Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes and Buffalo Chicken Rolls

Yum!

A local realtor asked if I could create some appetizers for an Open House for a high-end home in town this coming Sunday.

Strawberry Cheesecake Tarts with Chocolate Pie Shell

Of course, appetizers are probably the largest list of foods in my blog, so I could have so easily just gone there for inspiration. Yet, I did not, for the same reason that I am relatively prolific in creating new recipes: mainly, that I love trying new recipes or tweaking old ones. I sat at my computer searching online for inspiration, because there is an awful lot of inspiration out there these days. I came up with at least 8 different ideas, some just sort of tweaks of others, but still. And one idea gradually seeped into my brain after seeing a photo somewhere of a chocolate graham cracker with some cheesecake "dip" and a bit of canned cherry pie filling on top.

The idea began when I thought of replacing the chocolate graham cracker and making my chocolate pie pastry, or some variation thereof. Okay. Then, I thought no problem on making a cheesecake filling. Yet once I got down to it, I realized I still had some pulverized freeze-dried strawberry powder in a little container, so I went the route of flavoring the filling with that. I originally thought of using the cherry pie filling for the top, but once I used strawberry powder to flavor the cheesecake, it seemed odd to then use cherry on top. SO.
 

Freeze dried strawberries made into powder

The only complaint I have about these little tarts is the fact that the strawberry flavor was very hard to detect. It didn't harm the overall flavor at all - these little things are addictive! - but I plan to add more when making them for this coming weekend. One 1-ounce package of freeze dried strawberries, pulverized and sifted to remove seeds, results in a scant ¼ cup of strawberry powder. I only used 2 tablespoons of the powder in this first try, so I will be using at least 3 tablespoons in the next batch I make. This will leave about 2 teaspoons to make the little heart stencils on top.

Of course, if I have not previously made a recipe, I do need to test it out before using it for anyone else. And of course, being Superbowl Sunday, my husband was elated to test out my creations during his game watching. I toyed with the thought of putting a little chunk of fresh strawberry on top once they were ready to serve. I didn't have any on hand though. Instead, I cut a little heart out of a piece of paper and used it as a stencil. I set the cut out on top of each little cheesecake tart in turn, and sifted the strawberry powder on top. Carefully removing the paper, it left behind a perfect little deep pink heart.

Heart stencil on top of cheesecake tarts

These came together easily with only what I already had at home. Granted, everyone may not have the freeze dried strawberries, but aside from a yummy snack, they are great for coloring and authentic flavor.

Making and fitting the chocolate pastry shells

The chocolate pie shells were ease itself. Just mix the dough (no added liquids) and it is so easy. I rolled little balls, pressed them flat to about a 3-inch diameter and fitted them into the mini tart wells. The cheesecake batter was also simple and the use of a little "ice cream scoop" (about 2 teaspoon capacity) made filling the shells a breeze.  

Filling the chocolate shells

Strawberry Cheesecake Mini Tarts with Chocolate Shell

Strawberry Cheesecake Mini Tarts with Chocolate Shell

Makes about 30 tarts

CHOCOLATE PASTRY:
1 cup all-purpose flour, less 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 ounces cream cheese
¼ cup unsalted butter (4 tablespoons)

CHEESECAKE FILLING:
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
⅓ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
1½ tablespoons cornstarch
1 (1-ounce) package freeze dried strawberries

Making Pastry: Measure the cup of flour into a mixing bowl. Remove 2 level tablespoons of the flour and return to the original bag or container of flour. Add the 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the scant cup of flour in the mixing bowl and stir to blend. Add the cream cheese and butter and cut in as for pie pastry. Gather the mixture with hands to bring all the stray crumbs together into one ball. Cut into 30 equal pieces and roll each piece into a small ball. Take one ball on the counter (no extra flour is needed) and press flat with your hand, or roll with a rolling pin into about a 3-inch diameter circle. Peel the round from the counter and set the circle over a well in a mini tart pan, pressing into the well and against sides. Repeat with all the balls of dough. Set pans in the refrigerator while working with the cheesecake portion of the recipe.

Making the Cheesecake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. First make powder from the bag of freeze dried strawberries. Sift the powder through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any whole bits and all the seeds, discard the seeds. You should have approximately 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons. Set the 2 teaspoons of powder aside if making the stencil for the top.

