Saturday, November 24, 2012

Turkey Enchiladas

I'm pretty happy with this meal I made tonight.  I was trying to find something to do with our leftover turkey.  I saw a recipe for Turkey Enchiladas...I wasn't keen on the particular recipe I found, but I liked the idea.

So, off to HyVee we went to get tortillas, cheese and enchilada sauce.  Unfortunately, the brand of enchilada sauce we like was gone, so I quickly googled on my phone and found this recipe for a quick enchilada sauce.  So we got some tomato sauce and I decided I'd give it a shot.  I ended up modifying the recipe for the sauce quite a bit, and I'm really happy with the results.  I even added chocolate, so it probably counts as a mole (MOL-AY).

Here's the recipe for the sauce:

Ingredients:
8 oz can tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup canola oil
3 TBSP Chili Powder
3 TBSP Semi-sweet or Dark Chocolate
2 TBSP Wheat Flour
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp Emeril's Southwest Seasoning
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion salt

Directions:
1.  Combine oil, flour, chili powder and minced garlic and heat over low heat to form a roux.
2.  Stir in remaining ingredients, bring to a low boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  The sauce will thicken as it cooks.

The flavor of this sauce is very similar to some mole I had at my favorite mexican restaurant in town, so I think it's fairly authentic.  It has a mild-medium heat and lots of flavor.  I had semi-sweet chocolate chips, so that is what I used. 

So now that I had the sauce, it was time to make the enchiladas.  Here is the recipe I used for the enchiladas:

Ingredients:
4 multi-grain tortillas
8 oz. shredded Cheddar-Jack Cheese
Enchilada Sauce made above
2 cups shredded turkey (you could use chicken)
1 diced bell pepper (red or yellow would be best)
1/2 diced yellow onion
1 tsp minced garlic
1 TBSP olive oil

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Add oil, onion, bell pepper and garlic to a saute pan and cook vegetables until tender.
3.  Add turkey (or chicken) to saute pan and heat through.
4.  Add two ladles of sauce to the turkey/vegetables and mix thoroughly.
5.  Spoon about 1/2 cup of the turkey/vegetable mixture down center of each tortilla.  Top with 1-2 tablespoons of cheese. Roll up and place seam-side down in 9x13 dish.  For best results, grease the baking dish first. Top with remaining sauce and cheese.
6.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Serve immediately.

As I said above, I'm very happy with how this meal turned out.  I thought it was very close to the enchiladas I had two weeks ago at my favorite Mexican Restaurant here in town.  I'm so excited to make this again real soon!