Hamburger Enchiladas

This recipe comes from the Betty Crocker's Hamburger Cookbook. It's been a great resource to me, especially for back in the day when hamburger was cheap.

MEAT FILLING

1 pound ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup dairy sour cream

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)

2 tablespoons nipped parsley

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

TORTILLA BASE

salad oil

8 tortillas

HOT TOMATO SAUCE

1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce

1/3 cup chopped green pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

2/3 cup water

Cook and stir meat in large skillet until brown. Drain off fat. Stir in remaining inredients for Meat Filling. Remove from heat; cover and set aside.

Heat 1/4 inch salad oil in skillet over medium heat. Dip each tortilla quickly into oil, turning once with tongs, just until limp; drain on paper towel.

In small saucepan, heat all ingredients for Hot Tomato Sauce except water to boiling, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Pour sauce into 8- or 9-inch shallow dish.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Dip each tortilla into sauce to coat both sides; place about 1/4 cup Meat Filling on center and roll tortilla around filling. Arrange in ungreased baking dish, 11 3/4 x 7 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches. Pour remaining sauce and the water over tortillas. Bake uncovered until bubbly, about 20 minutes. If you wish, garnish with slices of ripe olives, avocado, hard-cooked egg or shredded lettuce.

4 or 5 servings

A BIT ABOUT TORTILLAS

The Mexicans know all about the care and handling of the tortilla, their traditional flat, unleavened bread. So take a tip from south of the border. When it comes to making Enchiladas, it's best to dip the tortillas in oil first--it makes them soft and easy to roll. Then drain off the excess oil so that the zesty sauce will cling to the surface. And this holds true whether you have chosen either corn or flour tortillas--canned, frozen or refrigerated.

The tortilla is also the basis for the taco shell, which you can purchase already crisply friend and folded into a half-moon shape--ready for its many fillings.

Okay, now it's me again. I have followed this recipe before, and it is really good. The "bit about tortillas" is right on when it recommends that you really do dip the tortillas into the oil. They are easier to handle and they taste good when you do that. However, as you can probably guess, I do try to avoid having all that oil. So I usually do not do that. Heating them in microwave also softens them so they're easy to handle, or just on a hot ungreased griddle. The sauce does not stick them so well, though, as it does when you heat them in the oil. But I don't mind because I put the sauce on them anyway. Again, though, it tastes really good when you follow the recipe as written.

Tonight I will use the half-pound of cooked hamburger that I already have in the fridge, and add a can of pinto beans. I don't have sour cream, so I will leave that out, although it is really good with the sour cream. Yogurt works too--yes, I've done it with yogurt. And I'll probably just use some salsa mixed with a can of tomato sauce for the sauce, rather than mixing up my own as the recipe says to do.

That's it. Let me know how it works for you.

In the meantime...

While I'm waiting for the yogurt to do its thing, I've been experimenting with some other food storage recipes. First of all, maybe I should explain that I'm not sure the yogurt will be appreciated around here once it's done. So I need to find creative ways of using it. I'm thinking that I'll try making yogurt cheese, which, I understand, is a good substitute for cream cheese and can be used in cheesecakes. I've also heard that the yogurt will be good to use in making Ranch dressing, something that everyone I know seems to love. While I'm waiting, I decided to try using some of the Mountain High yogurt (that I bought to use as a starter) and make some ranch dressing, using a recipe I found:

Ranch Dressing, or Creamy Dressing

In a blender combine:

1 cup yogurt

1 cup lowfat mayonnaise

1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons dehydrated onion

1/2 teaspoon salt

Result: it looks creamy and tastes sort of like, well, vanilla-flavored (*sigh*!!) ranch dressing. We'll see how well it goes over with Jim.

Reading all these food storage books and recipes got me dreaming about whipping up a simple casserole. This is my personalized combination/adaptation of a couple of recipes in one of the books:

2 cans (or pint bottles) of kidney beans, rinsed and drained in a colander

4 cups egg noodles, boiled for about 7 minutes until done, then drained in the same colander (yes, on top of the beans)

In the same pot that you cooked the noodles, combine:

1 cup easy white sauce mix

2 cups water

1 tablespoon dehydrated onion

1/2 teaspoon salt

some pepper

some garlic powder

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, until bubbly and thick. Then stir in:

1 cup grated cheese

Add the noodles and beans to the cheese sauce mix and stir to combine. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

I also baked some bread today.

And, finally, I've been watching YouTube videos about making cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese. Maybe some day I'll try one of those and let you know how it goes. But, first, back to the yogurt, and tonight's dinner.

Oh, yummy!

