Special Delivery: Beefy Enchiladas

In my group of friends, we like to have baby-buddies.  I say that tongue-in-cheek, because it's never planned, but as a happy coincidence there are usually two of us pregnant at the same time.  When I was pregnant, my baby-buddy was M, who was due a week after me, but had her daughter 5 days before Thatbaby was born (because everyone has their babies before me).  

More recently Horsewhisperer and Jurisslave were baby-buddies.  Both due in March.  But, in an uncanny coincidence, both gave birth in February.  I joked that their boys just couldn't wait to meet each other.  

Which means earlier this month I was running around, visiting babies and bringing food to my friends. 

Like orange cinnamon muffins, for quick one-handed breakfasts.

I love chicken, and it easily serves a grip of people, so I always like to bring a chicken dish to homes with a new baby.  Like this Cuban chicken.

Or this rosemary chicken.

With this warmer weather we've been having, a chilled soup makes a nice, easy lunch.  I thought the avocado soup would work well with the Cuban chicken.  And the strawberry soup is popular enough in my house that I wanted to share it with my friends.

One other trick I found when bringing over meals is to bring a special treat for the new big sibling.  Like chocolate chunk cookies.

Or cream puffs.

Or a berry-filled steamed pudding.

I love feeling helpful and bringing food to my friends.  It wasn't so long ago I was trying to balance adjusting to a new family member.  And although it was easier the second time around, it's always nice to feel taken care of.  When I make food, I will sometimes make a meal specifically for my friends, like the chicken dishes.  Other times, I take a meal we're eating for dinner at our house and double it.  Like the strawberry soup, or these enchiladas.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to make a ton of enchiladas?  It's a great thing to serve to a crowd, which means it's easy to make enough to feed 2 families.   They also freeze fantastically.  I made a set of these enchiladas for us, and a set for Jurisslave and her family.   You'll notice these are "undressed" which I prefer if you're going to freeze them.  Add the sauce right before reheating in the oven.

Beefy Enchiladas (From Guilt Free Weeknight Favorites)

 1 cup chunky picante sauce, divided

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 lb extra lean ground beef

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 cup reduced fat shredded Mexican cheese blend, divided

5 corn tortillas

2 Tbsp chipped cilantro

1.  Preheat oven to 400.  Spread 1/4 cup picante sauce in a 9-inch square baking dish, set aside.
2.  In a large skillet over medium-high heat, saute bell peppers, onion, and ground beef until peppers are soft and beef is browned.  Drain excess liquid.
3. Stir in 1/2 cup picate sauce, cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Remove from heat; stir in half the cheese.
5. Stack the tortillas and wrap in wax paper.  Heat in microwave on HIGH 10 seconds, or until warmed.
6. Spoon 1/2 cup meat mixture down center of each tortilla. 
7. Top evenly with remaining picante sauce, remaining cheese, and the cilantro.  Roll up and serve.

Water Baby: Trader Joe's Enchiladas

Well, we finished another round of swim lessons!  For his last class, Thatboy sat on the sidelines and I took to the water.  We worked a little on independent swimming, with pool noodles tied around the kids to help them float.  We also worked on letting them jump in the pool unassisted with the noodles to help them float.   Thatbaby's very last jump was without holding my hands, so I was terribly proud of him.  Thatboy on the other hand was disappointed Thatbaby wasn't swimming on his lonesome.  "The description says they'll swim unassisted by the end of the class."  I pointed out that Thatbaby was at the very bottom of the age bracket for this class, he only attended 3 of the 5 sessions (since he was in the baby class for the first and we missed a week while we were in Yosemite), and only one of the other kids was really "swimming."

After Thatbaby's nap, Thatboy wanted to spend some pool time with him, so we headed down to our pool to play.

Thatboy kept telling Thatbaby to watch him do "submarines" where he swam under water.  Thatbaby was delighted by this, calling them "tunnels" and asking Thatboy to do more.  Then he wanted to do "tunnels" too.  So we'd bring him under the water and back up.

But then Thatbaby wanted to go a step further.  He wanted to do tunnels all by himself.  We had been playing on the stairs, going up and down by himself, when he decided he wanted to do more by himself.  And so he dove into the water, kicking his feet toward Thatbaby who was standing at the bottom of the stairs.  Not a far distance, but hey, for independent swimming you've got to start somewhere!  I had the camera with me, taking pictures of their big jumps, and so I quickly captured the fun on video.

