The French have their Mirepoix, which is just chopped onions, celery, and carrots. These form the basis of nearly all soups, stews, and sauces.
The Cajun version of this is the Holy Trinity of onion, celery, and bell pepper. That used to be the basis of all my cooking until I discovered red bell peppers and I ditched the bitter green peppers. Then I ditched celery unless I’m cooking for a crowd. I just think celery is kind of a waste of time.
Then I discovered these little sweet peppers. They are fun, a little sweeter than bells, come in different colors and slice up into nice rings. I always have some in the fridge.
So Enchiladas. Lots of ways to make them. You can make them with ground beef, shredded beef, shredded pork, chicken, cheese, spinach. I love em all.
Now my mom used to fry up the corn tortillas before rolling them up. And who doesn’t love a fried tortilla? But you don’t need to do that—just make sure they are moistened with sauce. Or heat them over a flame.
Don’t have a gas stove? I’m sorry, that sucks. But you can lay it on your burner and get the marks.
Now I have made my own enchilada sauce but that’s a lot of work. Canned is fine. I’m not a snob. I usually use red with beef and pork, green with chicken.
When I gardened I made a green tomato sauce that was really good. Could have sworn I posted the recipe somewhere but not on this blog.
Chicken: You can cook boneless skinless chicken breasts in the slow cooker, shred it and freeze it and use it as needed. But I prefer dark meat so I used thighs this time.
I buy the family packs and freeze them in twos in ziplock bags. I just used two thighs for these. I cut the skin off and marinated in for a half hour with
¼ cup tequila
¼ cup olive oil
Zest and juice of half lime
Garlic powder
Cumin
Lots of pepper
Green chili powder
Chili powder
(so I just put a few shakes of everything)
Then I cooked the chicken in my George Foreman Grill. I never worry about the chicken being cooked enough in this thing. About 6 minutes on each side.
Do cut it open to check. I’ve had salmonella poisoning twice. You don’t want that.
Thighs don’t shred as easily as breasts so I just took the meat off the bone, tore it up and cut it up with kitchen scissors.
Now for the veggie filling:
Saute ½ yellow onion, chopped & Four small sweet peppers in a little olive oil. Add salt and lots of pepper, green chili powder, chili powder, zest and juice of the other half of lime. A little splash of tequila, and a little brown sugar. Add just enough of the enchilada sauce to moisten it.
Cover a flat glass or casserole pan with enchilada sauce.
In each tortilla add a little sugar, a little veggie mix, and a little cheese. I used Colby Jack.
Roll it up tight and place seam side down in pan. Cover them all with enchilada sauce and make sure all the enchiladas are covered.
Cover with cheese and sprinkle a little chili powder on top.
Bake in 350 oven for 35 minutes.
Our synod is hosting Bishop Ernst Gamxamub of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia and his traveling companion, Leonard de Vries, who serves as finance director of the ELCRN. I’ve been serving as chief chauffeur.
Wednesday night we had a potluck to welcome them. What better way to show them Iowa but a potluck? Since it was a Wednesday night we invited pastors and youth leaders to bring their confirmation classes. We had close to 300 folks.
It was a great night.
I made my Enchilada Casserole. All of the goodness of enchiladas without the tedious work of rolling them up.
I bought a big aluminum pan so I wouldn’t have to worry about bringing it home.
Open a large can of enchilada sauce and pour about a fourth of it in the pan and spread it around.
I spread a can of refried beans over about 10 corn tortillas. Then I sprinkled half a cup of shredded co-jack cheese over them.
Veggies:
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 3 or 4 small sweet peppers, sliced
- 1 8 oz bag frozen corn
- 1 small can tomatoes with green chilies
- Chili powder, salt, pepper
Sauté the onions and peppers in about a Tbl olive oil. When they are caramelized, add the corn and tomatoes and seasonings. Simmer that for about 10-15 minutes to cook off some of the liquid. Pour that over the tortillas
Now I would have liked to have at least 2 lb of hamburger for this size a casserole but I only had 1 lb so that’s all I used but it was fine. So you decide. Fry it up with a packet of taco seasoning. Spread that over the vegetables.
Cover that with another 8 or 10 tortillas and pour the rest of the enchilada sauce. Make sure all of the tortillas are moistened.
Then pile a bunch of cheese over that. I used a bag of Mexican cheese and a bag of cheddar. Then I like to sprinkle a little chili powder on top. It looks pretty.
Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.
A few years ago I figured out how Applebees makes their sauce for their "Fiesta Lime Chicken" -which I love. It's just ranch dressing mixed with salsa. Sounds gross but it's really good.
So the other night I made my version of Applebees Chicken (marinate boneless skinless chicken breasts in Tequila and lime juice for 1/2 hour - pan sear just to brown, put in a pan, cover with the ranch-salsa sauce and shredded Mexican cheese that you can buy in the store. Yes, I buy those bags of shredded cheese. I HATE shredding cheese!
Bake at 350 about 35 minutes. )
So I had some leftover corn tortillas (why can you not buy less than about 50 of them?) and leftover sauce so I thought - why not enchiladas?
I got about a lb of chuck beef and rubbed it with kosher salt, ancho chili powder, cumin, and pepper -threw it in the crockpot with some water and sliced onion and about 2 TB of molasses.
I learned this trick from my Mom and we are not Mexican but if you try to roll up corn tortillas they will break so I just fry them in just a little olive oil until they have brown spots and they are nice and soft and easy to roll. Put a little beef and that store bought Mexican cheese in, roll in up and put a bunch in a pan. First pour a little of the juice from the beef all over the enchiladas, the ranch-salsa sauce, then more of that cheese. I like to sprinkle ancho powder and Mexican Oregano on top because it looks pretty. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. It's very good!
You can also make this with shredded chicken, just cheese, or even hamburger if you don't have time to fiddle with the shredded stuff. Sometimes I will just cook up pork roasts, beef roast, and chicken and freeze it so I have shredded stuff. It's all good with barbecue sauce for sandwiches. Made pork barbecue sandwiches for my daughter's graduation party and it was quite a hit.
