Easy Peasy Quinoa Enchiladas
I am on week three of being a mommy to two now.
It has not been nearly as terrifying as I imagined it would be. Besides having help from family, perhaps that's because my baby girl is so chill and I'm more confident in my mothering skills the second time around. Though it all feels new again, experience says, "Hey, you figured it out before. You'll figure it out again!"
We've been blessed with a month of yummy meals from friends and our church. What a blessing it has been! I'm not a chef and meal-planning is overwhelming to me, however, I did some adventuring in the kitchen last week and it was successful! I'm going to share two links below for the recipes I combined.
Here is the slow cooker recipe that I ran out of time to use: http://lecremedelacrumb.com/2014/12/slow-cooker-enchilada-quinoa.html
Here is the enchilada bake recipe I modified:
What I love about this dish is that I can make it whenever I want! Because it's based on pantry items, I can make this when I desperately need to go to the grocery store, but have very little on hand. It's hearty, filling, and vegetarian which makes it CHEAP and HEALTHY!
INGREDIENTS
1 cup of un-cooked quinoa
2 cups of water
10 oz. green enchilada sauce
4.5 oz can of chopped green chiles, drained
1/2 cup of canned corn
1/2 cup of canned black beans
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
4 oz. softened cream cheese
1-2 bags of mexican cheese mix
1 avocado
tortilla chips or Doritos
1-2 limes
Taco Bell Mild Sauce (Yes, they sell it in stores now!)
DIRECTIONS
1. Rinse your cup of quinoa in a mesh colander like the one below.
This is a really important step because you want to rinse the bitterness off of the casing of the quinoa. Mix with 2 cups of water and microwave until the quinoa soaks up all the water and is fluffy. (I thought my micro was broken. I followed the instructions on the package and it took me much longer.) Now your quinoa is cooked and ready to be mixed!
2. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
3. Combine quinoa, enchilada sauce, chiles, corn, beans, spices, and cream cheese in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pour mixture into a greased casserole dish or better yet, the disposable aluminum pans make for easy clean up! (I'm a new mom again. Going green is not my first priority these days.)
5. Generously cover your enchiladas with cheese and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Since everything is cooked, you just want to warm the dish and melt the cheese.
Let's talk about toppings! I'm a condiment-junkie. I originally thought this would be tasty with tomatoes, sour cream, and cilantro, but I had NONE of them on hand! Two of my three avocados were perfectly ripe and I had some limes on hand, so I topped our tasty enchilada bake with lots of lime juice, salt, some avocado, and mild sauce. This was good, but it still needed something more. This is where my mom saved the day, unknowingly. When she visits the west coast to see her kids, she carts a grocery bag from each of our homes. Thankfully, she left her grocery bag behind and I found some Doritos. Can I just tell you it transformed this dish from good to FANTASTIC?! I know it's full of artificial stuff and GMO's and food coloring and probably some other unethical ingredients, but it was perfect! Don't knock it 'til you try it, folks!
***This recipe would be really easy to make dairy-free or you could add chicken. A rotisserie chicken would keep the easy in peasy. ;)
Comments
Post a Comment