What's Cooking?

I've been trying to up my repertoire of recipes and find budget-friendly, healthy things for dinner. The other day, Joe was at Costco, and I told him if he got a rotisserie chicken (which can feed the 2 of us for a few dinners at $4.99!) I would make up some chicken enchiladas.

I've known enchilada recipes to be labor intensive and time consuming, but using a rotisserie chicken and modifying a recipe I found on pinterest, these delicious enchiladas only took about 30 minutes to make!

Original recipe found here: Taste of Home. I decided to omit the cilantro and tomatoes. I also substitued corn tortillas for flour ones. Result: deliciousness!

I've included the full-text of my version at the end of this post.

Rotisserie Chicken Enchiladas

What you need: 

• 1 chilled rotisserie chicken
• 1/2  15 oz. can of fat-free refried beans
• 2 (10-ounce) cans enchilada sauce
• 10 (6-inch) corn tortillas
• 1 (2.25-ounce) can sliced black olives (drained)
• 1 8 oz bag of shredded Mexican-blend cheese
• lettuce "shreds"
• reduced-fat sour cream

My ingredients. Clearly, someone loves Target :)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Remove meat of chicken from bones (discard skin and bones) and shred; put in a medium sized bowl. Stir in beans, 1/2 the can of olives and 1 can of the enchilada sauce.

Chicken, bean, olive, enchilada sauce mixture

3. Spoon chicken mixture equally into center of tortillas, sprinkle a little cheese on top. Roll tortillas around filling and place, seam side down, in baking dish. Pour remaining can of enchilada sauce over enchiladas.

Ready to roll!

4. Sprinkle remaining olives and cheese evenly over enchiladas. Cover with foil and bake 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated and cheese is melted. I fit nine enchiladas in my pan, I probably could have made ten.

Ready for the oven.

5. Garnish with lettuce shreds and sour cream and enjoy!

So delicious!

Full Text of Recipe:

Rotisserie Chicken Enchiladas

adapted from Tasteofhome.com

Ingredients

• 1/2 chilled rotisserie chicken
• 1/2  15 oz. can of fat-free refried beans
• 2 (10-ounce) cans enchilada sauce
• 10 (6-inch) corn tortillas
• 1 (2.25-ounce) can sliced black olives (drained)
• 1 8 oz bag of shredded Mexican-blend cheese
• lettuce "shreds"
• reduced-fat sour cream

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.
• Remove meat of chicken from bones (discard skin and bones) and shred; put in a medium sized bowl. Stir in beans, 1/2 the can of olives and 1 can of the enchilada sauce.
• Spoon chicken mixture equally into center of tortillas, sprinkle a little cheese on top. Roll tortillas around filling and place, seam side down, in baking dish. Pour remaining can of enchilada sauce over enchiladas.
• Sprinkle remaining olives and cheese evenly over enchiladas. Cover with foil and bake 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated and cheese is melted. Serve

If you end up trying this recipe, please let me know what you think! Joe loved it, I will definitely will be making it again!

Road Trip: Day 6 & 7

Day 6: Portland

Last Sunday we woke up in Portland (well, Gresham, but close enough.) Joe and I were trying to find a cute place to go for Sunday brunch, and after going on yelp and urbanspoon, I remembered that we had seen several places on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. We knew Guy Fieri couldn't lead us in the wrong direction! We decided to go to Byways Cafe to try their famous French Toast. We were prepared to wait a while, since the reviews online said on Sundays it can be busy, but were pleasantly surprised when we were seated right away! They served Stumphouse coffee, which I've heard from Portlanders is the best, and it was delicious. I had blueberry pancakes - probably the best I've had! Joe had this delicious scramble.

After being satisfied with breakfast we proceeded to find antique shops. We found a couple of neat ones where we added to our antique bottle collection and Joe's new antique camera collection.

My friend Jen had suggested that we check out this bookstore called Powell's. I was not sure what to expect...but wow! This place probably had every book I could think of - both new and used. Joe and I stayed for about an hour, but I could have stayed for longer. We had so much fun!

After checking out Powell's it was time for us to hit the road back to California. So we put on Steve Jobs' biography audiobook and drove down to Redding.

Coffee, Breakfast, and Books!

Day 7: Home!

After six days on the road, the last day of driving can seem to take forever. We were only about four hours away from home, so we decided to take it slow and take the long way home, checking out antique stores here and there.

By the time we got home and picked up salads at Chipotle we were exhausted, but we managed to get everything upstairs and in our apartment by 8:30. 

Phew, those seven days went way too fast!