In a mixing bowl, with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add and beat in the sugar and sour cream, then add the egg and vanilla and beat in. In a small bowl, stir together the cornstarch and 3 tablespoons strawberry powder. Add to the cream cheese mixture and beat until no streaks remain.

Remove a tin of the mini chocolate shells from the refrigerator and fill each chocolate shell with about 2 teaspoons of the cheesecake mixture. Bake the mini cheesecakes for about 10 minutes, or until set.

Set them aside to cool slightly before stenciling the tops. I used a plain white square of paper, drew on a little heart about ½-inch diameter, then cut the heart shape out. If the cheesecakes are too hot, the paper will stick to the top, so they should be slightly cooled before stenciling. Set the paper over top of a little cheesecake and use the fine mesh sieve to tap a bit of the remaining 2 teaspoons of strawberry powder over the heart cut out. Gently lift the paper, tapping excess powder back into the bowl before placing it onto the next cheesecake. Repeat for all the mini cheesecakes. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
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Once I made these little gems, I was looking to make something savory and easy, so I made some Buffalo Chicken Rolls. This type of recipe is all over the place on the internet, but generally made with cream cheese only. I am one who loves blue cheese and so is my husband, so I added blue cheese crumbles to the mixture and these were absolutely delightful. My husband said they were at the high point of his heat tolerance level. To me, they were perfectly but lightly spiced. I used rotisserie chicken which made it very quick and easy.

Buffalo Chicken Rolls

Buffalo Chicken Rolls

Makes about 24 to 27 (plus ends left for the chef!)

1 cooked chicken breast, finely chopped (about 1½ cups)
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 ounces Buffalo Wing Sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
½ cup blue cheese crumbles
¼ cup chopped scallions
3 (6-inch) flour tortillas

In a bowl, mix together well all ingredients except the tortillas. Divide the mixture evenly between the 3 tortillas, spreading the mixture to the edges. Roll the tortillas, without pressing too hard on the filling. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to 2 days. Slice off ends that will not make a proper roll, then slice across into ½ inch slices to serve.
 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Chicken Enchiladas from Easy to Complex at Whim

Yesterday I spent all morning researching Enchiladas, then I sat with ideas and fleshed them out, till I had a recipe I thought was do-able, then walked to the grocery for the things I was missing and spent the next couple of hours implementing and refining the recipe. All in all, I am very happy with the recipe. I believe the only thing I would do differently next time is to make a whole batch of my Red Enchilada Sauce. At minimum I wanted the equivalent of a can, usually 10-ounces, but all I had left was one cup, just barely full. And then at another time, I would like to try these with my Green Sauce (Salsa Verde - see recipe here), and have them more in the line of Enchiladas Suizas.

Chicken Enchiladas

There was nothing wrong with the recipe as I made it. They were really good, and I am looking forward hungrily to leftovers for dinner this evening. A few things I did are things not everyone may have the ability to duplicate, depending on where you live and what sort of grocery stores are available. I am relatively fortunate in that, even up in northern South Dakota we have a really great grocery store; Kessler's. Kessler's is not an inexpensive place to shop, but they really do have an amazing selection of foods. But even in Kessler's it is sometimes chancy whether a certain thing will be available, so I just try to go with the flow and get what is available.

Tortillas, and then Tortillas

I had totally and completely fallen in love with the La Tortilla Factory brand green chile corn and wheat four tortillas. I bought them over and over again over a period of time . . . and then suddenly Kessler's stopped carrying them! If I had access to these tortillas, I would absolutely have used these for this Enchilada recipe. As it happens, Kessler's and even Wal-Mart, have been carrying ever-changing versions of corn and flour tortillas. For preference, I want corn tortillas. I learned to eat corn tortillas in Guatemala, where at the time, they were made fresh, from hominy that was just cooked, ground and skillfully hand-patted and baked on a comal into tender, flexible, amazingly-flavored and hefty rounds of goodness. And then, to come back to the States, only to find that any corn (or flour, for that matter) tortilla has been pressed out into perfectly round, perfectly flat and brittle things that bear so little resemblance to the real thing that aside from some little corn flavor, well, there is just no resemblance.
 
