E4: Unconventional Enchiladas

Scot: Roasted chicken and Brussels sprouts with quinoa pilaf. How was it? How did it go? And what's recipe number three? That's what we're going to talk about today on "Cooking with the U of U Health Crew" podcast. By the way, get today's and all the other recipes online at cooking.thescoperadio.com.

All right, crew. Week number two. Alex, question. Not going to go too in-depth into it here at the top of the show. Did you beat dry chicken syndrome with this week's recipe that wasn't completely sandpaper dry?

Alex: It wasn't, thanks to the help of my husband, because I definitely wanted to cook it longer. I was like, "It's not done. It's not done." And he was like, "This is when we dry out the chicken." So I know everyone hates this word and I'm going to say it, but it was so moist. It was so good. We did it.

Scot: All right.

Theresa: Nice.

Scot: Yeah, we'll dig into that a little bit later. Nayeli, how about you? How did the chicken carving go? Did you do all right carving the chicken?

Nayeli: So this is what happened. The chicken was done and ready and my roommates were like, "We're going to wait for you to cut the chicken." I was like, "I'm sorry, y'all. Y'all are going to have to pick out what you want because I don't know how to cut this thing."

Scot: Oh, okay. You didn't even try. All right.

Nayeli: But it was good. It was super good.

Scot: All right. Jhonny, how did things go for you? I don't know what to ask you. How'd you feel about your diced onions? Were you happy with your diced onions?

Jhonny: Diced onions were good. I used Theresa's method and I didn't cry as much, so that worked. But the quinoa was kind of tricky because I had never cooked quinoa before and I had no idea when it was ready and when it wasn't.

Scot: Yeah. Let's talk about that too because I have, and I struggled. I think it was the coconut milk that kind of switched things up a little bit . . .

Jhonny: Yeah.

Scot: . . . and made it different. All right. Also joining us, is our recipe architect and nutrition expert, Theresa Dvorak. She's a Registered Dietician and the Director of Culinary Medicine in the University of Utah College of Health's Department of Nutrition and Integrated Physiology.

Theresa, I've got a question for you. How much damage did I do to my body by just sitting over the cutting board and eating the chicken skin that came off the breast?

Theresa: Oh, I know. The crispy saltiness of the chicken skin, right?

Scot: It's so good.

Theresa: So good. I will say that that's where the majority of the saturated fat is in your chicken, so keep that in mind, and how much are you eating, how frequently you're eating chicken skin, and your cardiovascular risk. If you're really, really concerned about the saturated fat for your cholesterol or your overall cardiovascular health, then that's certainly something that we want to try and limit.

Scot: All right. Well, I'm not going to tell you how much I ate because it was a lot. But anyway, I don't make a habit out of it.

All right, crew. Let's find out. So the meal, we had roasted chicken and Brussels sprouts and then a quinoa pilaf. How was it? So I want to ask in these terms. Was the meal, the amount of leftovers, or any other kind of benefit or enjoyment that you get from the cooking process worth the time invested in this recipe?

So I know Alex was stressed about time when she was going to make this thing. How did it work out for you? How was it? What did you think?

Alex: So yes, I was super stressed about time. I was out of town this weekend, and then work has just been really crazy. So I was like, "Oh, gosh, I'm going to make it at night and we can have it for lunch and dinner the next day." But I kind of just did it. I was like, "You know what? Let's cook it right now and we'll eat a late dinner." We're early dinner eaters.

So by the time it came out of the oven, my husband was, again, just gnawing at it. We didn't wait 10 minutes to let it cool. We did not do that. But I was surprised. I was so stressed and when I did it, I was like, "Wow, that was so . . ." It was so easy. The chicken was actually the easiest part, and I was really proud of it.

Scot: How about you, Nayeli? What'd you think?

Nayeli: So I think that the preparation process overall was just . . . it wasn't hard. I think it was pretty easy and everything. What was difficult to me was having to sit and wait, and wait until the chicken was done. And also, I had an issue where I needed to leave at a certain point and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can't just leave this chicken here."

But overall, I think the amount that I made was perfect because we ate dinner that night and the next day we used the chicken . . . My roommate made chicken tortilla soup. So there was enough left over for two days and two different meals.

Scot: Awesome. And overall, was the meal good? Did you enjoy the meal?

Nayeli: Oh, I loved the meal. The chicken was super juicy. It was my first time making quinoa and it came out so good. I loved it.

Scot: All right, Jhonny. How did it go? How was it? How was the meal compared to the amount of leftovers, time invested, all of that?

