Gringo Enchiladas (or why I hate chile powder right now)

Inspired by a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, I decided I was going to make my own enchilada sauce. I stopped at that section of tiny plastic bags in the Mexican food aisle at Fry's, and bought both New Mexico chile powder, and California chile powder, since I wasn't sure which was better. Eagerly I headed home, mixed up some enchilada sauce, and made a pan of beautiful rolled red beef enchiladas. Sadly however, they tasted kinda blah, and I blame the chile powder.

The sauce wasn't spicy at all, just overwhelmingly chile powder-ish. Granted, I'm not the biggest chile powder fan, I usually use it sparingly, but I feel like this result was not just me. It was the gringo recipe's fault! :) Anyway, the enchiladas themselves were pretty good, the consistency was nice, the sauce-to-meat-to-cheese-to-tortilla ratio was perfect, and the meat and cheese part was quite tasty. And the best part was, from first heating the oil for the enchilada sauce, to eating the finished product was only about 45 minutes, 20 minutes of which the enchiladas were baking, meaning that I got the dishes done before eating! So I've decided to come up with another enchilada sauce, and then I'll remake these, since the method was good.

Easy Ground Beef Enchiladas

7-8 ten-inch flour tortillas

1 lb lean ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

7 oz can peeled green chiles

4 cloves garlic, peeled, minced

salt to taste
2 cups shredded cheese (jack, cheddar, or 'mexican blend' would be fine)

3 cups enchilada sauce (I used red this time)
cooking spray

In a large skillet brown the ground beef with the onion, green chiles, garlic, and salt to taste. Once the meat is fully cooked and the onion is soft, microwave the tortillas in ten second intervals until they're warm and flexible. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Take each tortilla, place about 1/3 of a cup of the ground beef mixture in a line down the center of each tortilla. Top with about 2 tablespoons shredded cheese and two tablespoons enchilada sauce. Roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in the 9x13 pan.

Repeat these steps, smushing the enchiladas toward one end of the 9x13 as you add more of them. I only used 7 tortillas, but I actually had closer to 1 1/4 lbs of ground beef, so with only 1 pound I think 8 enchiladas should fit in the pan. Once all the enchiladas are lined up, spread the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of them, and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and enchiladas are hot.

And by the way, I like the ground beef in terms of simplicity and rapidity, but I think these would be even better with shredded beef or maybe shredded chicken (for those silly people that eat chicken anyway).