Beef Enchiladas, Ole!

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Too much of a good thing...is wonderful."? I seem to have taken it to heart recently in my own kitchen. My husband and I are both big fans of Mexican food. He espcially enjoys enchiladas, and so for several months I have been scouring my favorite food sites for the perfect enchilada recipe to surprise him with. There are many requirements:



1. They must be beef enchiladas.

2. They must be covered in red sauce (none of that salsa verde crap for him!).

3. They must not contain larger chunks of vegetables (although large chunks of beef are okay).

4. They should be very cheesy in addition to the beef (well, duh, isn't that what everyone wants in an enchilada???).



And then, right around Cinco de Mayo (What fabulous luck -- finding Mexian food recipes around a Mexican holiday! Man did I feel blonde after that...=] ) I found the perfect recipe. Even better, I found a recipe for homemade red sauce to layer with the beef enchiladas. Also, anything of the chunky vegetable persuasion could be pureed until you'd never know it was there...perfect.



So last Monday (Cinco de Mayo, if any of you are keeping track), I left school and went to the store to get ingredients for not one, but two kinds of enchiladas (I made chicken ones for myself, but we'll discuss that in another post). Needless to say, when picking up items for several different recipes, I sit down first and try to organize my shopping list so that I'm not dashing back and forth across the store every 5 seconds. Also, needless to say, I screwed up the list on Monday (otherwise, why would I have brought this up). And so I dashed up and down and back and forth. It was pathetic. And exhausting. And when I got home, I still had to cook. (Insert dirty words here.)



According to my calculations (and frantic re-reading of the recipe), I would need to begin with the red sauce, since it was recommended that it simmer for 2-3 hours!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, right! I was practically fainting with hunger then. How ridiculous. (Cut to me, three hours later, finally assembling the damned enchiladas and shoving them in the oven.)



Red Enchilada Sauce



Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced onion
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
5 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried basil (I used sweet basil)
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 cup chunky salsa, pureed (I actually used about a 1/2 cup)
1 6oz. can of tomato paste
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the minced onion, oregano, chili powder, basil, pepper, salt, cumin, parsley, salsa, and tomato paste.

Mix together and then stir in the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least 45 minutes, although the acutal recipe recommended simmering for hours, adding more chicken broth as needed.

Once I had the sauce simmering nicely, I started on the second half of this dish: the actual enchiladas. These were actually very easy to put together (but let's not confuse easy with quick!).

Below is the recipe I used. All changes made are listed in parentheses.

Beef Enchiladas

Ingredients:

2 lbs. lean ground beef (I chose to use ground chuck, but may try it with ground sirloin in the future)
1 large chopped onion (finely minced...microscopically minced, in fact)
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
Add the following to taste: cumin, chili powder, pepper, dried parsley
12 (8-inch) flour tortillas
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
8 oz. shredded colby jack cheese (I used Kraft Mexican cheese)
**The recipe called for two 19 oz. cans of enchilada sauce, but as I said, I made my own).

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a heavy saucepan or skillet, brown the ground beef and onions, stirring often. Season the beef with the garlic salt, cumin, chili powder, pepper, nad dried parsley and set aside (at this point I dump the meat into a fine mesh colander and let most of the grease drain out). In a skillet, fry the tortillas in the begetable oil (this is super important!! For future reference, I would fry them for 15-20 seconds each...mine were still a little soggy) =[
Pat the tortillas dry and set aside. Mix about a 1/3 of the enchilada sauce into the beef and then spoon some of the beef mixture into each tortilla. Top with colby jack cheese and roll tightly, laying in a 9x13 Pyrex. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top and cover in more colby jack cheese. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese on top is melted and browned.

Also, I doubled the sauce recipe since my husband likes more sauce on enchiladas than I do, so he could spoon more onto each serving. These were very good, but time-consuming, so I probably make them again, just not on a school night! =]