Jhonny: I'd say overall good. I had a lot of leftovers that I definitely ate afterward. I set an hour and a half apart, so I put the chicken in the oven and while that was happening I was making the quinoa and the Brussels sprouts.

However, when I was making the quinoa, again, no idea how to make it. I didn't know how it was supposed to look at the end, because when I cook rice, you let it simmer at the end, and you see the rice and no water. But after 15 minutes of the quinoa, it was just a bunch of coconut milk on top and I was like, "Okay, is that what it's supposed to look like?" I didn't know. So I just left it for a little bit longer.

Alex: I actually was a little nervous about that, so I added less coconut milk. I think it was one 13-ounce can and I just did one cup of water and then one cup of coconut milk and it was better. So I don't know.

Scot: Oh. Yeah, I had to go way beyond the 15 minutes. I think I was simmering it for maybe a half hour, 35 minutes, and . . .

Jhonny: That was my experience.

Scot: Yeah. And Theresa, that's right, it's just like rice, right? You just want to see the quinoa with no liquid. Is that how quinoa is done?

Theresa: Yes. Both would be okay. If you were to have turned your heat off at the 15-minute mark, that quinoa also would've continued to absorb the coconut milk, and potentially . . . I don't know if any of you experienced the quinoa burning or sticking to the bottom of your pan, but turning the heat off and just letting it sit on the stovetop, will also help prevent any burning or sticking to the bottom of your pan or your pot that can be kind of challenging on the cleanup side of things.

Jhonny: I do have a question about the simmering. What temperature is actually simmering? Because when I think of simmering, I put it either at the 1 or . . . So in my oven, there are all the number knobs. I put it at the lowest ones, either the 1 or the 2. But what is the actual temperature for simmering?

Theresa: The challenge is that all cooktops, all ranges, are going to be slightly different in their temperature or heat output. What you want to see is that there are kind of little bubbles forming in the liquid on the top of the surface. If you're not getting any bubbling, then you need to be slightly higher. But you don't want kind of a rolling boil like if you were boiling pasta or something of that sort.

Scot: Jhonny, then ultimately at the end, what'd you think of the meal? Was it a good meal? Did you enjoy it?

Jhonny: Overall, yeah. The quinoa was definitely different. I'll put it in that range. It wasn't bad, but also, for me, I wouldn't say it was amazing. I would just say it's a new flavor.

I actually had it by itself and it was all right, but I felt as someone who doesn't eat quinoa on a regular basis, and this was my first time, I did "cheat" by using this Peruvian green sauce that I make that I'm already used to eating to help me, I guess, transition into this new flavor that I've never tasted before.

Scot: I've got to say . . . First of all, I don't know if any of the rest of you feel this way. I love that moment when the chicken in the oven starts roasting and you can hear it. I think that is just a Zen sound. I love that. And it smells great and I thought the chicken tasted great.

The quinoa with the coconut milk gave it a really rich taste. There were a couple of times . . . so any time I seem to engage in something in the kitchen, there's some moment during the process where I think, "Oh, this is going to be a disaster."

Nayeli: Same.

Scot: And the quinoa was that moment because at first it was the liquid wasn't going away, and then it looked like paste, and I'm just like, "Oh, boy." But it finally came out good after I kind of had some patience and let all the water boil away.

And I also was not used to adding spices at the end in the quinoa. Usually, I feel like you add spices kind of during the cooking process, and I thought that really made things taste good. You could really taste those spices.

And the Brussels sprouts were good too and I'm really happy with the amount of leftovers. As soon as we're done here, I'm going to go eat some leftovers, so that's awesome.

I want to talk about kitchen skill stuff here for a second because that can be a real barrier, as I'm sitting there chopping and feeling incompetent doing it or feeling like I'm taking forever. It sounded like the rest of you kind of got things done in a reasonable time. It took me the whole time pretty much to prepare the other two dishes when the chicken was in. It took me that whole chicken time.

Now, in fairness, I cleaned up my workspace, I put away some dishes, I did some of that other stuff, so maybe that's not fair. But I felt that there was a lot of mincing and dicing in this recipe. Who felt good about how their stuff came out as far as their onion or their garlic or their bell pepper or the cauliflower even? Did everybody feel good about that?

Nayeli: I will say when I was cutting the cauliflower, I kind of just . . . Once I put the knife in it, everything just kind of fell apart. So, with the cauliflower, I kind of just did whatever came out. But I was like, "I mean, as long as it's in small pieces I think it's fine."

