Enchiladas

I've been craving enchiladas for the past week or more. When I was at the store earlier in the week there was a special on Amy's frozen foods (buy $20 and save $5; mix and match) so I picked up a bunch of the items that were already on sale and saved a bit more. This included 2 frozen enchiladas packages.

The enchiladas, I thought, were for the co-signer as she loves them and they make a decent quick lunch for her. She hadn't taken them into work since she came home from Snoregon and it was gnawing at me to see them in the freezer. So, last night I decided to take matters into my own hands. The co-signer had gone into Seattle to get her hair done. I had the kitchen to myself (she recently has offered other options to enchiladas, so I suspected that she wasn't as interested in eating them as I was).

I got some tortillas out of the refrigerator, sprinkled each with some water, wrapped them in a stack in foil, and put them in the oven. Then I turned the oven on to 400 degrees to preheat. Meanwhile, I opened a can of black beans and rinsed them off. I chopped a small onion, a clove of garlic, about half of a carrot stick, half of a red bell pepper, and about a third cup of zucchini. I sauteed the veggies over medium heat in some safflower oil. While the veggies were cooking, I decided to add some ground cumin and a dash of chipotle powder (I would have added more for my taste, but the co-signer was going to want to share these when she came home).

After the veggies were cooked, I placed the black beans in a bowl adding a little left over white rice and the veggies and gave it a stir. Then I put some crumbled Quesa Fresca in the bowl and gave it a stir. Finally, I added some chopped cilantro and gave it a final stir just to combine the ingredients.

Now it was time to assemble the enchiladas. To each tortilla I added 2 to 3 tablespoons of black bean filling. I wrapped the tortilla around and put it seam side down into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish (the one we use for lasagna). In all, I crammed 10 of those into the dish. Then I opened a can of La Victoria green enchilada sauce and poured it over the top of the wraps. I put some wax paper over the enchiladas, then covered that with foil (foil, by the way, reacts with tomatoes which is why you never put foil on lasagna when baking so that's why I put the wax paper down - habit) and put it into the oven for about 20 minutes. After that I pulled it out of the oven, removed the wax paper and foil and sprinkled Organic Valley's Mexican Blend cheese on top. Back into the over for another 10 minutes or so until the cheese melted and became a little browned.

Finally, on the plate I added some sliced black olives, sliced jalapeño peppers, Emerald Valley salsa, and Nancy's sour cream. The co-signer got home and enjoyed some as well albeit without the jalapeños. :-)

Yum! Craving done and I was pretty happy with improvising the meal. I've even got some left over for lunch today. It's such an easy meal and it goes together quickly (and much cheaper than eating out) that I'm going to try to remember to do it more often. Plus, it's easily scalable for a one person dinner.

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