Easy & Delicious Beef Enchiladas

 

Recipe Girl

 

Here’s a quick and easy dinner recipe for you… so that you can celebrate Cinco de Mayo this week along with me:  Easy Beef Enchiladas.  Here’s the how-to:

 

Heat oil in a large skillet, and add a pound of ground beef.

 



Break the meat apart and let it brown.

Tilt the pan to let the oil pool along the edge of the pan. Use a spoon to scoop out the oil and get rid of it. You don’t need any of that extra fat in there. Remove the meat to a bowl.

Add chopped onion and finely chopped zucchini to the hot skillet, and cook until the vegetables are slightly softened. Trust me on the zucchini. No one in your family will even notice it, and it’s really good in this recipe! If you hate it, I suppose you could leave it out… but I hope you’ll choose to trust me

Add the vegetables to the bowl with the beef and stir them together.

Tilt the pan to swirl the sauce around and make sure it coats the entire bottom of the pan.

Assembly time! You’ll need corn tortillas, the meat/veggie mixture, cheddar-jack cheese and enchilada sauce.

Spoon beef mixture down the middle of a tortilla.

Sprinkle cheese on top.

And drizzle about a Tablespoon of the enchilada sauce.

Roll up the stuffed tortilla tightly and place seam-side-down in the sauce-coated pan. Continue with all of the tortillas until you have created 12 enchiladas.

Drizzle the remaining sauce on top of the rolled-up enchiladas.

Spread the sauce around so you get a nice coating all along the top. At this point, you’re going to cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Take the enchiladas out of the oven, remove the foil cover and sprinkle cheese on top. Put it back in the oven to melt all that cheese.

This simple recipe for beef enchiladas is a delicious, family-friendly meal. This recipe is gluten-free adaptable... see tips below.

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
 1 1/2 cups diced onion
 1 1/2 cups (about 2 medium) finely diced zucchini
 12 corn tortillas, heated or fried in oil to soften
 2 1/2 cups enchilada sauce, canned or homemade
 3 cups cheddar- jack shredded cheese
 Serve as desired with: shredded lettuce, avocado, cilantro, sour cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with nonstick spray.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet. Add ground beef; break apart with a spoon or spatula to crumble the meat. Saute the meat on medium heat until browned (about 5 minutes). Tilt the pan and spoon the fat out of the pan; discard. Remove cooked meat to a bowl.

3. Return pan to medium heat and add onion and zucchini. Saute until just softened, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan and add to the meat mixture; set aside.

4. Add 1/2 cup of sauce to the prepared pan. Spread it around so it coats the entire bottom of the pan.

5. Assemble the enchiladas: Place tortilla on a work surface. Spoon 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the meat mixture down the middle. Sprinkle 2 Tablespoons of cheese on top of the meat. Drizzle 1 Tablespoon of sauce on top. Wrap the tortilla around the filling tightly and place it seam-side-down in the pan. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling until you have finished filling 12 tortillas. Place the tortillas side-by-side in the pan- it's okay if they are all snuggled in there tightly.

6. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the top of the stuffed enchiladas. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

7. Remove pan from the oven and take off the foil. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top; return to the oven and let the cheese melt (about 5 minutes).

8. Serve immediately with desired condiments.

I get most of my cooking tools from Amazon.com

Tips:

*If you are preparing this recipe as GLUTEN-FREE, just make sure that you are using brands of enchilada sauce and corn tortillas that are designated as GF



The Best DIY Homemade Yogurt Online

I found this awesome recipe for homemade yogurt over at Mel's Kitchen Cafe and wanted to share.

Once you get the hang of it, this yogurt is practically mindless. I have it down to a science. I know that by starting it by 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, I’ll be ready to pop it in the oven for an overnight rest by 10:00 or 11:00 and it will be strained and devour-able by 2:00 the next afternoon. Besides taking the yogurt’s temperature (think of it as a beloved child you are nurturing) and moving it from point A to point B, this couldn’t be simpler.

When I initially tried it, I figured it would be kind of neat-o and novel to make my own yogurt. But I didn’t count on the absolute delicious, creaminess of this yogurt. In my opinion, it beats out any storebought yogurt I’ve ever had – Greek or regular. And if you live in the boonies like I do where grocery prices are a little bit inflated, it’s very cost efficient to make it yourself.

I’ve included a step-by-step tutorial along with the recipe. And I’ve added lots and lots of notes to the recipe in order to help you along (basically my finds after dozens of times making this) so please settle in and read through it all. It’s riveting and educational and it will make you smarter while changing your life. Ok, not really to any of those things, but seriously…get on the yogurt making bandwagon! You’ll definitely be the cool kid in town, no doubt about it, and I’ll be here to hold your hand through the journey. Promise.

