Chicken Enchiladas & Corn Cake July 17, 2008

For dinner last night I pulled the extra Chicken Enchilada pan out of the deep freeze.  I covered it with aluminum foil and cooked it in the oven at 375º for about an hour.  I removed the foil for the last 15 minutes. It tasted exactly the same as when cooked fresh.  I will never just make one pan of the chicken enchiladas again, this made for such a tasty, easy supper.

As a side dish I made corn cake, we went to Don Pablo’s Mexican Restaurant while in Minneapolis and it made me crave corn cake.  It’s a simple recipe and the kids loved it!

CORN CAKE

1 stick softened unsalted butter

4 ears worth of corn removed from the cob (you could also use frozen corn),

1/3 cup Mexican corn flour

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup whipping cream

pinch of kosher salt

2-3 grinds of black pepper

1/2 tsp baking powder

Combine butter, corn flour and water and add in the corn.  In another bowl mix together the remaining ingredients.  Add this mixture to the corn mixture and pour resulting batter into a loaf pan.  Bake at 400º for 60 minutes, keep loaf pan covered with foil for first 45 minutes of baking.  Remove from oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes.  Scoop out and enjoy.

I Need a Vaction July 17, 2008

from my vacation. We got back on Tuesday night from our whirlwind Minnesota & Wisconsin vacation. It was a lot of time in the car so I need a few days to recharge my battery and get things done at home. I spent yesterday catching up on laundry and today will likely involve much of the same.

I took many, many pictures while on the trip and I will be posting some over the next few days. The kids really loved Nickelodeon Universe at Mall of America. It’s a very nice park and they have done a wonderful job fitting a lot of rides into a relatively small area. Carson and Riley stuck mostly to the kiddie rides but certainly got use out of their all day passes. I’m pretty sure that Carson would have stayed on the Bumper Cars all day long if we had let him. Riley’s favorite, by far, was the log ride. She was nervous at first but loved it and wanted to get right back on after the first time through. I’ve never seen her so excited about a ride before.

The only problem occurred on the Ghost Blaster ride.  Carson was in the car ahead of me and Riley and the operator spaced out the cars so that we were never in the same room.  Well, some rooms were dark and it frightened Carson.  At the end of the ride he was upset and scared.  I felt terrible, we never considered that the ride might be dark and scary to him by himself.  We had gone on a similar ride at Disney World which he loved.  That ride had a Buzz Lightyear theme and this one was ghost themed and a bit darker.  Lesson learned,  I assumed we would be right by him the entire time.  Now I know to ask and not send him alone in the future.  I’m sure if I had been in the car with him he would have enjoyed the ride and not been scared at all.  Being alone really elevated the fear.  Luckily, the Lego store was nearby and the trauma was quickly forgotten.