And some stills in case you don't want to watch 8seconds of adorable baby swimming.

We celebrated with enchiladas, because Thatbaby loves enchiladas.  If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you've seen enchilada recipes before.  And you've probably noticed that I tend to make my own sauce most of the time.  Not for any good reason, just because, why not?  You know why not?  Because sometimes you don't have the time to make your own sauce.  It is a bit time consuming with the roasting of chiles and simmering of sauce.  So as an alternative, I picked up a bottle of Trader Joe's enchilada sauce and used it to make these enchiladas.  It's got a bit of a kick to it, which I like.  And it doesn't taste like bottled sauce, which I love.

Trader Joe's Enchiladas

1 Tbsp canola oil

2 chicken breasts, diced

bottle Trader Joe's Enchilada Sauce

1/4 cup pickled jalapenos, chopped

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 pkg corn tortillas

1. Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium high heat.  Add chicken and cook about 30 seconds.
2. Add 1/2 bottle of enchilada sauce.  Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked through.  About 8 minutes.
3. Remove chicken from the sauce and refrigerate for 10 minutes.  Pour the sauce into a baking dish. 
4. Preheat the oven to 300.  Combine the chicken with 1 cup of the cheese and the jalapenos. 
5. Wrap tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave for 45 seconds, until pliable.
6. Place 2 Tbsp of filling in the middle of the tortillas, roll and place seam side down in the baking dish.
7. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes.

Indoor Fun: Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas

Our first day with the inlaws we actually had made plans to meet up with Magski and her family at a Children's Museum.  Being the amazing Aunt and Uncle that we are, we offered to take Thatniece and Thatnephew with us.  As we headed out the door, Thatboy realized we were headed off with three kids - and perhaps we were crazy.

It might have been this realization that made him decide not to continue on in the pouring rain with a car loaded with precious cargo. Instead, Thatboy asked Thatniece and Thatnephew where they wanted to go that wouldn't involve us driving on the freeway. They requested a trip to the arcade. 

There was more to do for the big kids than Thatbaby, but he found a game to amuse himself with.

This spider game involved stepping on the different buttons as they lit up, whack-a-mole style.  His cousins helped.

And he did well enough to win some tickets, which he donated to the big kids.  By the way, being with two tweens trying to decide how to spend their prize tickets?  Torture.  I'm not looking forward to that phase with Thatbaby.

Thatbaby was too young for the arcade and prizes, but you're never too young for a yummy food prize.  This may be a new favorite in our house.  Derived from the ever so popular "Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burrito,"  This takes that classic filling and uses it in enchiladas.  Topped with some of that leftover mole sauce we all know is always in my fridge.  Thatbaby wasn't so fond of the tortilla, but ate all the filling in his, and then asked for more.  What's nice is this recipe makes a lot of extra filling, so Thatbaby could eat his heart out.  Thatboy loved the smokey mole with the sweet potato.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas

2 sweet potatoes

1/2 tsp garlic powder

salt and pepper

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

6 corn tortillas

1 cup mole sauce

1.  Preheat oven to 425.  Bake the sweet potatoes for 1 hour.  Remove from oven and let cool until they are handle-able. (Lower oven temperature to 350)
2.  Peel the sweet potatoes and mash them.
3.  Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.
4.  Heat the tortillas using your favorite method.
5.  Pour just enough mole on the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish to coat.
6.  Place a scoop of the sweet potato, a scoop of the beans and some mole sauce in the center of each tortilla.  Roll up the tortillas and place seam side down in the baking dish.
7.  Pour remaining mole sauce over the enchiladas.  Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Mole-chiladas

Thatbaby is quite the social butterfly.  The weekend before Thanksgiving he had a whole host of playdates.  He met up with a friend for wine tasting, he had a drum circle in the park...

My child gets around.

So of course, this week he's been sick.  Probably from all the social butterflying he's been doing.  It's nothing serious, a runny nose and a cough, but I hate when he doesn't feel well.  Partially because he hates having his nose/face wiped.  Which means my runny-nosed kid is also a snot faced kid.

I let him sneak in an extra nap on Wednesday before daycare, and today I kept him home with me.  "Home" being a relative word, because really we ended up spending half the day running errands.  I'm hoping he feels better after this weekend, even though we've got a bit more running around to do.

