Mushroom Chicken Enchiladas

Awhile back I wanted to make chicken enchiladas. We ate them fairly often growing up, but I was without my mom's recipe. I was just going to make them from memory when I realized I had no cream of chicken soup. I decided to try my own variation, using cream of mushroom soup instead. I hate to say it, but I like these better than the original, sorry mom. I made the dish again tonight, so that, as per request, I could share it. Here is the recipe I came up with. Oh, guess what? This time, I took some pictures! Woot!

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp chile powder
1/4 tsp red pepper (the spice, not the vegetable)
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 TBS butter (optional)
8 oz can can of mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (divided)
A splash of milk (uh, yes that is a totally a technical food term...maybe like 1/8 cup)
Tortillas

First off, cut your chicken into strips, about 1/2" wide. This really isn't a necessary step, but it will make cooking much easier. Place your chicken in a preheated frying pan (I put a little drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of mine just to prevent sticking) over medium heat (350 on my electric frying pan) and season with the chile powder, red pepper, and garlic salt. I'm not a super huge spicy fan, but it is nice to have a little heat in "Mexican" dishes, plus we will counteract it later with the sour cream. Stir the chicken until it is cooked all the way through, if you cut into strips, this shouldn't take long, possibly 10 min. Because of the spices, the chicken gets a really nice color. Mine looked like this:

Once the chicken is ready, place it in a container and stick it in your freezer. We want it to cool down, and fairly fast, so that we can shred it later. In the meantime it is time to make the sauce. Before I make mine I like to saute my mushrooms. Canned mushrooms aren't known for fabulous flavor, so I saute mine in the 2 TBS of butter until they start getting golden brown edges. Like so:

Okay, it's hard to see the golden brown edges, but I swear they look different than when they came out of the can. This is a totally optional step, I just like the flavor a bit better. To the mushrooms add the cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and 3/4 cup of cheese. Simmer the mixture over low heat for about 10 min. While this mixture is simmering take your chicken out of the freezer. Things are about to get a little messy. Shred the chicken with your hands, the smaller the chicken pieces, the better it will incorporate into the sauce. After the sauce has simmered, take out 1/2 cup and save it for later. Add the chicken to the remaining sauce mixture. The combination of the two should look something like this:

Now is the time to get rolling. Pull out your tortillas and place a bit of mixture in the middle, like so:

I fold in the ends and then roll, but do whatever works for you. I was able to get 7 enchiladas, yeah I know 7 tortillas don't come in a pack, use a little less filling in each and you could get 8. Place the enchiladas in a greased cake pan. Remember the extra sauce we set aside? Well, whisk in the splash of milk and pour the mix over top of the enchiladas. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese (or more if you are feeling daring). Bake the dish at 350 for 15-20 min. The cheese should be melted and the sauce bubbly. This was my final result:

I love these enchiladas, maybe it's the whole mushroom part of it. I have already ranted to you guys about my love of squash..mushrooms are another food high on my list.

I'm going to say the difficulty of this recipe is easy, though I would raise it to intermediate if you have a screaming baby while making it, which I did.