tortillas – Ali Does It Herself

Slow Cooker Black Bean Enchiladas

This recipe from the kitchn came with so many caveats about how these are not your ordinary baked enchiladas, and how they end up being a gooey mess but they’re still good, that it was almost worth making them just to see if they lived up to all the anti-hype. They’re easy, they’re tasty – they’re messy and not crispy at all. And still good. So give them a try.

They are a great way to use up weird leftover bits of things. This is what tofu does when you freeze it. People like to freeze it because it goes crumbly, so we tried it as an experiment after making stir fry one night.

Start by chopping up 1 small onion. Dice up 1 red bell pepper. Drain and rinse 1 16oz can of black beans. Divvy out 1 cup frozen corn. Mix all those together in a bowl. Grate up 1-2 cups good melting cheese, and add in 1/2 cup of that cheese to the bowl.

Mix together as well some spices: 2 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon cumin and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. I find often that this sort of food genre is benefitted by adding in 1 teaspoon cinnamon as well.

Tip that into the mixed veg.

Add in any leftover ground meat or chicken you have, if you have any, or this weird crumbled spongy thawed tofu. I really felt like I was breaking up a sponge. Later, I felt like I was EATING a sponge.

In the bottom of a 4-6 quart slow cooker, spread enough of a 30oz jar of salsa to coat the bottom. You’ll note here that we have a very bowl-shaped slow-cooker. This probably works a bit better in a more flat-bottomed version.

Slow cooker black bean enchiladas 7 — Ker-SPLAT.

Grab a package of flour tortillas (ours were the small size, pack of 10). Scoop about 1/3 cup of that vegetable filling into each tortilla, roll it up, and lay it seam-side-down in the slow cooker.

Once you’ve got a layer (with our shape of bowl, that didn’t take long), sprinkle with more salsa and some more of the cheese.

You should probably end up with only two layers but because of the shape of our bowl we had three, so it was a good thing I grated more cheese. Any extra filling can be piled on top.

Then add in the rest of the jar of salsa. Resist adding on the rest of the cheese – keep about 1/2 cup of it back for the end bit.

Cook on high for 2-4 hours (or on low for 8 hours if you’re prepared for extra mushy enchiladas). In the last 15 minutes of cooking, take the last 1/2 cup of cheese and sprinkle that over top, close the lid, and let it melt.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole, and cilantro, or whatever else floats your enchilada boat!

Antojitos!

Sorry again about the picture glitch folks! I thought I fixed the problem but I guess not …

Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s celebrate by making Tex-Mex food. Seriously. It’s been raining solid for like two days.

I need something to remind me of warmer times and milder climes.

There’s a restaurant chain here that we used to go to all the time. Recently, we’ve been getting short-changed by them, with bad service, bad food, and, well, short change. So we’ve stopped going. The only thing we miss is their recipe for antojitos, a bizarre appetizer made of cream cheese and peppers. It’s heavenly. Fortunately, my hero Karen over at The Art of Doing Stuff, knows someone who knows the recipe and she posted it. With a few modifications to reflect what was in our cupboards at the time, here it is.

FINELY dice up a red pepper, a bunch of green onions, a jalapeño pepper or two (I used two fresno peppers because when I cracked open the jalapeño there was a WEEVIL in it), some pickled pepperoncini, and some parsley. Also, not shown, is a diced red onion, which I didn’t have.

Preheat your oven to 350°F and find yourself a baking tray.

Take a large flour tortilla and spread it with softened plain cream cheese, all the way to the edge. Not too thick, but don’t be stingy. Use your judgment. Then take some hot sauce (we used Tabasco) and dot it all over the cream cheese. Use a knife to spread the sauce out so it covers everything evenly.

Then take all your ingredients and sprinkle them evenly across the tortilla. Not too much. You’re going to need to roll this up later.

Then add some grated cheddar cheese.

Now roll the whole thing up tightly. Shazam. At this point you can wrap them up tightly in plastic wrap and freeze them to bake at a later date. You know, if you don’t want to just stuff them all in your face.