I promised you yesterday another recipe to use up leftover mole.  We had a lot leftover.  So much so, that I went to my trusty google reader and searched for mole recipes.  Which is how I stumbled upon Joanne's recipe for butternut squash enchiladas in a mole sauce.  Remembering that Velva had recommended using the leftovers for enchiladas, this seemed fortuitous.  And it doesn't hurt that I love Joanne's recipes.  I'm lucky in that both my husband and son are happy with vegetarian meals, so really, I couldn't go wrong with this one!

Butternut Squash Enchiladas (Adapted from Eats Well With Others)

1 large butternut squash
salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups mole sauce, warmed
12 corn tortillas 

 1/4 cup crumbled queso fresco
chopped fresh cilantro

1. Preheat oven to 400.  Cut butternut squash in half and de-seed.  Place it cut side up on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil.  Put it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until fork tender.  When done, remove and allow to cool.  When cool to the touch, scoop the flesh into a large bowl.  Mash using a potato masher.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
2. Reduce oven to 350.  Spoon a thin layer of the mole into an 11x4 inch pan. 
3. Warm the corn tortillas your favorite way (I tend to do this with my gas burners on my stovetop).
4. Spread approximately 2 tbsp of the butternut squash mash into the center of each tortilla, roll tightly, and put them in the baking dish, seam side down.  Repeat with all of the tortillas.  Cover with another layer of mole sauce.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Sprinkle with queso fresco and cilantro.  Serve with extra mole sauce.

The Mexican Test

 

While we were in Palm Desert for New Years the "check engine" light went on in my car.  Makes sense, it'd been a full 2 weeks since something was wrong with one of our cars.  We brought it in for repair, which happened to be in a part of town near where I worked several years ago.  While we waited to pick up my car I dragged Thatboy over to my old lunch spot.  

If there's one thing San Diego is not lacking in, it's Mexican restaurants.  But not all restaurants are created equal.  Inevitably it's the little hole in the walls that are the best.  This one doesn't even have a name on the outside.  But it's delicious.  As I got my typical pastor burrito, Thatboy ordered the chicken enchiladas.

"Enchiladas?  Really?  I'm surprised."  Which is when he informed me that he always orders enchiladas at a new Mexican place - to test and see if the place is any good.  It's amazing that after almost 12 years you can still learn something new about someone.  

Personally, I think that's a weird test food.  Firstly, because enchiladas aren't all that difficult a dish to prepare.  Secondly (and this is related to the first), I can make enchiladas at home.  And I do.  All you have to do is make a sauce, toss together a filling, roll, and pour.  And now that I have an all time favorite sauce, making enchiladas are even easier (and tastier).  To switch it up from the chicken we recently had, I made these enchiladas vegetarian.  Mashed black beans need little accoutrement other than heating.

It's hard to mess up enchiladas - but you go ahead and test out this theory yourself.

Black Bean Enchiladas

2 medium onions, chopped fine
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped fine
2 tsp canola oil
6 medium cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp sugar
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 large beefsteak tomato, seeded and chopped

1 can black beans, drained, rinsed and mashed
½ cup minced fresh cilantro
¼ can diced green chiles
Salt and pepper
12 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450. Combine half the onion, jalapeno, and half the oil in a large saucepan.
2. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the onions and peppers have softened, 8-10 minutes.
3. Stir in half the garlic, chili powder, cumin, and sugar, and cook until fragrant, less than 30 seconds.
4. Stir in the tomato sauce, water, and chopped tomato. Bring to a simmer, and cook until slightly thickened, 5 minutes.
5. Strain the sauce through a strainer into a medium bowl, pressing the onion mixture to extract as much liquid as possible.
6. Heat remaining oil to a large skillet. Add the remaining onion and cook until translucent.
7. Stir in the remaining garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
8. Stir in the black beans and cook until warmed through.
9. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of the sauce, cilantro, and canned chiles.
10. Heat the corn tortillas until pliable (I use the burners on my gas stove for this - gives them a nice char too!)
11. Divide filling between the tortillas, roll, and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
12. Pour remaining sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Cover and bake 2o minutes.
13. Remove cover and bake an additional 5 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

Wow December sure flew by!

I know you've all been missing something as this new year begins. That little piece of Thatgirl that makes your life complete. But almost all my free time in December was dedicated to this little project:

More on that later, but suffice to say I was knitting on a schedule so blogging took a backseat. Which is a shame since we sure did a lot last month. (Which probably only compounded the timing issue.)