When your picky five year old raves about something, it's probably worth sharing. So here you are:

So Incredibly Easy Black Bean Brownies

1 15 oz can black beans

1 package brownie mix

That's it. I'm serious. Just open the can of beans and blend them in the blender, undrained. Unless you really want to drain them, then you better add about 1/4 cup water while blending. Then just mix it with the brownie mix and bake it like the directions say. Oh, and don't forget to let the kids lick out the bowl because you don't have to stress about any raw eggs.

One of the things I learned in my children's nutrition class long ago was that you don't need to deceive kids. My daughter and I had these first at a food storage activity put on by our stake. When she saw them and asked what they were I told her they were bean brownies. She wanted to try one anyway and then ended up eating about 5 while declaring, "these don't even taste like beans! They taste sooooo good!" (like she would know anyway, she has never tasted beans!) Now hopefully since she knows she has eaten beans, she will be more likely to try them again in the future. She asked if we could make some so I got the ingredients today and we made them for family night. Big hit people, and if you've been putting off trying to bake something yummy with beans in it because it seems too complicated or you think it won't turn out, put it off no more. Go try these.

Recipe 2:

Tortilla's! I finally found my recipe! I mean, I didn't make it up, it's just the one I'll be using from now on. These turned out so good that my same picky five year old was eating them right off the grill as I was making them. And they are even more nutritious than the bean brownies. So here you go:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix those and then mix in 1/2 cup softened (but not quite melted) coconut oil.

Then dump in 3/4 +1/8 cup boiling water and stir around pretty good and even knead a little if you want to.

Roll into about 16 little balls and put them on a cookie sheet. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let sit for about an hour. Then roll the balls out into tortilla's and grill on a hot griddle for about 30 seconds on each side.

You can find the original recipe here: http://www.survivingthestores.com/homemade-flour-tortillas-with-coconut-oil-recipe-meals-with-my-deals.html

I halved it again though.

I have tried other tortilla recipes before and never had this kind of success. These were not only yummy, but behaved the way tortilla's should, you know, wrapping around your fajita's without crumbling to bits.

I gave up on my no dairy experiment and went back to buying cheese today. I feel happy and inspired and excited about making meals again! I really love cheese. And that's all for now folks.

Crockpot Bean Soup

I threw some things in the crockpot last night around 5 p.m., knowing that we would be hungry after our session at the temple. It turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share the "recipe" on here.

In a crockpot combine:

2 quarts water

1 cup dry soup mix from the cannery

1 cup 12-bean soup mix (this is a combination of dry beans--pinto, red, kidney, black, lentils, black-eyed peas, Navy, split peas, etc.)

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder

1/2 large onion

2 huge carrots peeled and diced

2 ribs celery cut up

1/2 pound ground turkey, broken into pieces

Cook for 4 hours on high. Then add a can of corn (I included the liquid) and a can of stewed tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste.

We ate it with toast and butter, and a big plum for dessert. It hit the spot for me.

Meatless Chili

Last week when I was really on a healthy-eating kick (I still am, but I'm okay with eating meat this week, lol), I came up with this meatless chili recipe, again made from the ingredients I have on hand. I had leftovers for lunch today, and it still tastes good. And, just so you know, this recipe is made possible because Jim (Dad) bottles our dry beans for me so they are convenient to use, so that I will use them.

Easy Meatless Chili

1 pint bottled (or canned, I suppose) pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1 pint bottled (or canned, I suppose) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 pint bottled homemade salsa (made from the USU's Extension Service approved recipe)

2 pints canned whole tomatoes (or a quart bottled if you like)

1 tablespoon chili powder

That's it. Combine it all in a pan and heat through, letting it simmer on low for a bit. Between the chili powder and the salsa, it had just the right heat level for me, and I didn't need to add any salt, I suppose because of the canned and bottled stuff.

Also, when we bottle beans, no matter how hard we try to guestimate the right amount of beans to put in the bottle, they always swell more than we think and end up being crammed in there. So if you use store-bought canned beans, you may need an extra can of beans, in which case you might consider another kind of beans, such as Navy or Kidney or something.

Black Bean Enchilada's, Homemade Almond Milk and Other Stuff to Say

This week I tried this recipe for "sloppy joe's" or sloppy lentils as the case may be. They were surprisingly tasty and super easy to make and I'm pretty sure you would like them Mom. Even Wayne had one. The only thing I changed was that I used brown sugar in place of the molasses and sucanat (I don't have those on hand) and I didn't have canned tomatoes either. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly and it was quite good. The seasoning was what made it good though, I still can't say I like lentils.

Anyway, making that recipe left me with a half a can of leftover tomato paste so last night I made some black bean and cheese enchilada's. They turned out quite tasty so here is kind of the recipe of what I did.

