Chicken Tostadas

We don't like Tex-Mex food...we *love* it! So last night I whipped up some chicken tostadas for us and they were super yummy. That's the thing about cooking for yourself once you get the hang of it: the food is always yummy because you make it like you want it!!

Below is our recipe/method. Endlessly variable, of course, so use whatever you have on hand or whatever you like. I really wanted sliced avocado on mine, but this was a spur-of-the-moment dinner and we didn't have any (its hard to find perfectly ripe avocados locally - we usually buy them a bit green and give them a few days to ripen).

Jen's Chicken Tostadas

1lb chicken breast - we had tenders, but it doesn't matter because they are getting shredded anyway
1 jar of salsa - we like Pace mild picante sauce
Tostada shells - crunchy fried flat corn tortillas, in the Mexican foods section at the grocery, they look like giant tortilla chips
Toppings - we used hot sauce, tomatillo salsa, shredded lettuce, shredded extra sharp cheddar, and sour cream

Put thawed chicken in a baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam. Cover with the entire jar of salsa. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes, take the foil off and bake until done - another 10 minutes for us. When the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the oven and use a spoon to break it into bite-sized pieces and stir it up with the salsa it was cooked in. It will shred further as you stir it. We like some chunks remaining, but you can shred it completely if you prefer that uniform texture.

Now it's time to layer! We usually do a double-stack since that's what we like, but tostadas technically are only supposed to have one layer. So just do what seems right to you.

On each plate we put a tostada shell, top it with a nice scoop of chicken and spread that out - we like about an inch thickness of chicken over the shell. Hubby adds hot sauce to his chicken at this point. Top with another tostada shell, then evenly spoon tomatillo salsa over it, and top with lots of shredded lettuce, shredded cheese and a big dollop of sour cream.

Full disclosure: Hubby adores Chi-Chi's brand corn cake mix. If you haven't had it, it's a scoop of soft, sweet and slightly sticky cornmeal-based spoon bread that is studded with bits of corn kernel. I've made it homemade before, but the man loves the mix so that's what we make. We had that alongside the tostadas last night as well. You can make it in a casserole dish or muffin cups. I had never tried it in muffin cups before so I gave it a go and they turned out adorable. I forgot to snap a picture of them, though.