I think that was the one that I didn't know how to chop up. But for everything else, I will say I'm not the best person at chopping stuff up. Some things come out different sizes. It's not all pretty. It's just whatever for me.

Alex: Yeah, I'll say I was always kind of taught however you're eating your food . . . Do you want a huge chunk of your onion? How do you want to taste your food? If that makes sense. Do you want a big bite of a bell pepper? Some people do, some people don't, so that's kind of why I just kind of just chop it up pretty nicely. However, I feel like the bite will taste.

Scot: Jhonny?

Jhonny: Well, I will say that the cauliflower and the garlic came out perfectly, but that's mostly because somebody else did it for me. I bought frozen cauliflower rice and I got minced garlic. Sorry. I will say it did save me some time, but I promise I'll do better next time,

Scot: All right. Is this something that just with practice you get better at, Theresa? I mean, again, I feel like I spend a lot of time doing that chopping.

Theresa: Yep. It's just practice, just doing it. And I like hearing the variations that many of you had done with especially the quinoa. You have the base of the quinoa and you could put anything in it if you wanted to. Or if you don't have an ingredient, you just add more of something else that you do have, and it's really forgiving.

But I like Alex's mention of just thinking through, "How do I like my food to taste or that mouth feel?" And some folks like larger chunks of things. They like them a little bit crispier and they leave them a little bigger. Other folks, "I want a little bit of everything," so you chop them up a little bit smaller.

And a pilaf is super forgiving on what your dices look like, so they don't have to be completely uniform or all look the same.

Scot: I think another thing that I worry about a lot that I don't need to worry about is how important is the exact amount of whatever I'm putting into something, like the bell pepper or the cauliflower in this recipe. The recipe called for a quarter cup of that stuff.

I mean, I could have added more and been happy, because that's kind of how I like to eat. So I had half a bell pepper left. I would've been totally fine throwing the rest of that in there.

And I think we think our skills aren't good enough, right? But the other thing is, like I said, there's always a point in my cooking experience where I feel like I'm heading towards a disaster and it always works out. Generally, I've never had a complete disaster like the stories you hear at Thanksgiving where the whole meal is just . . .

Theresa: Where it's not edible, right?

Scot: Right.

Theresa: Most of the time, it will be edible.

Scot: Yes. So that was good to learn.

Quick question on the Brussels sprouts. Should I have cut off the little sprout end? I did because some of them looked kind of coarse, but then you lose some leaves. Is that just normal?

Theresa: The bottom stem will be a little bit bitter and a little harder. It's completely edible, so that's up to you. Sometimes it does just naturally kind of peel off that outer layer.

And I usually do take the . . . Unless it's a Brussels sprout that's been prepped in the grocery store, then I'll just give those a rinse. But sometimes they'll look a little beat up. They'll look a little dirty. I'll pull off kind of that outside layer of leaves, just like you would a regular-sized cabbage, and that's perfectly okay.

Scot: Okay. All right. Any other questions before we move to the recipe of the week?

Nayeli: Yes.

Alex: I actually . . . Oh, go. No, you go.

Nayeli: Go ahead.

Alex: You go. I don't know if it's the same question.

Nayeli: It probably is.

Alex: I think we talked about it.

Nayeli: Yeah. We need to address the meat thermometer.

Theresa: Yes. Tell me. What?

Alex: So the chicken is looking good, we're coming to time, and I stick my digital thermometer in and it's reading like 175, and I'm like, "Great. Well, let me just stick it in another part to see if it's okay." It was like 160 and I was like, "Okay."

So this is the fork in the road. This is where Alex dries out chicken, or we stop, we stop where we're at, we just let it go. But in Alex's mind, I just keep cooking it because I'm like, "Oh, it's 160. It's not done."

So my husband and I . . . he's like, "Okay, we'll try five more minutes. Just five more minutes." And then five more minutes comes and it's still like 165, and I'm like, "We've got to keep cooking it," and he's like, "No, take it out. Take it out now."

So anyway, we took it out. We cut into it. I mean, it looked done, so I was like, "Okay, here we go. Alex is either going to get sick or it's going to . . ." And you know what? It was really good. It was perfect, but I was like, "What did I do?" What did I do wrong, Theresa?

Theresa: You did nothing wrong. Keep in mind that with chicken, the technical doneness where you're not going to run the risk of salmonella is 165. So that's that minimum temperature that you're looking for. So if you are hitting in that 155 range, yes, you've got to leave it in longer. But if we're 168 and other parts are 177, then take it out.

