Enchiladas: Pioneer Woman Style

Lately, I've been getting really tired of eating the same old things over and over again, so before this last shopping trip, I went through some of my cookbooks and picked out some new recipes to try. For my birthday, my mom gave me The Pioneer Woman's cookbook. It is absolutely fabulous--and so is her blog (you can check it out here). She's totally my inspiration. I wish we were friends. 

Anywho, in her cookbook she has amazing photos (that she took herself) of the foods that she cooks. Her recipe for Enchiladas really stood out to me because the picture of the finished product just looked so darn yummy. Normally, when I eat Mexican food, I stick to the same old thing -- a chicken and cheese quesadilla -- because I'm afraid I won't like something else and then I just wasted my money. I tried enchiladas ONCE and was super turned off because of the sauce. P-Dub tweaks the sauce in this recipe so I figured I would give it a try.

Servings: 8-10
Calories: Appx 199-284 per serving
Cost: Appx $1.00-$0.80 per serving

Here's what all you'll need for the sauce...

In a saucepan (this saucepan needs to be at least the circumference of the soft tortillas you'll be using later on in the recipe), combine 1 Tablespoon of Canola oil and 2 Tablespoons of All-Purpose flour. Whisk it together and let it bubble for 1 minute or so.

Pour in the can of chicken broth, the enchilada sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Stir it all together and raise the heat to bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and let it simmer away.

Here's what you'll need for the rest of the meal...

This is Canola Oil, Salt, Green Onions, 10 flour tortillas, 1/4 of an onion (the recipe calls for an entire onion, but this is all I had left), green chiles, and 1 lb of ground beef--yes, shown is 2 lbs, but I went ahead and browned the extra pound and froze it for another meal.

Chop your onion and add it to your ground beef that you're browning in a skillet.

Once that has cooked through, drain off the fat. While you've got the meat and onions in a strainer, add in your green chiles and I decided corn would be good in it.

I actually ended up NOT adding the chiles. I really wasn't in the mood for heartburn. 

Now, in a 9 by 13 baking dish, add 1/2 cup of your enchilada sauce to the bottom of the dish.

Oh, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

In a skillet over medium heat, add enough canola oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Let the oil get good and hot.

Once the oil is hot, lightly fry each tortilla just until it's soft. Let it drain on a paper-towel covered plate. 

Here comes the fun part...

Dip each tortilla in your enchilada sauce. Once I dipped mine, I put it on a cookie sheet to chill out until I was ready to add in the stuffing. 

The stuffing is where you can BYOC (be-your-own-chef), as Claire Robinson would say. I first put down some shredded cheese, then added some chopped green onions, and then my meat/corn/onion mixture. Yumm. You can get creative here and add beans, olives (if you like that kind of thing), rice..really anything you like. 

Roll 'er up and squeeze it into your baking dish and then top with shredded cheese and green onions. 

Bake for 10-20 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and bub-lay! :) 

Oh these were SO good! My hubby has already asked when we're going to have them again!