Foodie Friday: Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Its no secret that I love Mexican food. If I had to choose one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, hands down it would be Mexican. I love eating at Mexican restaurants. (Especially for the chips and salsa. M always has to tell me to stop eating them so I still have room for the main course.) I also love cooking up some Mexican dishes at home. The red sauce on enchiladas is one of my favorite sauces in the world. Sometimes I will just go out and buy a can to make enchiladas at home. At other times I will make up a batch on my own. It really isn't that difficult and the homemade sauce can provide a better flavor verses the canned.

**Note: This picture does not do the meal justice. It was very delicious. I may have to work on my presentation skills.**

Here is the recipe I used: (from Brown Eyed Baker)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons flour

1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce

1.5 cups chicken broth1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion salt

Salt to taste
1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in flour, reduce heat to medium, and cook until lightly brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning flour.
2. Gradually stir in tomato sauce, chicken broth, garlic powder, and onion salt into the flour until smooth, and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes or until lightly thickened. Season with salt to taste.



Before filling the tortillas with a chicken, onion and pepper mixture, I spread some black refried beans in the bottom of each. After spreading some of the sauce in the bottom of my 9x13 glass baking dish, I rolled the tortillas and put them in. I topped the enchiladas with the remaining sauce and some shredded cheese.



Bake covered for 30 minutes at 350. (Remove cover for last 5 minutes.)



I also made some Spanish rice as a side dish. I used my handy dandy
rice cooker to prepare some brown rice and added in some stewed tomatoes with chilies and other assorted seasoning.

Special Visitors

We can officially say that our new house is "kid tested." We had some very special visitors this week. M's sister-in-law Jenny and her three kiddos were here to see us. We all had a wonderful time. The only problem was it was too short.

(Disclaimer: For those of you who don't know, Jenny was one of my best friends in college. Throughout college, Jenny dated her now husband who just happens to be M's brother. That is how I met M and so when I married M, I also entered Jenny's extended family. All in all, not a bad deal.)

While Jenny and I caught up, the kids enjoyed the few toys that M and I own. Their favorite by far were the plastic parachuting men that they could drop from the upstairs living room all the way to the lower level. This was followed a close second by the Bob Cat that was being used at the new house next door. (If you looked at it with binoculars it was like, "Wow!")

I had to work Wednesday morning, but the great thing about being a preschool teacher is I could just take them all along with me. Maybe now I will be known as the coolest aunt for having the best toy collection. ;o)

The only pictures I nabbed were at bedtime while M was reading to the kids. The boys love all of their uncles and can't ever get enough quality time with them.

A novel way to read a book. (Pun intended.) Also, if you look closely, you can see the Nerf darts stuck to the clock on the background.

They all wondered why we have four bedrooms. (They were counting the downstairs living room because that is where some of them slept.) I told them it was so they could come and visit anytime they wanted. (And who wouldn't want house guests as cute as this?)
Jenny informed me there were tears as they pulled out of the driveway because they all wanted one more night at our house. I guess we will just have to plan to do it again. After all, M said the house was too quiet last night with them gone.

Just Over the Bridge

Unfortunately this summer, a bridge near our home was hit by a garbage truck and caused some damage. At the time, the bridge was closed until it could be inspected and once deemed safe, opened again. They are now working on fixing the damage. In the beginning they were doing their work at night and it didn't effect us at all. The other day, however, that all changed. I had a meeting at work at 6 p.m. It usually take 15 minutes commute time for me. I left at 5:30 and planned on getting some work done before the meeting. As it turned out, I used all of my extra time sitting on the road in stopped traffic. I don't do well in stop and go traffic and quickly grew impatient. I figured out an alternate route and made it just in time for the meeting. I am just hoping that they finish the bridge soon and my commute isn't doubled for long.

ID Please

So, remember that M and I had to get new driver's licenses? After our second trip to the DMV we both passed the written exam. (I scored higher than M. :o) And applied for our licenses. Unfortunately, our state is one of the few that still take 4 - 6 weeks to make your hard copy and mail it to you. A few weeks ago, we received our awaited mail from the DMV. At first glance I thought all was good. On closer inspection, however, I realized that mine had my maiden name. I checked out the copy of the paper work that I had and to my relief, found that the mistake wasn't mine. I called the 800 number on the paper work and after getting a busy signal for 15 minutes, and being put on hold when I finally got through, I spoke with a representative. She had to pull up my records which took another chunk of time. Once back on, she admit that it was their fault and she apologized for the mistake. Now I am waiting another 4 - 6 weeks for my driver's license with my married name. I am just hoping that this doesn't pose any problems when I go to vote next Tuesday.

A Harvest Party

Our church held their annual Harvest Party this weekend. I added to the fun with carmel popcorn bags for the kids, guacamole dip, and a chocolate cake. Unfortunately I was running late and wasn't able to snap any pictures of my own. Lucky for me, I know where to find pictures of the same things online. This way I can just pretend that mine turned out as well as the original post online.

For the carmel corn, I made use of the recipe I posted in my previous Foodie Friday post. I just made two batches and put them into individual treat bags. I had intended on tying ribbon around the tops, but the whole running late thing also but the kabash on that.

I turned to my bloggie friend, Emily at Imperfect for the guacamole dip. (Thanks Emily!) I was whipping it up as I headed out the door to help set up, so I didn't taste it ahead of time. (That is the nice thing about a pot-luck. If it didn't turn out, I could have pretended that it wasn't mine.) When I had some with my supper, it was so good. I proudly claimed it as my own.

I found the cake through another blog, The Hyper Homemaker. The original recipe however was from the Country Living website. This also turned out really well. I looked at a few stores to see if I could find a plastic spider to perch on top, but didn't have any luck. It still turned out and I can't wait to have one of the left-over pieces this afternoon.