Road Trip Days 4 & 5

Day 4: 


Where did we leave off? Oh, we were settling down in Seattle for the night.


Friday came along and we decided to head out to the Space Needle. Anyone who knows me knows how I LOVE elevators (not) and I get especially freaked out when elevators involve more than 2 floors or are made out of glass. And the Space Needle goes up 520 ft. in the sky and it's made of glass. Awesome. I managed to make it up to the observatory deck (mostly by closing my eyes and getting really close to Joe.) Joe went outside to take pictures and I stayed inside to read the history and take a look at things. We had some lunch in the cafe and then I decided I was brave enough to go out on the observatory deck and take a picture to PROVE I made it to the top. You can't really tell, but here it is...

On top of the Seattle Space Needle

After the Space Needle, we headed down to Pike's Place to watch the famous fishmongers, explore the amazing farmer's market and of course, get coffee from the original Starbucks. 

We checked into our hotel - the Hyatt's Olive 8 which is within walking distance to downtown. It is a very cool hotel, first one in Seattle to be classified as "green." The electricity in the hotel room wouldn't work unless you put your room key in. So, once you left your room, you pulled out your card and it would automatically go off! Very neat! 

In honor of Joe's birthday we went out to dinner near Pike's Place and then drove around the city to see the city at night :)

Starbucks, Space Needle, Pike's Place

Day 5: 

Today, was not only Joe's birthday but we started our quest to find cool antique stores. First we started by walking to a cute little cafe for breakfast burritos (Joe's favorite). Then on our way back to the hotel, we walked to a couple antique stores, finding some more bottles for our bottle collection. We also walked back through Pike's Place and ended up finding the apparently-famous Seattle Gum Wall. It was great for photo ops, but the more I stood there the more grossed out I became! (I guess it's how a teacher thinks....how many germs are put on this wall every minute....) People had been quite creative with their additions. I had one piece of gum in my purse, and since it was Joe's birthday, I let him put it on the wall. Aww, what a nice wife.  On our way back to the hotel we walked through downtown, saw the flagship Nordstorm's.

After checking out of our hotel, we stopped at antique stores in West Seattle and Tacoma before making our way to Portland for the night. Listened to the Steve Jobs' biography the whole way :)

Gum Wall, Breakfast beverages, and...the truth.

Road Trip Day 3

Day 3: Victoria, British Columbia

We got up early to make it to the famed Butchart Gardens - a gorgeous garden that used to be a limestone quarry. The owner's wife began this garden and it has developed into a Canadian National Landmark. I had been a few years ago with my mom, aunt and uncle, and Joe had been when he was a little boy. It was well worth the $30 entrance fee! We started by getting some scones and coffee in the cafe and then walked around for a couple of hours. The highlight of our trip was the rose garden. It had every rose imaginable, and labeled the country of origin and date of development. Words cannot describe how beautiful it is there so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Day 3 - Butchart Gardens: Otter Totem Pole, Roses, and Fountain

More beautiful flowers from the Butchart Gardens

After our morning at the Butchart Gardens, we decided to head back downtown and go exploring. We ended up walking all over downtown Victoria. We had tried to go to a hot spot for lunch, but the line was over an hour long, and we knew we had to get our car in the parking spot for the ferry by 3p.m. to make sure we got a spot on the ferry out! Joe decided to use Yelp to find a place to get lunch, and we ended up finding a cute little Mexican place called Hernandez' that had perhaps the best burrito either of us have ever had.

I thought it was really neat that even my Starbucks cup had both English and French on it, as did pretty much everything in town, even my Diet Coke bottle and Joe's Gatorade. 

After parking the car for the ferry, we had more time to go exploring and decided to have cocktails on the pier - hard strawberry/raspberry lemonades for two, please! From our vantage point, we were able to watch people on the boardwalk - both passerbys and local vendors. By 6 o'clock we needed to be back to the ferry parking lot for U.S. Customs inspections (have to make sure no one goes home with Cuban cigars, right?)

Totem poles, lemonade cocktails, bilingual Starbucks cup

We got to watch the sunset over the Straight of Juan de Fuca on our ferry ride back to Port Angeles. Once back to the States, we got to go through customs again. Yes, sir we really only bought tea and magnets in Canada. Seriously.

Knowing we wouldn't get to our hotel in Bellevue, WA until about midnight made me nervous, but Joe insisted that they would be waiting for us to check-in, don't worry. Oh, we didn't worry until we found out that....whoops, we had to take ANOTHER ferry from the Olympic Peninsula to Seattle to get to our destination. Unfortunately, we missed the 11:30 ferry and had to WAIT for the 12:55 AM ferry to Seattle. This is not what we were expecting. Luckily we had started listening to the Steve Jobs' biography so our audiobook kept us entertained while waiting and driving the rest of our way to the hotel.

