A few weeks ago, I got it in my head that enchiladas would be a fun thing to make with our summer veggies.
The first thing I needed to do was find a good enchilada sauce recipe. I did a search and found a few promising recipes, but the one I drew most from was Mexican Enchilada Sauce, which caught my attention because it uses cocoa powder.
My final sauce recipe ended being something like this:
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 chipotle pepper (canned, in adobo sauce), chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
I started by sautéing the garlic and onions in some vegetable oil, then added the jalapeño, then the rest of the ingredients. I let the whole mixture simmer for a little while and then thinned it out with some water.
In a separate pan, Tom prepped our vegetable filling, which could contain anything you want. We used chopped zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, corn, a can of black beans, and of course, garlic.
Although we have a great local place where we can get fresh handmade corn tortillas, for the purpose of enchiladas I actually like using La Tortilla Factory corn tortillas, which I find to be extremely pliable. We also needed a nice melty cheese. Though not traditional, we like the taste and texture of the soft Asiago Fresco we can get from Di Bruno Brothers.
From this point on, I just followed the instructions in a straightforward enchilada recipe. I coated a baking pan with the sauce, filled the tortillas with the veggie filling, placed them in the pan rolled with seam down, and smothered everything with more sauce and cheese. Ideally you should have a big enough pan that they all fit in a single layer. Unfortunately, our pan is too small, so we had to stack them. I baked them in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
Enjoy!