Like when Thatboy's best friends came down for the weekend. Our little home was filled to the brim with 5 adults, a toddler and a baby - which made the holidays even warmer. The last time we saw Ace he was 2 weeks old. Now he's a giant!

(picture taken seconds after Ace kissed Thatbaby's head and moments before Ace followed said kiss with a slap. Toddlerhood - it's a learning process.)

Their visit happened to coincide what has quickly become one of my favorite San Diego races - The Jingle Bell run. If you recall, I ran it last year and vowed to make it a regular part of my running schedule. It was just as much fun as I remembered, complete with jingling jingle bells on shoes, marimbas playing Christmas music, and an acapella choir who were singing "Steal my Kisses" for some reason - which I don't associate much with Christmas.

And of course there were the awesome costumes. I didn't get a picture of the guy in a green unitard on a unicycle, but I did capture Santa on Stilts:

The boys in the footie pajamas:

Santa and her sleigh of reindeer (these chicks won for best costume):

And other festive attire:

And we got into the spirit too.

Thatboy and the rest of the crew walked the race while I ran ahead. The nice thing about not being super speedy to begin with is I'm already back to my pre-pregnancy speed. In fact, at 2 months postpartum I actually finished this race 36 seconds faster than when I ran it in 2010!

After I crossed the finish line, I turned around and ran the course backwards to meet up with everyone. Which was fun because I got comments like "Hey - the finish line is the other way!" and I was able to give support to tired runners "The rest of the course is all downhill!" Around the halfway point I met up with these lollygaggers.

And we finished the rest of the race together.

Well, almost together. As we neared the finish line I ran ahead so I could capture Thatbaby finishing his first race. See that car behind us? That was the cleanup crew. We were the absolute last people to finish the race. But it was still a PR for Thatbaby!

Thatboy's favorite part of the race (and the reason he'll run it again next year) was the beer garden hosted by Stone Brewery.

Thatbaby was too young to come in, but we're such good parents, we kept an eye on him while we enjoyed.

While we were having houseguests I of course wanted to serve them up something home-cooked and delicious. Especially since we didn't want to go out the night before the race so we could all get to bed a little earlier.

I wanted to do something that would feed a large crowd but still be easy. I gave Thatboy some choices - roast chicken, lasagna, chili, or enchiladas. Not surprisingly he chose enchiladas. He always chooses enchiladas.

I used Nicole's adaptation for chicken enchiladas with red chile sauce. They were amazing. I really think making your own chile sauce is the key here. They were a big success and Magski even asked for the recipe to make at home once I assured her it was incredibly easy. Served with a nice salad and some Spanish rice it was the perfect way to spend an evening with friends.

No Sloppy Seconds

It's time to announce the winner of the Simply Bishop's cookbook. The randomly selected winner is commenter #10 Millertime Productions! Congratulations! I'll be mailing the book tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago I saw something very interesting on a blog. They were enchiladas, but they were missing the typical red or green sauce covering them. It was a novel idea to me. I mean, the man I married likes to enchilada-size his burritos by topping them with sauce and cheese.


I figured the best way to get these to earn Mr. Enchilada-everything's seal of approval was to create an "inside" sauce. A super creamy filling that spills out with every bite, making sure you don't miss anything on top.


I started with a verde version - giving the tomatoes a little break. But I promise you won't miss them. And if you do, well it's easy enough to sub in your own fresh tomatoes for the tomatillos. Especially because we're getting ever closer to gorgeous tomato season. During which time I guarantee you'll be seeing a red version on our table from time to time!

Sauceless Chicken Enchiladas
1/4 cup canola oil
6 tortillas
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
1/2 lb Monterey Jack, shredded
1 1/2 Tbsp heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped scallions
3/4 cup chopped tomatillos
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1 can of chopped green chilies
3/4 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 375. Heat oil in a skillet. Heat tortillas in oil, turning over so it softens. Set tortillas to side.
2. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.
3. Chop the tomatillos and combine with cilantro and chilies. Run through the food processor on pulse setting once, so it's nice and chunky.
   
4. Stir in the sour cream, chicken, cheese, heavy cream and scallions.
5. Divide this filling between the tortillas and roll up. Set the rolled tortillas in the baking dish and cover with foil. Bake 30 minutes.