Enchifajitas? Fajitaladas? Does it Matter?

We had good friends over for dinner and Susan (she of Fake It Til You Make It fame) requested enchiladas. I blithely said sure and kept this little secret to myself: I had actually never made enchiladas before.

I know, I know, it seems incredible after this many decades of cooking but so it goes. I had made tacos and burritos and even fajitas but never enchiladas. I also had never eaten an enchilada — none of which I was going to share with Susan. After all, she can still whip out the Cool Whip story on any given day in front of anyone. (See same post on Fake It Til You Make It.)

Anyway, I have a fair amount of faith in my cooking so I wasn't that worried. I did a little research online and most of the recipes seemed to call for chicken and cheese with sauce and little else. That seemed a little boring to me, so I decided to saute some onions and peppers and add them to the mix.

The result was a fajita/enchilada mix, and, I am happy to report, Susan pronounced them tasty. Another bullet dodged.

Enchifajitas
serves 5-6

ingredients
6 enchilada size flour tortillas
4 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 large red pepper, sliced
1-2 yellow peppers (1 if large, 2 if medium), sliced
1 medium red onion, diced
2 jalapeno peppers, diced
1 1/2 cups or so grated cheddar cheese
1 large teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 bottle enchilada sauce (I like Trader Joe's myself)
salt, pepper to taste

method
In a large sauce pan, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and saute the onions and peppers with the spices until just tender. Remove from the pan to a bowl. Add the chicken pieces to the same pan and saute until just cooked. Remove and place into the bowl. Toss with the grated cheese. Taste and adjust spices.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Divide the mixture evenly into six tortillas and roll them up. Place in a baking pan withe seam side down. Pour the sauce over the tortillas. Place in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

Just a Little Innovation...

Hey Ma-

So, innovations in our kitchen are few and far between these days. We largely stick to tried and trues and, more often than not, these are pretty basic.

As I'm sure you've noticed, one of the go-to dinners in our house is something along the fajita-taco-burrito-quesadilla lines. The other night I went the taco route, using chicken (as you might've guessed from the above photo). I diced tomatoes and sauteed onions and quartered a few limes. This was all par for the course.

The little innovation occurred, however, when I grated half a head of purple cabbage and tossed it into the skillet, adding a dash of oil and then salt and rice vinegar to taste.

It was so yummy! Like, seriously, I'm always going to do this from now on, I think. It added this nice different flavor to the whole meal and, a tartness and texture that we both really enjoyed.

Plus, the cabbage didn't give M bad gas (as it did when she was teeny), so successes abounded.



XXOO
-R

I Guess You Could Call This Meal Fajitas...

Hey Ma-

I've been craving Mexican food for a while now. There's this restaurant that John and I really love called Juan's Place in Berkeley that's a staple in the area. We used to go with our friends Mona and Martin pretty regularly a few years back. Anyway, with M around and school and work and all that that entails we haven't been in a while. They make reaaaaaally good fajitas, though, and this is what I've been particularly craving as of late.

Anyway, the other night with Juan's on the brain I threw together this dinner. It was totally edible and fine, but it was so decidedly not Juan's fajitas that I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Also, I forgot beans. Not cool.

To make this, I sliced up a bell pepper and an onion and set them aside. Then I sliced up one chicken breast and one chicken thigh. I've been really into the dark meat on chicken lately and thought the light and dark combo would be good. It was. I tossed the chicken in a little olive oil, salt, cayenne, dried orange peel and cumin and threw it in a hot skillet to brown before adding in the veggies. I made some rice and heated up a few tortillas and voila--a totally edible if less than exciting dinner.



So it goes. I was pretty pleased with the way the chicken tasted, just for the record.

Off to school. Tonight it's leftover thai take-out (yum).

XXOO
-R