More Planned-Overs

...and some not so planned.

Surely you've heard the word 'leftovers."  In some households it's almost a dirty word.  Not in my house!  I plan for leftovers.  So much so that I've started calling them planned-overs.  This week's example is the white chicken enchilada dip I made yesterday in the slow cooker.  Yes... it's party food.  And no, I wasn't having a party.  It sounded tasty and since there's no one else around to force me to act like a grown up responsible adult, when I want party food for dinner I make party food for dinner.

But the recipe kind of made a lot for one person.  So today I made it into creamy white chicken chili.  And to borrow a silly made-up word from Rachael Ray... yummo!

Here's how I make white chicken enchilada dip...

Place 1 chicken breast in the slow cooker and  cook until the meat is cooked through.  Break it into small chunks or shred right in the pot.  Then add 1 pint green salsa, 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 can diced green chiles, appx. half a package of dry ranch dressing mix and 1 brick of cream cheese.   Add a bit of water if it is too thick as everything melts and starts to bubble.  (My green salsa was home-canned out of green tomatoes... same recipe as red tomato salsa, just used the green ones.  It's not as liquid as what you buy in the store.  It's not as liquid as my red salsa either.  I guess green tomatoes don't have quite as much water content?)   When it's all come together nicely, I add 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and stir it in until melted and incorporated.

This dip is yummy with corn chips or Ritz crackers or (and this is my favorite) a crusty extra-sour sour dough bread broken into bite size chunks.

To turn the leftovers into creamy white chicken chili all I did was start the dip warming up again and add 4 cups of pre-cooked navy beans (depending on how much left over you have, you might need more or less beans) and enough chicken broth to get the consistency where I wanted it.  A cup of corn would have also been a good addition, as would sliced mushrooms and finely diced zucchini.  And a sprinkle of chopped green onions on top would be a pretty garnish along side some cheesy garlic bread, again made out of sour dough.  Something about the pairing of green salsa flavors and sour dough bread seems extra good!

Yummy food for early fall!  And cheap, too.  All my ingredients cost around $6 and I'll end up with 5 complete meals.