Chicken Chilaquiles Egg Bake

Hey Readers! I'm happy to be contributing to Jack's Egg Bake Blog! I love making egg bakes and it's fun to share recipes and new ideas with all of you!  I wanted to make Chilaquiles, but in a more breakfast friendly way, so I decided to modify some recipes I found online.  

2 shredded chicken breasts

8oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese

6oz cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

3/4 cup 1% low-fat milk 

5tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

16-ounces of green tomatillo salsa

1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained

1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped Jalapenos, drained

12 (6-inch) corn tortillas

Crushed corn chips
(Inspired by this recipe: http://www.myrecipes.com/m/recipe/chicken-chilaquiles-10000001634740/)

1. Boil Chicken Breasts and shred with a fork.  Combine chicken, 8oz cup Monterey Jack cheese, Parmesan, chili powder, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. 

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2. Place milk, cilantro, 15 oz green tomatillo salsa and green chilis in a food processor, blend until smooth.

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3. Heat tortillas according to package directions. (I just put them in the microwave for 45 seconds).

4. Grease 13x9 pan with butter and olive oil spray.

5. Pour Tomatillo mixture into bottom of baking dish. Arrange 6 corn tortillas in dish, and top with chicken mixture. 

​6. Top with remaining Tomatillo Mixture.​

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7. Crush Corn chips and add a layer on top.

8. Take 6oz of shredded cheddar and add on top of the chips. (this was what I had at the time, if you make this, try Monterrey instead. )

9. Take can of jalapenos, and remaining 1oz of salsa and put into the food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Crack 16 eggs in a bowl and whisk together.  After whisked, mix in jalapeno mix. Pour Eggs on top of mixture.

​​10. Bake for 45 minutes at 350.  Always check the eggs with a knife or fork to make sure. Enjoy!

I really enjoyed the taste of this.  Top it with Pico or Guac.  In the future I would have done less chips and more sauce as it got a little dry near the end.  

Three for three

In addition to my post this week, my friend Lane is posting a fancy egg bake he made recently. And just to make it "three for three," I am also including an egg bake my nephew Josh made a couple of weeks ago. He's been eating healthy and getting ripped by eating eggs and working out.

Josh used 24 jumbo eggs, 2.5 lbs ground beef, 2 handfuls chopped spinach, and 1 lb of pepper jack cheese! I need to replicate this beauty some time soon. I love spinach, and meat, and cheese. Apparently good taste runs in our family!

And now for my contribution. This week I had leftovers from making homemade pizzas on Friday night, and an onion in the fridge.

I had a small package of sliced mushroom, one and a half green peppers, and a large onion.

I diced the peppers and onions and sauteed them with a couple tablespoons of butter.

 My sister suggested I try making cupcakes for variety. This was a new pan so I baked it with some coconut oil to season the crockery. After about 20 minutes I removed the pan from the oven and added the filling.

About 2/3 full is plenty.

There's too much filling for the cupcakes, so I used a small cake pan for the extra.

The egg seasonings are the usual suspects. 18 eggs, heavy cream, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper, blended together with a whisk.

 I used a ladle to measure consistent amounts of egg mixture into each cup. But then it was too much so I removed a couple of tablespoons from each cup with a spoon.

 Once I was happy with the volume, I added a large pinch of cheddar cheese to each cup.
It was an 8 oz package of cheese, so I still had plenty to spread on top of the cake pan too.

After baking them at 350 for about 1/2 an hour, these guys looked delicious.

 Nice and fluffy at first!

 The wight of the cheese eventually caused them to collapse as the cooled..

 "Behold the power of cheese." These cupcakes are delicious. I still have a few avocados left too, so I'll probably combine them too. And at some point I suppose I need to clean this pan. Wish me luck!

Episodio Dos: El Ataque de los Juevos

Today I looked in the fridge and saw that I have about 8 avocados that are getting old, and they need to be eaten. And an avocado is a terrible thing to waste. I love 'em! 

So my egg bake this week is a platform for the avocados. They could be added and cooked with the egg bake, but I prefer them raw.

I was at Aldi getting some stuff for lunch and they had sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes go great with butter!

When people ask me how I cook sweet potatoes, I like to say "I cook the hell out of them."
I cook them at high heat for a long time.

Normally I would cook them for a full hour if I was serving them alone. Then they would also absorb the butter and they are incredible. But since I'll be cooking them again with the eggs, I stopped them after 30 minutes and then reduced the temperature to 350.

After about 20 minutes I added a diced onion to the sweet potatoes and returned them to the oven for the remaining 10 minutes.

While the sweet potatoes finished, I mixed 18 eggs with cream, cayenne, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Added to the pan, with lots of melted butter swirling around!

Back in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes.

It's so beautiful!

The last step is cutting an avocado in half, and returning half to the fridge for tomorrow.

Yum!

I wish I would have added bacon to this one. When a lot of vegetables are added to an egg bake, the bacon can get lost. But in such a simple bake, the bacon would have been really nice with the avocado. It's delicious as-is, but if anyone wants to copy this week's bake, you might want to cut up some bacon and fry it before adding it over the sweet potatoes.

Let's get it started

I like to make an egg bake every week. Mostly because I divide it into either 6 or 8 servings, depending on which pan I use, and then microwave one for breakfast each morning. My favorite version is made with sweet potatoes, spinach, and mushrooms, but I sometimes I use whatever is in the fridge. Like this week, when I don't have any sweet potatoes so I am trying carrots instead.
My friend Dietitian Cassie gave me my original recipe back when I was her client. Nowadays I basically throw things in the pan, then in a separate bowl I whisk the eggs along with a bit of heavy cream, and season that with garlic (powder, crushed, or fresh), cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper.

Here are the photos of this week's concoction:

Starting with a layer of carrots. With sweet potatoes I would pre-bake them with butter, but I'm trying the carrots raw and dry. But there is butter in the next layer.

Here are the mushroom and onion slices sauteed with about a half a stick of butter.

And added to the cake pan.

I like to buy a big bag of spinach at Costco and use about half of it. Then I occasionally grab a handful for a snack throughout the week. If I make the next egg bake in less than a week, I can use the same bag for two batches.

I don't always use cheese, but it sure is delicious. So I shredded this chunk.

My usual seasonings. You may notice that I buy a lot of my ingredients at Costco.

Another Costco product.

Just a short pour of heavy cream. I never measure.

15 to 18 eggs.

Seasonings added.

All mixed up.





When pouring the egg mixture over the other ingredients, be sure to pour slowly. I tend to overfill the pan with vegetables, so if I try to dump the eggs in too quickly some of the egg ends up on the floor as waste. I don't like waste.

Bake at 350...

For 45 minutes to an hour. Depends on the ingredients and the size of the concoction. I ended up cooking this one for an hour, mostly because of the carrots.

Boom!
That's all that's to it. The cheese browned really nicely on this batch and I will soon discover how the carrots did in the oven. (Update: the carrots did well once I cooked it for a full hour, and this batch is delicious!)