As I was looking ahead to this week, I reminded myself that I had cilantro in the fridge left from my roasted cauliflower soup last week. I have a harder time keeping cilantro fresh than parsley, and knew that this would probably be the last week I would be able to use this bunch, so I decided to use it all up with green chicken enchiladas!

I love this recipe from Food52. Fair warning: it is titled Enchiladas Suizas, but it is not truly that because it doesn't include a cream sauce. That's fine by me. It's a killer green salsa with corn tortillas and chicken. Game on.

Planning!

This recipe does do one thing that kind of makes me crazy: it calls for a portion size (2 cups, to be specific) of cooked chicken rather than telling you how much raw chicken to buy and offering a suggestion for preparing it. No worries, really, in this case: I can eye ball about how much chicken will make two cups of chopped/shredded meat (about a pound), and I'm all about that court-bouillon poaching life.

Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...

Groceries I had on hand...

• olive oil
• garlic
• cilantro
• dried oregano
• ground clove
• ground cumin
• salt

Groceries I had to buy...

• tomatillos (.7lb @ $.99/lb = $.69)
• poblanos (.59lb @ $4.69/lb = $2.77)
• chicken broth ($.79)
• lime (1 @ 5 for $2.00 = $.40)
• chicken (1.05lb @ $4.29/lb = $4.50)
• corn tortillas ($2.09)
• monterey jack cheese ($2.50)
• sour cream ($1.99)

Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $15.73

Total monies spent for each of these 4 meals....

$3.93 per meal...

Cooking!

One of my favorite things about this recipe is how complicated it tastes while taking zero work. Make salsa, roll enchiladas, smother enchiladas, bake enchiladas. For real!

Quick note on the chicken: I used boneless skinless chicken thighs. I poached then in a court bouillon with one onion, two smashed garlic cloves, and all the stems from the cilantro leaves that I put into the salsa. I simmered for ten minutes, then steeped for another 15 before taking out the chicken to cool and discarding the aromatics.

I ate these for dinner tonight, and will testify that they are: fresh, just spicy enough, filling without making me sleepy, and altogether a game well played.