We finally arrived at our hotel (I made Joe call and tell them we'd be super late) around 2am. It was time to sleep so we could enjoy Seattle in the morning!

Road Trip! Day 1 & 2

Day 1: On The Road

First thing we needed to do: pick up the rental car. We didn't want to put upwards of 2,000 miles on either of our cars, plus we got an awesome deal through Joe's work. We started out with an Impala, but decided it didn't have good gas mileage. Then we switched for a Nissan Versa, but after driving it for a few blocks, Joe decided it was too small and while I went home to finish packing, he returned to the lot to switch for *third time's a charm* a Corolla.

We had planned on leaving town by noon, but we were finally on the road by 1:30. We decided we would drive to Portland the first day, so we drove straight through - it only took about 9 hours. We stopped along the way to see the beautiful Lake Shasta.

Joe drove most of the way, but about an hour or so out of Portland I took my turn until we got to our motel for the night. Thanks Motel 6 for always keeping the light on for us!

Day 1 - View of Lake Shasta, CA

Day 2: Green, Green and....Blue

We had originally planned on trying to wake up before 7:30 so we could make the 12:00 ferry out of Port Angeles, WA to Victoria, British Columbia. We woke up a little bit late, but managed to make it to Port Angeles on time.

Washington is a beautiful state - I guess you have to put up with the gloomy weather to have a gorgeous landscape! It was gray and misty our entire drive through Portland to Port Angeles. 

I told Joe I was excited to go to Port Angeles because it was where vampires lived. (Clearly, I was kidding, but it didn't stop the Twilight jokes all day, nor my taking a picture of the sign for Forks, which is where we all know Edward Cullen lives....hehehe.)

We ended up on the "waiting list" for the 12:00 ferry, and didn't make it on that boat. They let us park our cars to get ready for the 4:30 ferry and then we wandered around the little town on foot. First we stopped for a bit of lunch at a cute Chinese food place - note picture of my empty Hot & Sour soup bowl. 

Then we found a fantastic little antique shop where we fell in love with an antique secretary desk. Two problems: 1. it was too tall to fit in the corolla, and 2. what in the world were we going to do on a ROAD TRIP with a secretary desk in the backseat. I guess it wasn't meant for us, but we did find a hidden gem: a Mickey Mouse comic from 1970 from Italy. Joe laughed as I tried to pronounce the words, but he diligently translated for me as we read it in the car later waiting for the ferry. 

Day 2 - Waiting for the ferry in Port Angeles, WA

We got on the 4:30 ferry in Washington and were in Canada an hour and a half later. The customs agent in Canada did not give me a stamp in my passport (that's twice I've been to Canada with NO stamp!) and smiled when I told him I was a first grade teacher. 

After checking into our hotel, we explored downtown Victoria and stopped at the famous Fairmont Empress Hotel's Bengal Lounge for drinks! A grapefruit cosmo for myself and a mojito for Joe :)

Day 2 - Aboard the ferry, nighttime in Victoria, BC

Read about our next day in Victoria and our first night in Seattle soon! (Oh my goodness, you won't want to miss the story about the 1am ferry to Seattle!)

Weekend Recap

Even though Joe works Saturdays, our weekend ended up being busy!


Saturday night we had a long-overdue dinner with our parents. We went to the same restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner at, so fun!


Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney were in town for their Brothers of the Sun tour. We were excited to go with our friends Jillian and Joe. Now, if you know our Tim McGraw concert history, rest assured, no one broke a foot or got lost looking for E22. The concert was very fun, though I wish we were a little closer to the stage. Joe was happy that Tim sang his favorite, "Indian Outlaw" with Kenny.


My sister also came into town from Texas with her boys. I got to spend some time with them before Joe and I left for our trip. I am looking forward to spending more time with them next week!

Blogging From the iPhone test

Since we'll be on the road for about a week exploring the Pacific Northwest, I downloaded the blogger app on my phone.


Here's a picture of us at our nephew Sebastian's 1st birthday ho-down!

The Gianino Family Adventures Begin

Although we got married in October, when our family adventure truly began, I decided to start this blog to chronicle our lives.


My summer job comes to an end this Friday, and then our Summer adventure will begin. We're packing up the car and heading North for a week. Portland, Seattle, Victoria, what awaits us down the road?


<3 Lo & Joe