Greetings, readers - at last you get a post written by me (Ryan)!
With Brenda gone for two weeks, my meals have been mostly uninspired and a bit erratic. Last night I was getting hungry but also feeling very lazy. I didn't feel like driving anywhere and the only prepared food we had in the house was canned soup and boxed mac-n-cheese. While the mac-n-cheese was tempting, I figured with only a little more effort I could probably make one of my favorite dishes of all time, Cheese and Onion Enchiladas. Taking style tips from Mark Bittman's "Minimalist" philosophy, I tried to make these as simple and straightforward as possible. Read on...
Basic recipe:
- Preheat oven to 350°F and heat about a tablespoon of oil in a small skillet.
- Saute about 1/3 cup of diced onion (I used about one quarter of a very large red onion) with a good shaking of chili powder (a tablespoon, maybe?) and some salt until nice and soft.
- Grate about half a cup of cheese, set aside (I used about a quarter of a brick of cheddar, plus a couple of mozzarella string cheeses, for meltyness).
- Remove onions from skillet to a bowl, add more oil to about 0.25" depth, and bring up to medium-high heat (350-375°F)
- Briefly fry 6 corn tortillas in the oil, no more than about 10-12 seconds each until they poof up, get soft, but not appreciably brown or crisp. Remove and drain on paper towel
- From a 10oz can of enchilada sauce, pour a thin layer in the bottom of a 5"x7" baking dish
- Place about a tablespoon and a half of cheese, and a tablespoon of onions in the center of each tortilla, roll up, and place in baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas
- Top everything with the remaining canned sauce
- Bake for 25 minutes
- Eat and enjoy
The whole prep/stovetop portion took no more than 10 minutes, if even that. I kept to my Lazy Ethos by shredding the cheese in the food processor, which took about 10 seconds. I could have saved even more time by using bagged, pre-shredded cheese but I didn't have any of that. Yes, I could have spent more time by making my own sauce, but the canned kind is tasty and cheap and easy.
An added bonus: since I had all that nice hot oil, I took the opportunity to fry up the ragged and torn tortillas in the package into some delicious chips. Just fry chip-sized pieces until golden and crisp, about 2-3 minutes.
The enchiladas came out fantastic. I didn't bother topping them with anything but a squeeze of lime juice; they really didn't need anything. The quantity would easily serve two people, but I ate half and saved the rest for lunch the next day...
...and then ended up eating them for breakfast instead (that's a cappuccino with them, not a beer):
They were just that good.
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