Cream Cheesey Yumminess

Originally posted 2/3/11

Hey everybody!  How are you guys??  We are doing so much better here, finally getting all of the sickies out of our house.  Cold season sucks!  Nobody every tells you that kids get so many colds, and there is no way you could remember that from when you were a kid……I swear Paisley has had a cold for the last 2 months.  Blech.  Anyhoo, today I am giving you a quick and easy recipe.  I think I should throw you an easy one since Tuesday’s recipes were a bit harder then what I normally do;)  And today’s is pretty much as easy as it gets….

While strolling through the local Wal-Mart….I found an amazing new product.  It is made my Philadelphia, and is it called “Cooking Crème”.  So basically, it is cream cheese that is easier to cook with.  It is looser, and melts better.

It got my attention immediately because if there is one thing this girl loves….it’s cream cheese.  I love cream cheese the way Giada loves mascarpone, or Ina loves “good” vanilla….or the way the Neely’s love cayenne pepper.  You get the picture.  I love cream cheese.  And I am all for using it in recipes.  I chose the “Santa Fe” flavor.  And no, I don’t work for Philadelphia.  They wouldn’t hire me because I would probably eat all the product;)

I decided to throw some chicken in the slow cooker with salsa and some “Cooking Crème.”  I think everybody knows about the salsa/chicken/slow cooker thing.  You know-you throw some chicken breasts in the slow cooker with a jar of salsa, and 8 hours later you shred the chicken and that’s that.  I jazzed this up a bit with the cooking crème and turned the chicken into flautas.  At least I think they are flautas.  I still haven’t established whether they are flautas, taquitos or maybe even chimichangas.  I am going with flautas, so deal with it.

I started with 3 chicken breasts and 8 ounces of salsa in my slow cooker.  I also added a pinch of cumin and a pinch of chili powder because I am crazy like that….a rule breaker, if you will;)  I set it for 10 hours, although I have no intention of cooking it that long.  I let it go about 6 hours.  I feel that a slow cooker can dry your meat if it cooks too long.  I prefer the lowest setting.

After about 6 hours, I poked at it, and I could tell it was ready to shred.

I took all of the chicken out and shredded it. (I also helped it along with a knife).  I discarded the salsa that it had cooked in because that had gotten to watery.  I put the other half of the jar (8 ounces) in the slow cooker with the chicken.  I added about ¾ of the package of cooking crème to the chicken.  Since the slow cooker was still warm, the crème melted in immediately, like within 5 minutes.  At this point, there are so many things you can do with the chicken.  Burritos, tacos, enchiladas, taco salad, or even straight out of the slow cooker like I did!  But I didn’t eat all of it like that.  I had flautas to make!

See how creamy it looks?  Yum!!  I put a little bit down one side of a flour tortilla.  I used flour because that is what I like.  If you like corn better, then have at it.  I rolled these little babies up and sealed them with toothpicks, about 3 picks per flauta.

I shallow fried the flautas, which I think keeps them from being chimichangas….which are deep fried.  I fried them about 2 to 3 minutes per side, or until they are golden brown.  Be careful-the oil will splatter and make a mess out of your kitchen, but that is the price you gotta pay for delicious fried goodness.

I LOVE the way these turned out, and I will for sure be using a lot more “Cooking Crème.”  There are a couple of other flavors that I will for sure try.  Such a good idea, Philly.  Nice work;)

I hope you try this recipe!  If you don’t have a slow cooker, you could buy a rotisserie chicken and shred that.  Mix the chicken, in a large pot, with salsa and the cooking crème and you will have the same thing.  So good!!  See you all next week…..which will be dedicated to Valentine’s Day recipes!!