The Pioneer Woman's Enchiladas

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

I have been reading the Pioneer Woman's blog since she first started blogging back in 2006.  I have made many of her recipes, and every single one has turned out fantastic.  She does not have a bad recipe. Of course I had to buy all of her cookbooks, even though some of those recipes are on her blog and now on her show.  I picked the enchilada recipe out of her cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

The sauce

The recipe has three parts, the sauce, the meat, and the other stuff.  I needed to purchase a 28 oz can of enchilada sauce, chicken broth, and cilantro for the sauce.  For the meat I needed ground beef, an onion, two 4 oz cans of green chiles, corn tortillas and green onions for the rest.  I made the mistake of going to Giant on a Sunday evening.  They are ALWAYS out of cilantro on Sundays.  And why does the cashier even ask if you found everything you needed?  My answer several times has been "NO", and the response is either "Oh", or "Ok". That is the opposite of helpful.

The meat

I almost didn't make the recipe because I really needed the cilantro, but I found freeze dried cilantro.  It was the last jar, and I paid $4.99 which was a huge mistake.  The sauce was easy to put together.  Whisk together 1 tablespoon of oil with 2 tablespoons of flour,  after it bubbles for 1 minute add the enchilada sauce, chicken broth, salt and pepper.  After it boils, let it simmer. 

Meat ready to go

While the sauce simmered, I chopped an onion and cooked it with the ground beef.  I drained the fat,  and added salt and pepper.  Everything went smoothly so far, but here is where I started to have trouble. The recipe said to lightly fry the corn tortillas in oil until soft, and not to crisp them. Well, they are already soft so I don't know what that means. I attempted to fry them "until soft" but I don't think I fried them quite long enough.  After completing that task, you are to dip the tortillas in the enchilada sauce.  At this point, I had an oily, saucy mess but I kept going.  Maybe my tortillas weren't big enough, the recipe doesn't specify what size to use.  But I had great difficulty rolling up the tortillas with the filling inside.  They started to fall apart, and I was afraid they were too mushy.  After rolling them up and placing them seam side down, I poured the rest of the sauce on top.  However, after covering them with 3 cups of sharp cheddar cheese, you couldn't even tell I had any trouble.  First note to self' - cheese fixes everything.  That's too much cheese...said no one ever.

Very sad enchiladas

After baking the enchiladas for 20 minutes, I was supposed to sprinkle the fresh cilantro on top. I love cilantro so much.  I have mentioned before it's like catnip to me, and I would bathe in it if I could.  According to the freeze dried cilantro, it's supposed to "refresh" upon using. LIES!! It was as if I sprinkled grass clippings on my enchiladas I worked so hard to make.  I did not want to bathe in that cilantro, I wanted to take it out to the compost pile. I basically ruined my enchiladas with that $4.99 purchase of freeze dried cilantro.  Second note to self - use fresh cilantro or make something else.  My first instinct not to make this recipe when Giant was out of cilantro was correct. Trust your instincts.

Covered in sauce

Cheese fixes everything

RJ is not as big of fan as cilantro as I am.  He wouldn't even notice if it was there, but he said the enchiladas were really good.  They had a little bit of a kick from the chiles, but weren't too hot or spicy.  And he couldn't tell all the trouble I had assembling them thanks to the glorious gobs of melted cheese.  If I make them again, I will only use fresh cilantro just for me because...cilantro!!

If only my enchiladas weren't covered in grass clippings