When I get grunting at the dinner table, I know my meal is pretty good. A few nights ago, I had a hankering for something sort of chicken enchilada-ish--but I had no salsa, no sour cream, no little packet of "taco seasoning". I knew I needed some kind of cream sauce, so with some help from one of my favorite cooks :), and some googling which led me here, I worked up my own version. We had it for dinner, Dan and I both ate it for lunch the next day, and then we had it as leftovers the next night as well. And I could have eaten it again, it we didn't polish it off.

Here's my long-winded recipe:

In a skillet cook up some boneless chicken breasts which you can then shred or cube. To the cooked chicken add a can of rinsed and drained black beans. Place this mixture into flour tortillas, fold and lay them in a 9 x 13 pan.

Meanwhile make your sauce:
In a sauce pan, begin to melt 1/4 cup of butter. When the butter is almost melted, add 1/4 cup of flour. Whisk this mixture together and when it begins to bubble, whisk in 2 cups of chicken broth. Continue whisking this until it thickens. Remove it from the heat and stir in cream cheese. (Okay, I'm not sure exactly how much cream cheese I added. I had a container of whipped cream cheese from Einstein Bagels and one swipe had been taken out of it. I would guess it was 6 ounces.) Stir this cream cheese into the sauce until it is smooth and combined. Pour the sauce over your enchiladas. Top with shredded cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 25 minutes, or until heated through.

Okay. Then, I took the leftover chicken stock (I was using a box of stock) and used it took make a pot of rice. I used one part water and one part chicken stock. This was SO good alongside the enchiladas.

Seriously, this is so good. It's 9:30 am, I've had coffee and oatmeal, and this recipe is still making me hungry.

Try it. You'll like it.

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FYI: I've added a new email subscription to my posts in the sidebar. All you have to do is fill in your email in the box and you'll get an email of my latest post, every time I update my blog. Lately, I've started subscribing to some blogs by email, and I really kind of like having the new posts popping up in my inbox. It takes the pressure off me having to make sure I'm always staying up to date on my feeds in NetNewsWire or Google. I just automatically get the new post, I can read it, comment on it, and feel good about checking in with my blogging friends.

I'm also having trouble with my comments that come to me from typepad. For some reason, I'm not getting your email address with your blog which means I can't just hit the 'reply' button to get back to your comments. So if I seem like I'm not responding to your comments or questions, it's because this issue is really annoying. Typepad is working on it for me, so hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Oh, and the picture--those are my new glasses--courtesy of America's Best and Elizabeth. A few weeks ago, I was bending over the bathtub washing my hair (yes, the only "shower" I get some days). And she reached under my soapy locks and handed me my glasses--in two pieces. But I have to admit, I was kind of looking for a good excuse to update my four year-old frames.

And the beans question--you might notice I'm eating from the Whole Foods salad bar in that picture above (my favorite place to grab lunch to go, when I'm near Baltimore), and reading the latest issue of Mothering magazine. An article in there, that talks about meal planning, among other things, has me thinking about beans. Do you ever have beans as your main dish for dinner meals? What do you make? I'd love some ideas/recipes/links. My girls love beans and I feel like it would be a pretty inexpensive meal to make at least once a week.

....wish I had more pictures in this post but my USB cord is MIA at the moment....

more soon, as always.
xo.