Put the roll on the baking sheet, seam side down, and do it all over again with another tortilla. Using an entire block of cream cheese and the ingredients at hand we ended up making about six of these rolls. Bake them for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool for a little bit.

With a sharp knife (serrated helps), slice the rolls diagonally into 6 pieces or so and serve with sour cream.

We had a few leftover, and boy were they good the next day!

Chicken and Black Bean Burritos

I got this recipe from Canadian Living, but I would say it’s more of a cross between an enchilada and a burrito than it is a full-on burrito, especially after my modifications. You tend not to bake burritos and there are lots of refried beans involved. In any case, it’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s hella tasty. It makes about 10 6″ wraps.

Start with 3 large chicken breasts, still on the bone, and poach them in gently simmering water until cooked, about 15-25 minutes.

Then shred the meat with forks, in good southern style. Set that aside.

Dice a large onion and plop that in a wide frying pan with some olive oil and minced garlic and sauté those suckers until they are tender and translucent.

Chop up as well a red pepper and a jalapeño pepper.

Drain and rinse a can of black beans.

Wrangle yourself 1 cup salsa. I say “wrangle” because that’s what I did with this — it was in three different jars as I was cleaning out the fridge.

Toss the peppers, beans, and salsa into the pan with the onions, and add the chicken as well.

Stir everything around to coat with salsa — I found I needed to add a little bit extra to get it all covered. Season with salt and pepper.

Grate up about 2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese and set that aside for a bit.

In a greased dish or on a sheet of aluminum foil, lay out a flour tortilla. You can use any kind you want, but I used the small whole wheat ones, just to make this a bit healthier. Spoon in a generous amount of filling (you will likely have a bit left over so don’t be afraid to go overboard).

Sprinkle the filling with a bit of cheddar cheese.

Roll the wrap into a cylinder and place it in your dish or on the foil with the open side down.

Repeat with the other wraps until you run out. Sprinkle the remainder of the cheddar across the tops of the burritos.

Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the wraps turn golden brown. Or wrap tightly in foil and freeze. You can bake these from frozen, just increase the cooking time to 25 minutes.

Serve them with sour cream and chopped green onions.

Chicken Enchiladas

This is one of the Pie’s favourite things to make, and one of my favourite things to eat. Being the Pie, he got the recipe from the internet. Being us, we’ve modified it a little.

It’s definitely a team effort to make, though. There’s a lot of timing involved, especially if you’re waiting on other dishes.

First, you need to poach some chicken. You can do this way ahead of time if you like — which I do.

Plop your chicken (you’ll need enough for about 3-4 cups cooked and chopped) in a saucepan with about half water, half chicken stock, and enough liquid to cover the chicken completely. Bring it to a point where it’s just barely bubbling and leave it like that for a while, until the chicken is cooked through.

Drain your chicken and leave it to cool.

Pull the chicken apart with two forks or your fingers so it looks all shredded. Set it aside for a spell.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Grate 2 cups cheddar cheese. We made the mistake of using low-fat cheese, which of course doesn’t melt that well. Always go full fat when it comes to your dairy.

Mince up a large onion.

Coat a large skillet with oil and fry up the onion until it’s translucent, a few minutes.

Add about two tablespoons minced garlic and cook it for another minute or so.

Pour in a 24oz can of crushed or puréed tomatoes. Then start adding chili powder to taste, probably about two tablespoons.

Let it simmer, but don’t let it get too thick. Remove from the heat after a few minutes.

Now, mix about 1/4 of your sauce with the cooked chicken, as well as 1/4 of the cheese.

Stir it up good and set it aside.

Now using the skillet you cooked your sauce in (now empty, but not cleaned), add a bit of oil and heat it up.

Spread a bit of the sauce in a plate and use it to coat both sides of 12 tortillas with sauce.

Fry them up in the skillet by plopping them in. Wait until air bubbles start coming up and flip it. Repeat.

Plop it on a plate and line the centre with some of your chicken mixture.

Roll them up and line a pyrex baking dish with them. You might find it helpful to spread the bottom of the dish with some sauce first, just to keep things from sticking.