And two, your meats will continue to cook when you take them out of the oven. Even though you said you pretty much ate it right away, you still took time to cut it up. You put it on a plate or a cutting board or something of that sort. It's still coming to temperature during those times as well.

And as you're cutting up the chicken, there's no harm in putting part of the bird back in the oven if it didn't fully cook. You could always tent it with a piece of tin foil, and that can also help to kind of slow that kind of drying out of the chicken too. But you're very right, take it out.

Scot: And where were you sticking the thermometer? Was it in the breast meat? Isn't that where you're supposed to stick it, in the thickest part of the breast meat, go to about the middle of that?

Theresa: Yep.

Alex: I did, and that was 165. And then I stuck it on the side, because you know me, I just poke around. I never just stop when I should. I was like, "Let me check the side of it." I think it might have been like . . . I don't know if it was the wing or what, and I was like, "That's not right." So again, this is where I go wrong.

Scot: All right. Overall, it sounds like the Cooking Crew gave this one a thumbs up, so pretty excited to move on to the next recipe. And I will say just one more time, if it wasn't for this challenge, I wouldn't have stuck with it. So that's a problem I have to solve, Theresa. I don't know if it'll just become a habit and I won't worry about it quite so much, if it'll become easier. You have thoughts on that?

Theresa: Yeah, and part of it is also trying new recipes, and sometimes we need peer pressure to try new recipes, right?

Scot: Absolutely.

Theresa: You were all really pretty hesitant about roasting a whole chicken and doing multiple items for a meal, so I applaud you all for sticking with it and giving that a try.

But you also have to be realistic as to what's happening that day, during that week, and is this an appropriate recipe or set of recipes for a weeknight or for a night that I just got back into town or what have you.

Maybe it is and you're like, "Yep, I'm just going to do it, and that's my priority." Great. Or it's something that we say, "I've got more time on Wednesday," or, "I'm going to hold off on a recipe like this for the weekend when I do have more time."

And that's just reading through the recipe, but also starting to try new recipes and realizing, "Even though I was intimidated by this and it sounded challenging, it ended up not really being that challenging." Those are all great wins.

Scot: And maybe use that peer pressure in your life if you're trying to develop this cooking habit. Tell your spouse, tell your roommates, invite friends over, and say, "I'm making dinner." Because then you're committed to it, and if you bail out on it, the stakes are a little bit higher.

Theresa: Yeah. Think about setting up maybe with a friend . . . I love the idea of cooking with others, and you could do that virtually, right? You could have friends or family and be cooking the same recipe and doing it in the kitchen and you've all got your video chat happening at the same time. Those experiences can be really fun too.

Scot: All right. What are we making this week for recipe number three in the 4-Week Make More Meals at Home Challenge?

Theresa: Chicken enchiladas.

Scot: I expected a better response from the audience on that. I saw that.

Theresa: I know. Me too.

Nayeli: Sorry.

Scot: I saw that and I thought, "Oh, Nayeli's going to love this because look at all the cheese in it, and Jhonny loves burritos, so enchiladas should be something he'd like." And there was nothing.

Theresa: Right?

Nayeli: I was like, "Is this the time to react or . . ."

Jhonny: Hold the applause.

Theresa: And I also thought that this building on skills that we've all been working on the last couple of times, chopping some familiar vegetables, maybe a familiar dish that we're used to, but not necessarily have we made chicken enchiladas before.

And also a way to showcase another option. Nayeli had mentioned how her roommate had put the leftover chicken in a chicken tortilla soup. This is another way that we could reuse leftover chicken.

The recipe calls for chicken breasts, but if you had a rotisserie chicken that you had for dinner one night and then you de-boned it and had your extra three to four cups of meat, that's perfect.

I really also love this recipe because it's versatile again, right? I think that's always my theme, is that you don't have to have exact ingredients to make it work, and you can play around with different things.

So if you didn't want to do chicken, if you wanted to go vegetarian, I have made this recipe before with spaghetti squash or sweet potatoes. Yes, it gives it a different flavor, but it's also a way to think about reinventing a familiar meal.

And it also uses up some of those . . . That last recipe, you only used half of the bell pepper. This one you could use up those ingredients and things of that sort too.

Scot: How about tofu? Could you make it with tofu? And how would you even go about that?

Theresa: Sure could. I would just crumble the tofu and mix it in because what you're going to do with this recipe is you're going to kind of chop everything. Well, you're going to boil your chicken breasts. If you had them in the oven, you could bake them if you wanted to, but they're super fast to boil them and then shred the chicken.

