Enchilada Sauce

Enchilada's have become a way for me to clean up leftovers.  There are a couple other leftover-cleaner-uppers- soup and fritatta's.  For the enchilada's, if you are armed with some Mexican flavors (cumin, lime, chili, cilantro...) and some tortillas, you too can clean up your leftovers and no one would be the wiser.  Shh, don't tell the family.  Like especially the kids.  My husband does a little happy dance (well, not really) when I clean up leftovers.  He hates wasting food (as do I). For the most part I can keep on top of stuff in the fridge.  Mostly due to him as he is a champ for cleaning up leftovers.  Sometimes I am sad about this because leftovers from some meals are even better than the night they are first served.

My friend, knowing I love Mexican food, sent me this recipe for enchilada sauce.  You can go to the link here, at A Simple Pantry.  This blogger has lots of Mexican meals, lets of good food to check out and drool over.

I did change up a few things from the original recipe.  First, because I had no chili powder (that, like, never happens, me- running out of a spice!) I had to grind some of my chilies.  OMG, let me tell you, while it upped the flavor quotient, it also upped the spicy quotient.  I was okay with it- but the kids, not so much. I recorded what I did in the recipe below but honestly, if you use fresh dried chilies, lower the amount unless you can take the heat! I also, added the tomato juice to kind of buffer the heat.

BEST DAMN ENCHILADA SAUCE

Recipe adapted from this recipe at A Simple Pantry Blog.  Swoon, people, swoon.

4 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons chili powder, freshly ground*
1½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon Mexican oregano
4 cups beef broth, chicken, or vegetable broth
2 cups tomato juice*

In a soup pot heat the oil, then add in the flour.  Toast the flour, stir frequently, when the flour is lightly golden add in the broth, then the remainder of ingredients.

*See italics in paragraph above.
 

Green Tomatoes and Salsa Verde

What do you do when you get a whole lot of green tomatoes at the same time?  Now that is a good question.  I have made green tomato jam before, well, actually a couple times because frankly it is just that good. But how much jam can you have?

I have made fried green tomatoes before, at least once per summer.

But now I have a new favorite with about six containers in my freezer to prove it.  Salsa verde.  Now, before you go getting your panties in a ruffle, I know salsa verde is traditionally made with tomatillos.  And yes, I make that and I love it.  But why not green tomatoes?  They are green and I turned them into sauce- thus salsa verde.

Then I used them for this great idea for zucchini and mushrooms  enchiladas.  An idea that came from here. A good idea in fact- they were quite tasty.  If you want to follow the recipe, hop on over to Closet Cooking.

I collected some ingredients that I would normally throw into tomatillo type salsa verde. But I added a few more things.

Salsa Verde, Green Tomato style
This recipe will make enough salsa that you can freeze about 3 cups of it and have some for this dish as well.  If you do not want so much, halve it or quarter it.


8 cups quartered green toamtoes
4 cloves garlic
1 large onion, chopped roughly
1 yellow bell pepper (this will help with the color)
1 jalapeno, more or less depending on your heat preference
3/4 teaspoon epazote (if you dont have this just omit)*
3/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon cumin seeds**
1 tablespoon oil

In a dutch oven or a heavy bottomed pot, saute onion until translucent.  Add cumin seeds and toast lightly.  Then add all the rest of the ingredients.  How easy is that.  Cover the pot and let it all cook for about an hour.  You want your green tomatoes to be tender.  Puree once it is all cooked.  Use salsa in recipes that call for salsa verde.


*  epazote is an herb used in Mexican cooking.  It is actually stink weed dried up.  It is pretty powerful stuff so you just want to use a little.  It really lends a lot of flavor and makes things taste mroe authentic.

**  cumin seeds are worth any time it takes you to find them. They are nice and fresh and give lots of flavor.  If you want them ground, just grind them in a spice grinder and voila, ground cumin with lots of POW.