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.

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.

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?

You would not believe the lengths I went to for tonights dinner!

Holy smokes, I'm exhausted! I told Wayne tonight that if eating healthy takes this much effort for one dinner, we are only having one healthy meal per week!(and of course he's totally cool with that) Ok, so maybe I went a bit overboard tonight, but at least it turned out delicious. I'll explain.

I was thinking I would make some enchiladas tonight so I started last night by putting some black beans in a bowl to soak. Then this morning I put them in the crock pot and had them going on low all day. I wish I would have thought to season them, but that's ok maybe next time. Anyway, then this afternoon I made some homemade whole wheat tortilla's that turned out wonderfully! I have tried whole wheat tortilla's before using a recipe that called for shortening, and they came out tasting like pie crust and crumbling to bits. Well, who knew that making them a bit healthier (with olive oil) would actually make them tastier too!? This recipe I found today uses olive oil and they turned out fabulously and were seriously easy to make, I think you all should try it! I'll put the recipe here too:

2 cups whole wheat flour (I used freshly ground hard white wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 T olive oil

1/2 cup warm water

mix dry ingredients, then mix in the olive oil. Add the warm water a little at a time and mix into a kind of sticky ball and knead a little bit. Put it back in your bowl and cover with a cloth and let it rest for 15 min. Separate into 6 balls and roll out as thin as you can (on a very lightly floured surface). Grill on high heat until bubbles start to show, then flip over and do the other side for a little bit. The only problem with this recipe is that it makes only 6! Next time I will be doubling.

Ok, so my next step in my dinner process was to put some brown rice in the rice cooker. I also added a spoonful of vegetable broth powder to the water for some flavor (and I'm so glad I did. It was awesome!) Then, for the enchilada sauce I wasn't quite sure what to do. I was thinking of just using a can of cream of chicken soup mixed with salsa, but after scanning the ingredients on the cream of chicken soup I changed my mind. It's full of all kinds of yucky stuff, including msg. So, I went for this recipe from simple. healthy. tasty. only I didn't have any rice milk on hand. I did however have homemade almond milk on hand (crazy, I know) So I used up that. Then I mixed some salsa into the cream of something soup and called it enchilada sauce. So, using a homemade whole wheat tortilla I put on some rice, beans, and cheezy sauce then rolled them up and put them in my baking dish. Then I poured the sauce over the top and added more cheezy sauce on top of that as well as some green chile's. Then I baked it for a bit and can I just say these were hearty and filling not to mention tasty! I was so relieved they tasted good or else after all that work I might have cried.

I knew my family would not appreciate all that good stuff so I made a separate batch of enchilada's for them. I used the rice, then chicken, then cheese inside of theirs but they got my sauce poured over the top and they got real cheese sprinkled on top. Wayne seemed to like it (he ate 2, so that's always a good sign) and I will just say again that it was a relief it all turned out to be edible!

Now, for your viewing pleasure I actually took a couple pictures of the food:

Now I realize you can make healthy dinners without going through all that, but once I get my mind on something I just keep going. I realized that it's best to prepare ahead if you really are going to make everything from scratch like this. I was glad I had the vegetable broth powder, almond milk, and cheezy sause on hand for this so I could at least try an animal/animal product free meal. I still have a lot to learn but I'm feeling good and moving forward!