Beef Enchiladas

You know you've reached a milestone, a turning point in your life, when your daughter is giving you her recipes instead of asking for yours. Krissy is always telling me about a new dish she made and how good it was. When she mentioned this recipe, I thought, "I should make this!" Because guess what? I never make enchiladas. I'm in a Mexican food rut and usually make tacoritos or taco salad (I know - taco salad isn't really Mexican food but boy, mine is good!) or burritos.

What I'm really famous for is just making all kinds of Mexican food ingredients like taco seasoned meat and refried beans and grated cheese and fresh sliced-diced-chopped veges), setting it all on the counter with flour tortillas and taco and tostado shells and calling it a build-your-own Mexican dinner buffet. I always serve this with a nice Ro-tel cheese sauce that you pour over everything after you build it, if you want to. And guacamole on the side. My version of health food. LOL

Kris and I have started doing our grocery shopping together on Saturdays and while we were out last weekend, I decided to buy the stuff for her beef enchiladas.

Nothing could be easier. All you need is a frying pan and a glass baking dish and about twenty minutes from start to oven.

Here's her recipe and of course you'll find the things I did a little differently at the end.


BEEF ENCHILADAS
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 small can diced green chilies
1 package enchilada sauce mix
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

flour tortillas
grated Cheddar cheese
sliced black olives
sour cream

Preheat oven to 350*

Brown beef with onions and green chilies.

Prepare enchilada sauce while beef is browning (combine enchilada sauce mix and tomato sauce).

Pour 1/3 of the sauce mix into bottom of a greased glass baking dish.

Place some beef and cheese on each tortilla and roll tightly. Place seam side down in the glass baking dish.

Pour remaing sauce over enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Place olives on top.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until cheese is melted and enchiladas are heated through.

Serve with sour cream.

See? Easy as can be.

So of course I changed it up a little. First I doubled the recipe. Honestly, I always do this because if I'm going to cook tonight, by making enough for two meals, I get a night off from cooking the next night. These enchiladas are great microwaved leftovers. And I married a man who likes leftovers just fine.

And instead of buying the enchilada sauce mix and tomato sauce, I bought this:


Buying canned enchilada sauce cut one step from the recipe and worked just as well. Also, it's cheaper.

Except...if you look at that can you'll see I overlooked one little tiny detail. When Old El Paso says "hot" on the can, let me tell you, they're serious. Good grief! Hot! (But good.) If your family isn't fond of burn-your-lips off spicy-hot food, I'd recommend looking at the can a little more closely than I did. :-)

I served our enchiladas with chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce and sour cream.

Delicious. And so easy! Rob loved them and told me this recipe is a keeper!




This has nothing much to do with making beef enchiladas. Rob snapped this photo Friday morning. Cameron has now decided when Nana's sewing, he's by gosh going to help. You can probably imagine how much sewing I get accomplished when he's here. We're making Santa stars, if you can believe that.

LOL

But...he's so curious about anything mechanical and he's just been chomping at the bit to learn how my sewing machine works. So I let him "help" me and we go from there.

I'll let you guess what happens if I sit down in front of the computer when he's here.

By the way, regarding that post I did last Thursday, about the unfortunate sticking of my hand in his pullups incident? Today was the day. He got over his fear of that one last big step toward being potty trained - the depositing of such stuff as shall remain unnamed, into the potty instead of into the pullup. Mission accomplished!

Actually, here's a potty training tip. Krissy was so fed up with the pullup accidents (good heavens, they're expensive!), and we both had a feeling the pullups still felt pretty diaper-ish to Cameron, so she bought him big boy underpants. The real deal. The kind he knew he didn't want to have an accident in. And I'm telling you, it worked. He absolutely loves his new big boy pants and obviously didn't want to "mess" them up. Whatever - it worked!

Really. This huge step toward success had absolutely nothing at all to do with the stash of Match-Box cars (bribes) sitting above his bathroom shelf, just waiting to be given to him when he does the big one in the potty. Really. :-)

And yes, I know. That's just a lovely thing to tell you at the end of a recipe for beef enchiladas. But hey. This was a momentous occasion and I simply had to announce it.

Sorry. But somehow, I suspect you totally understand. :-)