My First Time Making Enchiladas

 The Hubs and I love Mexican food. He was highly disappointed when we visited Nicaragua for the first time and their food was nothing like it. We eat out a lot as we travel and Mexican is a great option when we don't want McD's for the 1000th time because it is typically cheap, fast and tasty! The Hubs almost always orders the same thing: Speedy Gonzales - 1 taco, 1 enchilada and rice/beans. Tacos, rice and beans I can make but enchilada's are a whole 'nother story. We never had them when I was growing up and I don't really order them because I have a real aversion to corn tortillas. For the first attempt we decided to go with a mix. Not my usual style but this time I made an exception. We went with Casa Mamita, from Aldi (LOVE that place). Besides a mix you will also need:

8 oz. can of tomato sauce
6 in tortillas - the recipe called for 8 but I stretched it to 11
1 lb. ground beef or turkey - we get the 5 lb rolls and cut them into 6 pieces so they go a little farther and we eat a little less meat
1 cup of shredded cheese - I just used enough to cover the top sufficiently
1 1/2 cups of water
A green bell pepper cut into strips
An onion cut into strips

First, get your pepper and onion cooking. I put about a TBS of water into the pan and cover it with a lid. If you choose to use butter, make sure to stir it fairly often or it will burn.

While that is cooking, in a small pot, mix your sauce mix, tomato sauce and water. Bring it to a boil and then turn it to low and let it thicken. Stir from time to time.

Next, decide how to brown your meat. Not thinking about the extra fat (because we usually have ground turkey instead of beef) I cooked mine in the same pan as the peppers and onions. It tasted great but the veggies absorbed a lot of the grease which really wasn't what I was going for. If you want to avoid that, brown your meat in a different pan, or brown it first and then add the veggies.

Next, stir about a half a cup of the sauce into your meat and veggies. Now might also be a good time to pre-heat your oven to 350.

After that you will want to prep your baking dish. I have made the mistake more than once of forgetting to spray my Pyrex and ended up with an unpleasant mess. Save yourself the trouble and use some cooking spray. 

At this point in recipe the directions told me to "dip" my tortillas in the sauce before filling them with meat and rolling them up. Are you kidding me? What kind of insane idea is that? Clearly, whoever wrote those directions was was a few avocados short of guacamole! Instead I spooned some of the sauce into the bottom of the pan. After that I nuked my tortillas in microwave for about 20 seconds and then started filling them. I used about a 1/4 - 1/2 cup of meat/veggies for each one.

When you roll the tortillas up, you will want to place them seam-down in the pan. There is no need to fold the ends. Keep going until you are either out of meat or can't fit any more in. For my 9x11 in pan the magic number was 11.

Finally, pour the rest of the sauce on and top with cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes.

A little sour cream on top and you are all set! Delicioso!