Cilantro Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos

This dish came as a result of a miscommunication between my beau and I and it turned out absolutely fantastic.  My beau totally LOVES fried stuff.  Who doesn´t like the taste of fried things?  The funny thing is, I continue to gradually lose weight, am feeling better, blood sugars are stable, blood pressures are great.

Where did the miscommunication come?  I told him the original enchilada recipe includes frying the corn tortillas, but I didn´t like doing that for a couple reasons - too fattening and takes too much time.  I found that putting the corn tortillas in the microwave softens them up just right.

The filling for these chicken taquitos is the same for the chicken enchiladas, but you put a lot less of the chicken filling in the taquitos than for the enchiladas.  Since I didn´t have any toothpicks to hold the taquitos  but had skews for kabobs, we used those instead.

Cilantro Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos & Spicy Cilantro Cream Cheese Enchiladas with Green Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb of chicken breast meat (2 halves)
• 1/2 large onion, chopped (or 1 medium onion)
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened 
• 1 cup sour cream
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbspn garlic powder
• 1 Tbspn sea salt
• 30 corn tortillas
• oil for frying the taquitos
• 30 toothpicks

Directions:

• Boil chicken breasts with sea salt for about 25 min. on medium high.  Cut into chicken breasts when done to make sure there is no pinkness.
• Heat a cup of oil in a skillet to medium high.  It should not be smoking, as that is too hot.  Oil is ready for frying when you place the tip of a wooden spoon in the oil and it rapidly bubbles.
• Place cooked chicken breasts in a food processor on chop and pulse chop until the chicken is in fine bits.
• Mix chopped chicken breast, cilantro, onion, cream cheese, sour cream, garlic, garlic powder, sea salt in a medium stainless steel bowl until thoroughly mixed.
• Heat 6 corn tortillas in the microwave on high for about 1 min. to soften.  The corn tortillas NEED to be softened or they will break.
• Place 1 heaping tablespoon full of chicken mixture (make sure to not over stuff - you should leave a little empty space on each side of the tortilla) on 1/3 of the softened corn tortilla and roll tightly without causing the corn tortilla to break.  Be careful to treat the corn tortilla with gentleness as they can easily tear.  

• Place a toothpick in the center of the roll to hold it in place.

• Using tongs, place the roll in the hot oil, making sure to carefully do this so as not to splatter.  
• Fry roll until golden brown, which is a 2-4 minutes, turning a couple times to ensure all sides are browning.  

• Remove taquito from oil and drain on paper towels.