Blue tortillas + red sauce = purple enchiladas?

As a big fan of enchiladas, I decided that I should try making my own. When I lived on campus at UCSD, my Wednesdays (and maybe the occasional extra day) consisted of me going to have some cheese enchiladas at the Mexican restaurant. Not chicken, beef or anything else - just cheese. It was my comfort food and it always brought a smile to my face :). I didn't try any fancy recipe but instead tried tweaking two recipes that I found on two of my ingredients - the back of a mozzarella cheese bag and the back of Trader Joe's enchilada sauce bottle. While my enchiladas didn't come out as saucy as the ones I usually get at Mexican restaurants, they were still tasty. Since I try not to add too much sauce (an entire bottle seems a little overboard) I try to lighten up my dishes by using only 3/4 or 1/2 of what the recipe asks for. I also try to make my dish look a little more colorful by using the blue corn organic tortillas instead of the plain corn tortillas. Unfortunately blue tortillas and red sauce do not add up to purple enchiladas. Nonetheless, still tasty and somewhat colorful.

The other day I tried making flour tortilla enchiladas and the texture was ... interesting. Daniel thought I had made him some kind of a lasagna. It wasn't terrible but the corn tortillas are needed for just the right texture.

My own version of enchiladas (my first recipe?)

Ingredients:

Package of corn tortillas (medium size)

Medium onion

1 chicken breast (I actually made chicken enchiladas, not cheese!)

1 bag of shredded cheese (jack or mozzarella)

Enchilada sauce (I like the Trader Joe's brand but anything else can work)

Cilantro (optional)

Chives (optional)

Recipe:

- Cook the chicken thoroughly (thank you George Foreman!) and allow it to cool for about 15 minutes.

- While the chicken is cooling, dice half the onion (about half a cup). Place it in a bowl and pour half a cup of enchilada sauce into the onion bowl.

- Take half a cup of cheese and mix it in to the onion bowl.

- Shred the chicken by peeling it into thin strands. Place the strands into the onion bowl.

- Use a fork and mix all the ingredients in the onion bowl together to make sure that everything is coated in the red sauce.

- Spray an 8 x8 oven dish with cooking oil. Pour a little of the enchilada sauce into the dish and spread it out (by tilting the dish back and forth or using a spatula).

- Preheat the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Take one tortilla at a time and scoop a spoonful of the onion bowl mix into it. Make sure that it doesn't clump in one area but is spread out along the tortilla in a line down the center. It is up to you how stuffed you want your enchilada.

- Roll the tortilla up to create a small burrito and place it flap side down into the oven dish.

- Continue to do this until all of your mix is gone or until you fill up the entire oven dish.

- Once you've got them all lined up in the dish, pour half a cup of enchilada sauce over the rolls to get them all covered with the sauce.

- Sprinkle cheese over the enchiladas (as much as you'd like).

- Place it in the oven for about 10 minutes (or until the cheese is completely melted and just the way you like it). Enjoy!

For dessert or a snack after try the Chex Mix muddy buddies recipe. It's so fast and easy (though probably not healthy) to make! Part of my goal this month and until the end of the year is to make some snacks for my co-ed softball team. My first snack were the muddy buddies. I usually don't like uber sweet things but this was good. I love Chex cereal in general - sans sugar- but with the chocolate and peanut butter melted all over, it was so hard to resist! Plus it makes for a great treat for an entire week! Since I don't have as much time to make as many sweet now, having a sweet treat that lasts for a while is quite nice. Snacks are important to me everyday now that I'm in the classroom. Something about walking around to the students for two hours straight makes me a very hungry person at around 10:00 am everyday. Anyway, here are some snapshots. Enjoy!