Every Monday night, the three of us look forward to a kitchen full of locally grown vegetables from MimoMex farm. It was important to us to not only eat healthier, but to get involved in our community and support our local farms. It is always a surprise to see what we will be taking home that evening, looking forward to creating dishes using fresh and seasonal produce. To help store our vegetables, we store most items in the fruit and vegetable drawers in our refrigerator, using plastic onion and tomato savers and GreenBags that help preserve the freshness and prolong the life of our herbs and leafy greens.
With this week’s September 30th CSA share from MimoMex farm, Alison, Shaina, and Kate, aka Coffee & Donuts (more on our share name later…) used this week’s items to highlight the basket’s Mexican flavors, using the corn, cilantro, red onion, and radishes to create chicken corn enchiladas with homemade green sauce! A green enchilada sauce is hard to come by in supermarkets, so we decided to make our own! To make this super easy medium spiced green enchilada sauce, we used this week’s cilantro and red onion, and previous week’s garlic, green bell peppers, jalapenos, and one habanero pepper. We found a good base recipe online, and tweaked it to make it slightly spicier.
For the green sauce, here’s what you’ll need!
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1 small red onion – chopped
- 4 garlic cloves – minced
- 2 green bell peppers – seeded
- 1 jalapeno – seeded
- 1 habanero pepper – seeded
- about 8 tomatillos – husked
- 1/4 bunch of cilantro
- 2 c. chicken broth
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cumin
In a large pot sauté onion and minced garlic in the olive oil until onions are transparent. While that is sautéing, grab a blender and start cutting and seeding your veggies. Place green bell peppers, cilantro, jalapeno, habanero, and tomatillos in the blender. When onion and garlic are done, add those in the blender as well. Blend all the veggies and chicken broth together, leave out the salt and cumin. Blend until smooth. Transfer the blended sauce into the large pot, add the salt and cumin. Simmer on medium for 10-15 min or until desired consistency. Super easy, right?
For the enchiladas, here is what you’ll need!
- 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
- 1 ear of corn – roasted and cut off the cob
- about 7 corn tortillas
- vegetable oil
- 2 cups of Mexican blend cheese
- and your freshly homemade green enchilada sauce
Bring a medium sized pot of water to a boil and add salt to flavor the water. Add chicken breast into the boiling pot and cook on medium-high heat until cooked thoroughly. Boneless chicken breast halves take about 15-20 minutes to cook through, depending on the size. Let the chicken breast cool until easy to handle, then shred chicken using your hands, or pull apart using two forks. Roasting can bring out the best flavors in a vegetable. A simple drizzle of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt and pepper can make vegetables like carrots, potatoes, beets, and kale come to life, creating a simple and tasty side dish. It couldn’t be any easier to roast corn! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place ear of corn with husks on directly on the middle rack for about thirty minutes. Roasting corn really brings out the corn’s natural sweetness, and will be a nice counter to the spiciness of the jalapeno and habanero in the green enchilada sauce. Like our chicken, let is cool until easy to handle, pull the husks down, and cut the corn off the cob.
Heat vegetable oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the tortillas until golden but still pliable, about 10 seconds per side. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Put the tortillas on a work surface. Divide the shredded chicken, corn, and Mexican blend cheese evenly among the tortillas and roll up each like a cigar.
Spread 1/3 cup sauce in a 9 by 9-inch glass baking dish. Arrange the enchiladas, seam-side down, in one layer snugly inside the dish. Pour sauce over the enchiladas – be generous, the tortillas absorb and soak up the sauce when baking. Sprinkle cheese on top and don’t be shy – the ooey gooey cheese is one of the best parts!
Bake until the cheese melts and starts to brown in spots, about 30 minutes.
Serve immediately and garnish with radishes and cilantro! Add Mexican crema or sour cream if desired!
Food really brings people together, especially in Apartment 2C. We get our share name came, Coffee & Donuts, from a Steve’s ice cream flavor that uses New Orleans Style Blue Bottle Coffee and Brooklyn’s own Pies ‘N’ Thighs donut pieces. Ice cream is a staple in our household, and a pint is guaranteed to be stored in our freezer. Everyone always asks us, “Wait, what?! There is a coffee and donuts CSA?!” “No, that’s just our CSA share name”, but Hey! That’s not such a bad idea!
Southside CSA 