You're going to have everything prepped and then you're going to put all your ingredients in a big bowl and mix them around. So you could certainly crumble up tofu in that mixture as well in place of the chicken, or do half chicken and half tofu. That works as well.

Scot: Okay. And then if you did the spaghetti squash and sweet potato, same thing? You just mix the spaghetti squash in with the mixture and you just chop up some sweet potato, do the same thing?

Theresa: Yep. You would roast the spaghetti squash so that you can shred it, and it'll shred up and look like noodles, or shredded chicken even. And then you'll put that in with all of the other vegetables and seasonings.

Scot: And no pre-cooking on the sweet potatoes?

Theresa: Nope. Just make sure that they're small diced, like a quarter- to half-inch dice.

Scot: All right. Sweet. My wife is a vegetarian, and she gets excited that I'm making food and then . . . Last night, she could eat the pilaf and the Brussels sprouts, but she couldn't eat the chicken.

Theresa: Yeah. You could definitely make that change for sure.

Scot: Looking over this recipe, any questions for Theresa?

Alex: I actually have a question. Again, I love enchiladas. I've never made them before, but I see the recipe calls for flour tortillas. Would it work with corn or even . . . I actually have . . . It's probably not very good or I don't even know if it's good for you, but keto tortillas that are lower carb. Would that work for the consistency?

Theresa: Yeah, you can use any kind of tortilla. What you want to be mindful of is using a tortilla that is not wheat flour-based, they will often tend to break. And so you're just going to want to heat up or steam a little bit those tortillas in the microwave, just to warm them so that when you stuff them and roll them, they don't automatically split on you.

Another option could be that you could make it more like lasagna style and put a layer of tortillas and then a layer of filling and a layer of tortillas and a layer of filling, and kind of stack it that way. That could be a way that you can eliminate some of those extra steps if you were using a corn tortilla.

Scot: Any chicken shredding tips from you guys? Anybody else ever shred chicken before? Do you just use a fork or what?

Theresa: Two forks.

Scot: Two forks? So you just boil it, you take it out, you let it cool a little bit, you take two forks, and you just go to town, or what?

Theresa: You got it. Yep. And just kind of pulling it apart.

Scot: Hey, Nayeli, do you have any thoughts on this recipe?

Nayeli: I'm really happy that you added this recipe in because, as I mentioned, I do make a lot of Mexican meals. I am Mexican. That's pretty much what I ate all the time growing up.

I'm excited to make the meal, but I will say I'm a little hesitant just because I'm very protective of the way that I traditionally make Mexican food. And a lot of the . . . not a lot of the ingredients, but most of the ingredients and some of the stuff these enchiladas are made are way different than how I would make them. So that's where I'm a little unsure of it.

But of course, I think that that's the point of this challenge, is challenging my taste buds, using different skills, and just changing a few things up. So I'm really looking forward to that.

Scot: Hey, Nayeli, how does this vary from the traditional way that you would make them?

Theresa: Everything.

Nayeli: So I think right off the bat, if you make enchiladas, you use a lot of oil, and a lot of the things are fried. You even fry the salsa you put on top. You fry the tortilla before you put in the chicken. So it's a lot of fried stuff.

And then I would just put in the chicken by itself in the tortilla, wrap it up, and then put cheese, the sauce, and then sour cream. So that's the way that I would make it. It's a lot fewer ingredients now that I think about it, but it's more based on the sauce that you put on top of it and just your toppings.

Scot: Theresa, the modifications from the way that Nayeli just described, are these modifications because you're trying to avoid using all that oil? Is it a skills thing, you're trying to make it easier for us? Why is this so different?

Theresa: Yeah, so this is thinking about decreasing the animal product, decreasing the frying, and a lot of the oil. There's still cheese in this.

Nayeli: Love that.

Theresa: But it's less, and that kind of still gives you your creaminess, and can kind of get you some the crunchiness on the top, and help it kind of come together. It's going to be much higher in fiber, it's going to be lower in saturated fat and those fried oils, but certainly it's going to be . . . Again, thinking about increasing the vegetable content while decreasing some of the fat and the animal product.

Nayeli: That's kind of what I thought too, because I'm like, "There are a lot more vegetables in this," which in my head it's like, "That makes it more healthy."

Theresa: And there's still a sauce on these ones, but it's not going to be fully smothered like you would in a traditional enchilada.

Scot: And that's what this milk and chicken broth thing is that you . . . Let me get this right.

