Chicken-Butternut Squash Enchiladas & Darwin Cafe's Kale Salad

 

Chicken-Butternut Squash Enchiladas &

 Darwin Cafe's Kale Salad

I have to say, this is one of the first recipes I have free-styled, using leftovers. I was heading to a comedy show last night, and knew that I wanted to make dinner fairly fast, but I also had a whole pot of butternut squash soup that needed to be eaten as well. I had a few friends coming over for wine and cheese before the show, so I knew I wanted to pawn off the rest of the soup to them. I also had a huge bunch of kale that needed to be eaten, so I decided that I would try to recreate the amazing and infamous kale salad from San Francisco's Darwin Cafe. Darwin Cafe is in SOMA, and if you get there past 11:30 am, you will be in line for a good half hour before you get to order. This is how good the restaurant is. The kale salad is an frequently ordered item, and it is wellllll worth whatever wait you may encounter when you get there.

As we were brainstorming dishes to make for dinner, we thought Mexican sounded pretty good. My brain was moving right along all the different Mexican dishes to make, and enchiladas popped into my head. I haven't made them in a while, and then I had an epiphany. We could use the leftover soup, which was thick enough, for an enchilada sauce and make butternut squash enchiladas! This was one of my first chef's thoughts to use leftovers and re-purpose them to a completely different dish, so I most definitely gave myself a few pats on my back. I was quite impressed. To add some heat, we picked up a few jalapeños, a rotisserie chicken (for shredding), and a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. It wasn't decided beforehand that we would use black beans also, but when we saw how little chicken we had, we added the beans for some bulk.

It was a smashing hit, and literally every piece of it was eaten by the end of the night. If you decide that you want to make the butternut squash soup I have posted, please keep this recipe in mind if you have a plethora of leftovers!! Hope I don't get in trouble for sharing this kale salad recipe, but it's my take on it...soooo......

Darwin Cafe's Kale Salad

Ingredients:

1 bunch of green kale (I used four stalks worth)

5 garlic cloves, diced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3/4 cup freshly shaved Parmesan cheese

1 packet of pancetta, chopped up into small pieces (I used leftover bacon) 

1 lemon

Directions:

1. In a medium sized sauce pan, cook the pancetta until it's crispy and golden. Transfer to a paper towel and leave on the side for now

2. Add the diced garlic, and cook in the pancetta grease until fragrant and lightly brown. Make sure to not burn it, so I cook on a very low heat

3. Chop up the kale into bite size pieces, and discard the thick stalks. Squirt the juice of 1 lemon onto the kale, which softens it up and covers up the bitter taste

4. Combine garlic, olive oil, and balsamic in a small bowl and pour over kale. Add the pancetta

5. Cover the whole salad generously with freshly shaved Parmesan, et voilá! 

Chicken-Butternut Squash Enchiladas

Ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken

1 pot of leftover (or new) butternut squash soup 

2 jalapeños

14 oz can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (you can find these at most grocery stores)

10 flour tortillas

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 can whole black beans

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Put soup back in a food processor or blender, and add the jalapeños as well as one or two chipotle peppers (depending on how spicy you like your food), with about 1/2 the adobo sauce

3. Puree or blend all ingredients together

4. Shred the chicken with two forks or your hands and place in a large bowl, and add 1/3 the soup mixture to the chicken

5. Pour 1/3 sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish

6. Heat the tortillas in a microwave for about 30 seconds, or until pliable. If you do not steam them up, they will break more easily

7. Make the enchiladas by filling each tortilla with chicken, beans, and cheese, rationing it out to however many enchiladas you want to make. So for instance if you're only making four, load those bad boys up! If you're making 10, like us, then be mindful of how much ingredients you put in

8. Cover all the enchiladas with the remaining sauce, and the remaining cheese

9. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown