side until blistered. Turn broil off & set oven to 350 degrees.

Set aside.

Cut end off of chorizo casing and squeeze into medium sized skillet, repeat. Cook on medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes, mashing with fork to mix together until fat is cooked to a liquid. Take off heat and set aside.

Going back to your poblanos, take thumbs and rub off "blistered" pepper skin. Discard. cut the top off of each pepper and remove stem/seeds. slice each pepper into 4 pieces.

Grease 8x11" pyrex dish (or pam), and place in oven for a few minute while completing the net step:

In a medium sized bowl, add flour and masa flour (Maseca), chile pepper, and cumin. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Mix in eggs. Take pyrex out of oven and pour in half of egg mixture. Layer poblano peppers, half of cheese, half of onion, and 4oz canned diced green chiles.

Layer in sausage using a large "colander spoon" to drain the fat, sprinkle over other half of onion, 4oz canned green chiles, and remaining cheese, layered somewhat evenly. Evenly pour in the remaining egg mixture.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Enjoy... immensely.

It's ok to drool a little :)

Ranch Pork Roast

The classic pot roast is one of the easiest & most delicious meals to make in a crock pot. There are many recipes out there; heck, I know I have several, but when I think of the classic comfort food, this is one of the recipes I turn to.

Now... I know there's a stigma attached to the cream of whatever soup... and I get that, I do. So consider this your warning: there is cream of whatever in this recipe. If you can look over that, I promise you're in for a super easy, mouthwatering meal.

Ingredients

1 Boston butt pork roast, bone in or out. The poundage is strictly left to preference, but I like to make sure to get one without a lot of fat. I also prefer bone-in.

1 pkg. Hidden Valley buttermilk ranch dressing dry mix

1 regular can (10 3/4oz) cream of mushroom soup

12oz beef broth

1 medium onion, sliced

4 cloves garlic, whole

6-8 red potatoes, halved

Instructions

Place pork roast in crock pot and arrange all of your potatoes, onions, & garlic around it. Pour ranch powder over roast/potatoes. In a small bowl, mix soup and beef broth, pour over roast/potatoes. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Easy-peasy. Best made when you are out of the house for a bit as the delicious smell will have you salivating! Serve with your favorite veggie side-dish & some bread for sopping up that gravy!  

Biscuit and Gravy Cups

I'm pretty much obsessed with this idea of making things into "cups," so when I discovered the boyfriend had never had good ol' sausage gravy with biscuits, I absolutely had to do something about this! I mean, how can you spend 28 years of your life with no biscuits and gravy?! Seriously, I almost cried for him. His excuse: "I'm a Yankee." It's ok dear, I don't fault you for it; I just let you in on what you've been missing.

Now instead of making it normal biscuits and sausage gravy, I went a step further and made biscuit and gravy cups... and to go the extra mile, I used a combination of smoked hog sausage and regular pork sausage. I know, I know, I'm pretty much amazing, but just in case you don't happen to have any hog around (I'm in a house full of hunters, what can I say?), pork sausage alone is perfectly wonderful.

Ingredients:

I realize I could have made homemade gravy, but seriously, why bother when Pioneer Brand gravy tastes amazing? No point. It's yum and easy... which works for me!

1 package Pioneer Brand peppered gravy
8oz cream cheese
1-2 cans regular biscuits (No grands or flaky biscuits! Buttermilk biscuits taste great with this too)
16oz pork sausage (I also used about 4oz hog sausage, which I didn't bother including in the picture)

I only used one can of biscuits, which obviously makes 8 cups, and there was left over gravy. This isn't a bad thing because it's awesome on toast, eggs, or whatever, but if you don't want leftover gravy, I suggest using 2 cans of biscuits

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin tin with Pam.

Prepare gravy according to package. When done, add cream cheese and stir on medium heat until completely blended. Remove from heat.

Brown Sausage in bacon drippings, if possible. Lucky for me, I had to cook some bacon earlier for Texas Hashbrown Casserole, so I had plenty of bacon grease on hand. It won't make or break the dish, but it most definitely adds flavor, because as we all know, bacon makes EVERYTHING better.

Scoop sausage into gravy... making absolutely sure to get some grease in there (I think about 2 or so tablespoons ended up in mine), mix thoroughly. I know there's some people out there freaking out on me right now for suggesting that I add in some of the grease. Well I'm sorry y'all; some of the most amazing things in life aren't exactly good for you, and I promise I'm not trying to clog everyone's arteries... just adding some Southern flavor!

You'll want to take a biscuit out and somewhat flatten it in your hand, then press in bottom and up the sides of muffin tin cup, leaving a good open spot in the middle. Repeat with each biscuit. Spoon about 2 heaping tablespoons into each cup, slightly over the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until biscuits are golden brown.

You see that hog sausage? MMMMMM...

Smothered Pork Chops

Are there even words? Fall off the bone fried pork chops smothered in gravy and onions served with toast or rice to mop up the sauce... It's just Southern home cooking at its best.

Ingredients:

2-2.5lbs center cut thick pork chops
1 small-medium onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1tbs beef base
1 package onion gravy
1 package brown gravy
1tbs worcestershire sauce
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can golden mushroom soup
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp black pepper
pepper sauce
vegetable oil
eggs/egg beaters

Instructions:


Mix together flour, garlic powder, cayenne, black pepper & pour 1 1/2 cups flour mix on plate, and set aside 1/4 cup of the mixture. In a large skillet, pour in enough oil to cover bottom about 1/4 inch. Double dredge pork chops in egg (or egg beaters like us lazy folk) and flour. fry pork chops until golden brown, flip and fry until golden brown on the other side (I did them one at a time, it was easier). They do not need to bee cooked entirely as you are going to put them in a crock pot.

Place pork chops in a 5qt crock pot. Pour remaining grease out of skillet, leaving the fried bits and pieces in, if any.

Slice onion and garlic and place on top of pork chops.

*Optional*
If you have bacon drippins, pour about a tablespoon into the same skillet you fried the chops. Unfortunately, I didn't have any bacon drippins, but since I started this in the morning, I fried up some bacon and used that grease.

In your skillet (on low heat), pour in gravy packets, water according to packets, 1/4 cup flour mixture, 1tbs beef base, 1tbs worcestershire sauce, and mushroom soups. Stir constantly for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Pour sauce on top of pork chops, add 1-2tsp pepper sauce. I even put a few peppers in there because we like our food spicy, and I love those little tobasco peppers. Cook on low heat for about 4 hours.

You'll definitely want some bread or rice to soak up all that WONDERFUL gravy.