Day 13 of Decembermeme!

Today's topic (and I missed yesterday, so I'll be doing another one right after this): Share one of your favorite recipes and why you like it!

I don't normally do recipes except for baking, but I was at a friend's house and she made white chicken enchiladas. They have become a staple in my house because, wow, delicious.

For this, you need:
Tortillas (I usually make about 8-10 of these enchiladas at a time because that's what fits in my casserole dish)
Shredded cheese (the original recipe calls for monterey jack, but I find colby jack is easier to find already shredded; you'll need at least 2 cups)
Shredded chicken (pull off of a rotisserie chicken or toss a boneless skinless chicken breast or two in the oven with a little seasoning and then chop it into long thin pieces)

Take a tortilla. Sprinkle some cheese across it and then layer chicken on top. Roll up and place, seam down, in the pan. Do this until your pan is full. Don't crowd them too much so there's room for the sauce to get between them. (Spraying your pan with cooking spray first is a Good Idea, but I almost always forget and it never makes too much a mess because of that.)

Now, the sauce (this amount will cover a traditional lasagna-sized casserole dish):
[PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 350F WHILE YOU'RE MAKING THE SAUCE!!!]

3 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
2 cups chicken broth (hot)
1 cup sour cream
1 small can green chiles, chopped (optional)

Make a roux of the butter and flour. (So, melt the butter and stir in the flour.) Add the chicken broth a little at a time until it's a nice thick sauce. Turn off the heat and add the sour cream, mixing it until smooth. (You can add the green chiles here if you want them; I'm a spice wuss, so I go without.) Pour this over the tortillas in the pan and then add cheese over the top of them.

Top in the oven for 25 minutes. If you like a softer enchilada, leave it at this point. If you like your cheese browned, turn your oven to broil for a few minutes.

These are such a warm and hearty meal. I make up a package of "Mexican Rice" mix with them, maybe some roasted potatoes (I chop them up in a large dice, add a fair bit of seasoning salt and a good drizzle of oil, then toss them and bake for about 25-30 minutes (so, if you get them going first, they can just roast while you're baking the enchiladas), and I have a nice Mexican-influenced meal that doesn't burn my tongue off (becaus, seriously, I'm a spice wuss).

The sauce on the enchiladas is really nice and thick and tangy and compliments everything with it. It's pretty simply to make, doesn't require buying a ton of ingredients (generally, I have to buy the tortillas, cheese, sour cream and then some rice mix, but that's $5 I'll spend for a meal for 2 plus leftovers that actually reheat pretty well), and it's easy to make for a crowd. (You can make less enchiladas and still the same amount of sauce, too, and then have extra to mix into the rice or dip potatoes in.) I actually made this yesterday, but had a sweet potato on the side instead of the roasted potatoes. I just tossed the sweet potato in the oven in foil while I started to defrost chicken, then tossed it in the pan I'd be using for the enchiladas covered in foil and baked until done, then used the resulting "drippings" as part of my chicken broth.

(If you'd like to make a suggestion on something for me to post a day this month, add it as a comment here.)

Day 14 of Decembermeme!

Today's topic: Kuroko no Basuke

People who know me even a little bit for my fandom ways know that I gravitate toward sports/games anime/manga. It's just my thing. So, seeing other people get excited about this basketball series made me decide to give it a shot.

Now, I've had experience with a lot of other series involving basketball (Harlem Beat, Slam Dunk, I'll/CKBC, Dear Boys, etc.), so coming into KnB, I found myself being maybe a little overly critical. I found the first half season of the anime a little dull (probably in part due to the overuse of the Kuroko-being-invisible gag), but I found that I really liked a lot of the characters (Midorima, Kagami, Aomine, Riko, etc.) so I stuck with it and did find myself really invested by the end of the first season. Then I went and read the manga, though I fell behind at some point because life happened.

The second season of anime has started and because of things like crap internet and my computer being choppy when trying to play the downloaded episodes, I've only seen the first episode. I will watch more, definitely, but I just haven't yet.

Some of the things I really like about the series? The guys are not super skinny. To a point, they're almost drawn a little too thick in the waist? But that's better than the waif-thin!super-muscular!type that exists in a lot of things. The relationships tend to be pretty dynamic. Kuroko can be a bit of a wet blanket and Kagami is true to type as that Sakuragi Hanamichi-like character (but instead of being girl crazy, he's afraid of dogs, and also further along in his "journey"). The series does a good job of making it obvious that every other Generation of Miracles member kind of forgets about teamwork which is what tends to be their downfall. That said, though, the very idea of the Generation of Miracles seems a little silly. Even for as good as they were, they were in middle school. Yet, in the series, they are treated as some mythical phenomenon or something. Does their skill deserve mention? Yes. Does it deserve the pious devotion the series gives it? Probably not.

KnB will never be my favorite basketball series, but it probably is in third place after Harlem Beat and Slam Dunk? And several of the characters really won me over. I'll never like Murasakibara and I will likely roll my eyes at Momoi and Akashi a lot before the series is over, but the series has definitely won over a piece of my heart all its own. <3 (And, seriously, I ship it. All of it.)

(If you'd like to make a suggestion on something for me to post a day this month, add it as a comment here.)