Theresa: You pour over, yes.

Scot: So I've got everything wrapped up in the tortillas and I'm pouring liquid over top of them. That's not going to be a problem? Because to me that sounds like the point in the recipe where I'm like, "This is going to be a disaster."

Theresa: Nope. That's bringing in that sauciness. So when you think about a smothered enchilada, it's going to be increasing some of that smothered, but it also helps the enchiladas to not dry out in the oven as you're baking them.

And this is something to keep in mind with the baking part. You're going to notice that sauce kind of bubbling and boiling almost, and that's what you're looking for kind of with the doneness. Certainly, if you're using a thermometer, you want that internal temperature to be at least 165. But what you're looking for visually for it to be fully cooked is that the sauce has kind of thickened, that it's not boiling as it had previously been, and that your cheese has gone kind of golden brown on the top and crispy in some spots.

Scot: The ingredient here, the two to three chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, is that something that comes in a jar that I'm looking for?

Theresa: It comes in a can. That is where your heat is coming from. So if you like them spicy, then you can always add one more chili, one fewer chili, depending on how spicy you like it.

Scot: And then let's have a brief nutrition conversation here. So I'm looking at the nutrition information. Two enchiladas, 755 calories, 72 grams of carbs. The fiber isn't as high as I'd expect, 3.5 grams. So pretty carb-heavy from my perspective. Maybe we need to have a conversation about this. Thirty-four grams of fat. I mean, this feels like a . . .

Theresa: High on the protein.

Scot: Yes. Thank you. Absolutely. It's super high in protein.

Theresa: Yep. And keep in mind this is two enchiladas, so that's a pretty healthy portion. But you could up the fiber. If you were making them vegetarian style with your spaghetti squash, and upping maybe an additional can of beans or your tofu, that would certainly increase your fiber quite a bit and decrease some of those other pieces, like the fat. Your protein would decrease a little bit too there because of not having the meat in there, but still a pretty solid protein source. And keep in mind that your carbohydrates are coming from a variety of sources.

Scot: So then as far as putting a meal together . . . I mean, you spoiled me with this last one because it was a complete meal and even my wife was like, "This is the first time you've ever made a complete meal and not just a dish." So now I'm viewing the world differently. I'm like, "But this isn't a complete meal, just an enchilada or two."

I mean, you could have one, which then gives you more leeway. But given that these enchiladas kind of are . . . If you're having three meals a day at 700 calories, you're, what, 700, 1,400, 2,100. You're right around the calories you need to be for an average-sized adult, I think. What could I pair with this?

Theresa: You could certainly put a salad on the side. You think about going to kind of a Tex-Mex restaurant, and you're often going to have lettuce and tomatoes alongside your meal. You could certainly do something like that here.

You could put it on a bed of spinach and chop it up and make it a little bit more like a burrito salad, or you could do some black beans.

You could do the rice, like a cilantro rice or something like that, or a Spanish rice. Just be mindful of the portion there, and I would make sure that my other side is also high in fiber, whether it's beans or a salad or something of that sort.

Scot: And as far as the leftovers, it looks like this makes 10 servings. So, in my family, if my wife and I each eat a couple, I've got a ton left over. What's the shelf life of these?

Theresa: So you could keep them in the refrigerator for three, four days like you would a standard leftover, but they do freeze quite well. Often what I will do is kind of think about these in a batch cooking scenario where I'll make a bunch of enchiladas, one or two pans' worth of enchiladas, then I'll bake them, and then I'll portion them out into smaller containers and put them in the freezer that way so that I can just pull out however many I need for a meal or a lunch or what have you.

Scot: All right, crew. It's time to get cooking. Let's go make that recipe, and share it with our family, friends, and roommates, and we'll gather again next week to talk about how it was and how it went.

And we also hope that you listening will take this 4-Week Make Your Own Meals Challenge. You can get the recipe by going to cooking.thescoperadio.com. That's cooking.thescoperadio.com. Click on the button that says "Take Me to the Recipes." We've got the recipes from all the weeks there. And then you could also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already done so.

So make it. If you've got some pictures, take those and share them on our social media channels. We're at facebook.com/uofuhealth. Instagram is at @UofUHealth. The hashtag is #MYOMChallenge, Make Your Own Meals Challenge.

And if you want to reach out for a little bit more of a conversation, you can email us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Cooking Crew will return next week, give our take on this recipe, and we'll debut our final recipe, recipe number four in the challenge.

Thanks for joining and taking the 4-Week Make Your Own Meals Challenge.