I have a ton to catch up on, but let's go with something new. I picked up one of those grocery roasted chickens a few nights ago, and wanted to do something with some of the remains.
I've only bought a couple of these before, and I'm not sure I'm totally sold. The skin is good, but I don't see a lot of flavor. Homemade can be done a lot better.
So far, based on a sample of like, three, my pattern is this. Get chicken home, eat a leg and pick at the breast. Yum. I'm excited about the first bits, and excited about making stock from the carcass. It's the middle part I have some trouble with - what to make with the meat? I don't actually eat a lot of meat dishes, and some of the old family ones I remember aren't really what I want to be eating these days. (The white chicken enchiladas where the sauce is - in it's entirety - a pint of heavy cream poured over the pan; the chicken-rice casserole, which I adore, but requires having ingredients on hand I don't usually have, etc.)
Anyhoo. It wasn't easy coming up with what to do, but I ended up with a winner.
Based on an Eating Well recipe for tamale pie that uses toasted corn, black beans , etc. Inspired by (see above) is probably a better word though, since it really just gave me the idea. I wasn't really sure it was going to mesh this time, but it seriously did. Here's what resulted:
Filling:
Sauteed an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic
Added:
A good couple of handfuls of shredded chicken
4 or 5 sliced chipotles
A few good sized spoonfuls of the adobo sauce from the can
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
Some hefty shakes of Cholula
Salt and pepper
Topping:
1 cup cornmeal stirred into 2 cups boiling, heavily salted water.
Layer filling in dish, top with thickened cornmeal and smooth out, topped with a good couple of handfuls of (in this case reduced fat but I don't really recommend it) cheese.
In the over for half an hour or so and nom.