Excuse my rant, there. My husband will only eat flour tortillas. To me, wheat can be had anywhere, all the time. We have far too much wheat in our diets as it is. A critical difference of opinion, but that is par for the course, with us. So when one day I was wandering in Kessler's, and found these La Tortilla Factory corn and wheat tortillas, I was at first taken with the look and feel of them. Even through the bag they were in, I could tell they did not have that friable quality most store-bought corn tortillas have. The look and feel was similar to real hand-patted corn tortillas. There was enough flavor of corn to satisfy, and obviously enough flour to make them pliable and differently textured.

Inside my Enchiladas

. . . And then they stopped carrying them. I was really frustrated. No other brand, to date, even comes close to the flavor of La Tortilla Factory brand. One other brand, which I was lucky enough to find at Kessler's yesterday (they are not there all the time, by any means) is Don Pancho. The biggest difference with the Don Pancho brand of corn and wheat tortillas is that they are the larger sized ones, about 8-inches in diameter, rather then the smaller normal corn tortilla size of about 6-inches.

On to the Enchiladas

This brings me to the recipe and why it may not be a completely simple "follow-the-directions" sort of recipe for some. If one makes this recipe using flour tortillas, there are flour tortillas in the 8-inch size, readily available in most places. However, if an 8-inch corn and flour tortilla is not available, you might have to resort to the little 6-inch corn tortillas, and that way this recipe will make a whole lot more than the 10 large enchiladas from my recipe. I would venture to say that the recipe might be doubled (in amount of tortillas used), if using the small ones.

If perchance you are using all-corn tortillas, you will absolutely have to first pass them briefly through a small bit of hot oil to make them:

1. more pliable and
2. less apt to burn in the oven

I did this step anyway, just in order to have the tortillas less prone to dryness and burning at the edges. All that is needed is a tiny amount of oil in a hot skillet large enough to accommodate the tortilla. It takes maybe a minute or so per side. They don't need to really brown, but they become far more pliable and easy to work with. As each one came from the skillet, I filled and rolled it, then set into the casserole dish.

Chicken Enchiladas, fresh from the oven

The Mixture for Enchiladas

I am in no way Mexican, and have only Guatemalan cooking background. There were no such things as this type of "enchiladas" in Guatemala in the '70s that I ever saw or heard of. With that in mind, I used things in the filling for my enchiladas that seemed right to me. I used black beans, because I prefer them. I added cream cheese, in the belief that it would melt well and make the insides nice and gooey with cheese. Chopped green chilies from a can were used because I love them and the flavor they give. A store-bought rotisserie chicken was used in the interest of time savings! Of course, cooking up a little bit of chicken ahead and shredding is also an option.

Chicken Enchiladas

Chicken Enchiladas

Makes 10 large

2½ cups shredded rotisserie chicken
8 ounces (2 cups) shredded cheddar Jack cheese, divided
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed, divided
½ cup chopped cilantro, divided
½ cup chopped scallions, divided
1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chilies
8 ounces cream cheese or Neufchatel
10 (8-inch) corn/flour tortillas
oil, as needed for frying tortillas
1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce
1 cup favorite salsa
cilantro leaves for garnish
sour cream and/or avocado to serve

In a large mixing bowl, combine the shredded chicken, half each of the shredded cheese, cilantro and scallions, and the green chilies. Set ¼ cup of the black beans aside and add remainder to the bowl. Cut cream cheese in small chunks, or just break off small pieces into the chicken mixture and toss to distribute.

In a separate bowl, stir together the enchilada sauce, salsa and remaining half of chopped cilantro.

chicken mixture; reserved beans & scallions;
sauce mixture; fried tortillas rolled with filling; sauce added 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat a 10-inch skillet over medium high heat and add in a teaspoon or so of oil. Fry each tortilla briefly. It will take longer for the first side, approximately 1½ to 2 minutes. Flip the tortilla and fry for another minute. They should not be too browned or hard, but very pliable. Once fried, measure out about ⅔ cup or so of the chicken mixture onto the tortilla and roll tightly. Set the roll in a casserole dish, flap down. Continue with all the tortillas, frying, filling, rolling and placing in the casserole or casseroles, as needed.

Bake the enchiladas without sauce for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then remove from oven. Reduce heat to 375 degrees. Divide the sauce mixture between casseroles and spread to cover. Top with the remaining shredded cheese. Cover the casserole(s) with foil and seal the edges. Bake at the reduced temperature for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes, until bubbling and the cheese is nicely melted. Toss the remaining black beans and scallions over top of the casserole(s), then garnish with cilantro leaves. Serve with sour cream and/or avocado.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.