I can't remember if I told you guys but last week we decided to go vegetarian. And it was amazing. We had the best food (possibly the best we've ever made) all week long. Plus, I've been trying to make everything from scratch to eliminate those nasty processed foods so it's been even better! This meal was one of the last things I made and it's been on my mind ever since. (I may be cooking something similar tonight!!) It was SO good. But I think the best part was the homemade enchilada sauce, to DIE FOR.
Enchilada sauce
3-4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbs chopped onion
15 oz can of tomato sauce
½ cup water
4 tbs chili powder
2 tbs flour
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cocoa powder
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1.
Saute onions in vegetable oil
until soft.
2.
Mix in flour and cook for about 5
minutes. (it should be a little runnier than a paste, if it’s too thick, add
more oil)
3.
Combine rest of dry ingredients in
small bowl.
4.
Add tomato sauce to flour/onion/oil.
5.
Add dry ingredients, whisk until
well blended.
6.
Cook for about 5 more minutes.
7.
I also added the beans to this
after I turned the heat off. But you can put this in the casserole mix if you’d
like.
Casserole
1 (15 oz.) can black beans,
drained and rinsed (or 1½ cups cooked black beans)
1 can of corn
4 serrano chilis
5 tomatoes
8-10 flour (or corn) tortillas
1 onion (yellow or purple)
1 green bell pepper.
3-4 green onions
½ tbsp oregano
2-3 cups monterrey jack cheese
1-2 avocados (optional)
1.
Boil a medium pot of water. Place
in tomatoes and cook for about 1 minute or until skins split. Take out with
slotted spoon and place in ice bath.
2.
Smash tomatoes with potato masher
3.
Stick chili’s in the oven on broil
for about 3 minutes or until the tops turn brown. Flip and cook another couple
of minutes until the top turns brown again. Take out and place in ice bath. Once they cool, peel off skin and dice them up.
4.
Chop up your onion and bell
pepper.
5.
Saute in vegetable oil until soft.
6.
Add mashed tomatoes, corn, green
onions, and oregano. You can also add in the chilis here but I left them out so
I could make half the dish without them for Eliza. Cook for about 5-10 more minutes.
7.
Remove from heat.
8.
Grab your tortillas and slice them
in half. I then heated them up a little in a saucepan with a little oil. Only
about 30 seconds on each side.
9.
Now you start layering in a 13 x 9
glass dish. It doesn’t really matter what order you do it in but the last layer
definitely needs to be enchilada sauce topped with a little cheese. And then if
you’d like, dice up some avocado and put on top for the last 10 minutes of baking.
10. For the layering, I suggest half casserole mix, 4 tortillas, half of
enchilada sauce, cheese, other half of casserole mix, chilies, 4 tortillas, other half of enchilada sauce, cheese, avocado. Mine was kind of wonky, I’ll
definitely use this layering next time.
11.
And bake at 350 for about 20
minutes.
A few suggestions: Add more water to the sauce to make it a little thinner. Also, next time I think
I’ll use some more tomatoes and bell peppers (maybe orange and red?) to give
it a little more fluff (I won’t be using beans next time, no matter how hard I
try I just do not like beans). Also, you can add some cilantro and black olives! I actually bought both of those but forgot to add them! Woops!