Mix:

6 oz tomato paste

1 little can of tomato sauce

1 can cream of chicken soup

about 3/4 cup salsa (I'm not sure how much, I just dumped some in until it looked about right)

1 Tb onion powder

1 Tb garlic powder

2 Tb chille powder

Then dump some black beans in a bowl and mix about 1 cup or more of the sauce with the black beans as well as a handful of cheese. Use that as the filling for your enchilada's. Dump the rest of the sauce over the top and bake it covered at 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with cheese and then let it bake again while the cheese melts. Remove again and top with chopped green onions and tomatoes if you have them.

I think I make my enchilada sauce different every time I make them depending on what I have on hand. I learned this from my old roommate Meagan.

I also tried my hand at Almond Milk again this week because I have a huge bag of almonds that needs to be used! The recipe I tried this time worked out wonderfully and the milk was pretty good. Here's what I did:

Soak 1 cup of Almonds in 3 cups of water with 3 dates overnight. In the morning blend it up for awhile. Then I stretched an old clean t-shirt over a large bowl and pretended it was a cheese cloth and used that to squeeze the milk through. Then I dumped the strained milk back into the blender and added ice cubes to bring the level up to about 4 cups and blended it again. Then I dumped it into a pitcher and enjoyed it on my oatmeal that morning.

Now, I don't really know what to do with the left over almond meal stuff. I made some cookies the other night and threw a bunch of it in them. They didn't add to the flavor or texture, but maybe they added some fiber or something. I don't know. Any other suggestions of what I can put it in?

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

These are fat-free except for the egg yolk, and if you use two egg whites instead of one whole egg, they would be totally fat-free. I like them. I like them a lot. Of course, the chocolate helps. But I think it also helps that in this case the beans are replacing the shortening, no the flour. Here goes:

1/2 cup cooked mashed beans (I used a can of white beans and mashed up about half of them to get my half cup. I'm sure pinto beans or black beans or any other kind of legumous bean would work just as well!
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
(I just realized these should probably have 1/2 teaspoon of salt or so. But although I missed putting it in, I didn't miss it in the taste. Suit your own.)

In a mixer combine beans, sugar, egg and vanilla. Then put in the flour, cocoa, baking soda and oats. Mix thoroughly. Drop on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Gooey

And here's the finished product. I just now put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes to see if it will set up some more. Honestly, it's not that great. Maybe it's because I'm all beaned-out from the bean quesadilla I had for dinner. But if it wasn't for the chocolate flavor and the nuts to give it some texture--well, let's just say regular old brownies are better, in my opinion. Maybe a little frosting on top would help, once they're set up, that is.

Stay tuned for Brownies #2 when I try making my brownie recipe substituting beans for the shortening instead of the flour. Maybe Friday.

Ellen

Brownies #1

Right now, even as we speak, I have a batch of brownies in the oven. These are grain-free brownies that are supposed to be made from black beans; however, I don't have a can of black beans, and I'm too lazy to open the 25-pound bag of black beans and soak them overnight. So I opened a bottle of home-canned pinto beans and used those instead. I figure, hey, the beans are taking the place of the flour, and flour is white or brown, not black--it's the cocoa powder that makes brownies dark--so why should it matter? Well, I like the color from using pinto beans.

It's the easiest brownie recipe I've ever made. You put everything in a blender and blend it together.

Then pour it into an 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Oops! I forgot! You're not supposed to blend up the chocolate chips and walnuts, but instead fold those in to the mixture before you pour it into the pan. After I put the batter into the pan, and after I took this picture, I sprinkled them on top and used a knife to stir them in.

While we're waiting for them to cook, I'll share the recipe. It's a gluten free recipe that came from this blog and it goes like this:

Healthy Grain Free Brownies

2 cups black beans (I used pinto), or 1 can beans, rinsed and drained

3 lightly beaten eggs

1/3 cup melted coconut oil or butter

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup honey or other sweetner

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8-inch pan. Blend everything but the chocolate chips and walnuts in a blender (I suggest putting the eggs in first so your blender has some liquid to work with. The motor on mine started to smell a little funny, if you know what I mean) and blend until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour into pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

Black Bean Brownies

I've been curious about trying black bean brownies, and today I happened across a couple of recipes for them.
http://coffeebeankisses.blogspot.com/2011/01/black-bean-brownies.html
http://kingdomfirstmom.com/2011/03/healthy-black-bean-brownies.html
Both of these people are interested in cooking without gluten, so apparently the beans take the place of the flour. I am not concerned about gluten-free cooking, but rather low-fat cooking. I'm wondering if I can make regular brownies and substitute the black beans for the shortening? When I bought my bags of black beans and white beans at the dry-pack cannery a couple of weeks ago, I overheard the lady telling someone that you can substitute cooked white beans for shortening, cup-for-cup. I've been curious to try it ever since.
I hope to experiment with this concept this week, and as I do I'll share what I find.