Homemade Chicken Taquitos, Alton Brown Guacamole, and Restaurant Style Salsa

So I tried out this homemade chicken taquitos recipe (which included cilantro, pepper jack cheese and cream cheese -- how could it be bad, right?). It definitely makes a TON of taquitos... I totally should have frozen half of them prior to baking (per the recipe -- these are actually a freezer meal) but we over-thought our hungriness and didn't realize how filling they'd actually be. They were DELICIOUS.

As you can see, I had a bit of an issue with the taquitos cracking which happened both before and while I baked them. So they aren't very pretty but they sure tasted good. I tried to prevent the cracking, per some complaints in that blog's comments section, by draping them with a wet paper towel but that didn't help much. Maybe because I used white corn tortillas (which are almost zero sodium) they cracked more than flour ones (which are 3 million mg sodium) would have. Not sure.

And for the sides, I made Alton Brown's guacamole recipe (how can you go wrong with Alton) and it was indeed delicious. This was actually my first time making homemade salsa. Prior to now, I was able to get low-sodium salsa at Trader Joe's, but alas, we have no TJs yet here in Colorado Springs. Hopefully someday soon, since they just opened stores in Denver and Ft. Collins. This salsa recipe was really good, but not the prettiest -- more of a red-brown color. It made a TON too. I may freeze a lot of it in small containers, because no way can I eat that trough of salsa mostly by myself (as mentioned before, Steve isn't a huge salsa person... Gigi had a bit tonight but it was on the spicy side for her.)

Definitely will be revisiting these recipes again some time.

Just to add a new wrinkle to my meal planning, now that we're past holidays and birthday seasons, Steve is going back on his hard-core low carb/Atkins diet starting tomorrow (but first... tonight... we have shamrock shakes a-waiting). I'll still be making pasta dishes for the kids and me on occasion, and he'll have to thaw leftover Atkins friendly meals on those nights. He goes on this diet hard core for about 6-9 months every year or two... fun times. I challenge you to find lots of meals that will satisfy the restrictions of: ultra low-carb, ultra low-sodium, ultra picky 10yr old, and a toddler whose tastes shift with the wind.