Easy Enchiladas

One of our favorite foods are enchiladas. There are a number of ways to make them and over time we have come to like these as both the easiest and most flavorful.

enchilada ingredients

The ingredients: corn tortillas that have just been cooked, Oaxaca cheese, homemade refried beans, shredded cooked chicken, jalapeno pepper, Mexican Crema (sour cream), Hatch green chili enchilada sauce, a baking pan sized to hold enchiladas and a glass of wine. We have made our own enchilada sauce in the past, but the Hatch sauce is convenient, tastes great and contains pieces of Hatch chili peppers.

Building the enchilada

We make two types of enchiladas, chicken and bean. The process is simple. We spread some enchilada sauce in the bottom of the baking pan, smear a tortilla around in it, place either chicken of beans in the tortilla, and add some crema.

Rolling the tortilla

On top of this goes the cheese. The tortilla is rolled up and placed in the pan. We alternate the chicken and beans so when we serve them we get one of each style.

Enchiladas in the baking pan

The baking pan filled with enchiladas. The small bowls of chicken, beans and cheese make it easy to build the enchiladas. It is messy, smearing the tortilla in the sauce, then taking a hand full of chicken, and later cheese and using the smaller bowls and occasionally refilling them keeps us when getting the ingredients all mixed together.

ready to bake

I like a slice of fresh jalapeno pepper on mine, then the rest of the can of enchilada sauce is poured over the enchiladas and it is topped with cheese. We bake them for 30 minutes at 325 degrees F (163 C). We like our enchiladas wet and sloppy and this gives the result we prefer.

Good as can be

Our enchiladas would never be pictured in a food advertisement, but do they ever taste beyond awesome. (We travel frequently and when we can’t find what we normally use, we use what is locally available and invariably the results are wet sloppy good tasting enchiladas, even if the taste may be somewhat different than these. Other people prefer beef enchiladas with red sauce, that’s just not something we like. It’s the great thing about food, we can make what we like.

In case you noticed the wine wasn’t added to the enchiladas, that’s true, but sure wasn’t wasted.

It’s No Longer a Jungle Out There

Cleanup

The garden area is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is certainly immeasurably better than it was when we returned from our travels. Two tarps full of weeds and trimmings that we took down to the designated green waste area. There is a large sign there which states “No Plastic Bags”, yet people still throw plastic bags and plastic containers into the area. It’s easy to tell which Presidential candidate those uneducatable people voted for in the last U.S. election.

How NOT to Start the Day

Failure message

Needless to say I immediately did a fresh backup of all my files even though it is connected to a NAS. This is an all-in-one computer that I’ve had for quite a while and with Windows 11 just around the corner I’ll be able to replace it with one far better suited to all the photo and video editing I do. Besides, I have two other computers that I also use. To slightly change Rudyard Kipling’s famous quote, ‘A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too many computers.’

How to Start the Day

Breakfast

Frühstück, lijo tsa hoseng, parakuihi, ਨਾਸ਼ਤਾ, сніданок, déjeuner, matenmanĝo, 早餐, desayuno, နံနက်စာ, nri ụtụtụ, ΠΡΩΙΝΟ ΓΕΥΜΑ

However you say it, it is a great way to start the day. Mine consists of fresh brewed Darjeeling tea, several vitamins, a vinegar/honey/water/mint leaves hot drink, tomato/vegetable juice spiked with hot sauce and course ground black pepper, and a breakfast burrito comprised on refried beans, chorizo, pickled jalapeño peppers, Mexican style sour cream, my homemade Mexican chili sauce and Oaxaca cheese all wrapped in a fresh tortilla. The only thing better than this is two burritos!!! How about you, what is your got to have to start the day food?