Printable Version

*Note: I have not tried this recipe with skim milk so I don’t know how/if it would work. I have made it consistently with 1% and it works great, so I’m sure 2% and above will work great, too (and probably be even creamier). The milk powder adds extra protein and I always use it and don’t notice a strong taste to the yogurt but you could leave it out if you’d like. I use a 5-quart slow cooker. If you have a smaller (say, 4-quart), you may need to adjust the amount of milk. If you are only decreasing the amount of milk by a few cups, you can leave the other ingredient amounts the same. On the other hand, if you are using a large, 6-8 quart slow cooker, feel free to increase the milk and other ingredients accordingly. You can use 1/2 cup of the yogurt you make for a future starter, just be sure to reserve it out of the batch before mixing in fruit or add-ins. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can follow the basic instructions (temperature, etc.) using a saucepan on the stove. Just make sure to keep an eye on the temperature because it will heat much faster than a slow cooker (although it needs the same incubation period in the oven). I have this process down to a science now: if I start it at 4:00 p.m., I can put it in the oven to incubate overnight at around 10 or 10:30 p.m. and pull it out anywhere from 6-8 a.m. I have included a very simple, delicious fruit syrup recipe below the instructions that we use to stir into the yogurt. You could also stir in honey to lightly sweeten it. Remember this is plain yogurt unless you add something else to it, although the plain yogurt makes a great substitution for sour cream.

*Makes 6-8 cups of yogurt

INGREDIENTS:

 1 gallon milk
 1/2 to 1 cup nonfat dry milk powder (optional)
 1/2 cup plain yogurt with live and active cultures (look at the ingredient list to make sure it includes Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus)

Fruit syrup, if desired (recipe below)

DIRECTIONS:

 Pour one gallon of milk into a 5-quart slow cooker, leaving enough room for 1-2 cups more liquid. See the note above for adjustments if you are working with a larger or smaller slow cooker or pan. Whisk a cup or so of milk into 1/2 to 1 cup powdered milk until the mixture is smooth. The powdered milk is optional but adds protein and creaminess. Pour or strain the powdered milk mixture into the slow cooker. Cover the slow cooker and heat on low until the mixture reaches 180 degrees F (in my slow cooker, this takes about 2-3 hours, although each slow cooker will heat a bit differently). Remove the slow cooker insert and let the milk cool to between 112 and 120 degrees F. Too warm or too cool and the milk won’t culture into yogurt. Without any stirring to help cool, it takes 1-2 hours for the milk to cool. Stirring will help the milk cool more quickly.

Once the milk has cooled to that temperature range, measure out 1/2 cup plain yogurt (Greek or regular) in a small bowl and whisk in 1 or so cups of the warm milk into the yogurt. Whisk the yogurt/milk mixture into the warm milk. Now lay out a standard size bath towel and place the covered slow cooker in the center. Fold up each side until it makes a neat little towel wrapped package and the slow cooker is completely insulated. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Once the oven is fully preheated, turn it off. Turn the oven light on. This will help maintain the warmth of the oven while the yogurt cultures. Place the towel-wrapped slow cooker into the warm oven. Let the wrapped pot sit in the warm oven for 8-12 hours. The idea is to keep the milk/yogurt mixture in the 112-118 degree range for that period of time. It is what cultures the milk and turns it into yogurt.

After 8 or so hours, remove the pot, take off the bath towel and take off the lid. The mixture should be very thick and set and it may have a layer of clear liquid on the top (whey). If it is still too liquidy, return it to the warm oven for a longer period of time. If you think your oven may not be holding warmth, you may need to preheat it to 250 degrees and then turn it off every couple of hours but usually just keeping the oven light on after preheating it once should do the trick.

Once the milk has successfully cultured and turned to yogurt, line a colander or strainer with cheesecloth and set it over a large pot or bowl. Pour the yogurt into the strainer. It may be lumpy but as long as it’s thick, it will strain just fine. Using lowfat milk will produce more whey and the yogurt will need more straining time; using whole milk will produce less whey and you may not even need to strain it at all. Place it in the refrigerator and let it drain for 4-6 hours. There will be quite a bit of whey in the pot or bowl. Discard this liquid. Scrape the yogurt off the cheesecloth into a bowl or other container. Whisk to recombine the yogurt. My yogurt, at this point, looks almost like cottage cheese and has little lumps no matter how much I whisk it, so I pour it into my blender and blend it for a few seconds (too long and it will become runny). The yogurt can be stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks. If you want to continue making yogurt like this, reserve 1/2 cup of the yogurt to use as a starter in your next batch.

If you are interested in adding fruit syrup, I use the following simple method. Simmer these ingredients for 5-7 minutes until thick: 2 cups fresh or frozen fruit, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 2 teaspoons lemon juice. You may need to increase or decrease the sugar accordingly. I find this makes the perfect amount for one batch of yogurt.