This blog is a new project for me. I am a vegetarian who cooks at home a lot. Recently I have been feeling a little bored with my cooking. I have gotten stuck in a place where I make the same recipes every week. Wanting to change things up a little bit, I have decided to challenge myself to try a new recipe every week. My first new recipe is enchiladas. I have been wanting to try this for a long time. Yesterday, as we were walking past a Mexican restaurant, my significant other and I were enticed by the smell of enchilada sauce and decided it was time to try making our own enchiladas.
Here are the ingredients. I found a simple recipe on the enchilada sauce can and modified it a little to make it vegetarian.
The recipe called for one and a half cups of cooked ground beef. I modified by using one and a half cups of veggie crumbles from Morningstar Farms and a cup of black beans seasoned with McCormick taco seasoning and hot sauce.
The tortillas were warmed on a pan. The recipe called for shortening. I didn't have any, so I tried butter, which created a lot of smoke. I then tried oil. This cut down on the smoke and worked pretty well. The tongs worked great for turning the tortillas.
After heating the tortillas, I used the same pan to heat the enchilada sauce. Then the tortillas were dipped one by one in the sauce. Again the tongs worked great. After dipping, the tortillas were filled and rolled up. I made one group with cheese and one without, since I do not eat cheese, but the people I was eating with do :) Each tortilla was stuffed with a little of the crumble/bean mix, with a little cheese in the cheesy ones. The stuffed tortillas were rolled up and placed seam-down in a baking dish. The remaining sauce was ladled over the top of the enchiladas, and the cheesy ones were sprinkled with cheese. Then they were put in the oven, which was preheated to 350.
They stayed in the oven long enough to heat them through and melt the cheese. Basically I left them in there long enough for me to make the garnishes. Here's a picture of the baked enchiladas.
Here they are with all the garnishes. I made guacamole (mashed avocado, a little vegan mayonnaise, garlic, hot sauce, salt and pepper), salsa fresca, chopped lettuce, and chopped onion. As an afterthought I wish I had also had black olives and sour cream. Next time :) The enchiladas were delicious, and not one scrap of food was left over.
For drinks, we made our version of mojitos, for the first time. No recipe, no measuring.... just rum, mint, lime juice and a little club soda.
Yummy
We also tried a rum martini, another new recipe. Rum and a little dry vermouth shaken with ice, then served straight up.
It was an excellent meal, and I can't wait to try my next new recipe.
The cookies are really good alone. They taste like little brownies in cookie form. But the recipe called for some marshmallow cream sandwiched between two cookies.
I really liked them. My fiance thought they would be better with ice cream in the middle.
After allowing the cupcakes to cool, I packed them up to go to the party. I decided to use store-bought frosting, instead of making my own. I had so much fun at the party. The first design I tried was the penguin. I made three penguins. For the body, I stacked a cupcake, a small ring donut and a donut hole, all held together with chocolate frosting. After that the body is frozen so they will harden and stay together during the next stage. Next, we heated up some chocolate frosting with a little black food coloring and dipped the penguin body into it. After that the decoration begins. The white part of the body was supposed to be a marshmallow, but since marshmallows are not veggie friendly, I used vanilla frosting. The eyes are vanilla frosting with a mini chocolate chip, and the beak is a Starburst cut in half. I was supposed to make two feet with Starburst also, but I skipped the feet, since Starburst are also not veggie friendly. Here is one of my penguins:
Another design I made was a cat. This one is just piped vanilla frosting. I cut the corners off a wafer cookie to make the cat ears and used mini chocolate chips for eyes. The nose is a red cake decoration, and the other features are piped chocolate frosting. I made it to look like my kitty cat.
I also made the horse design. First, I cut a slit in the cupcake. I cut the corner off a wafer and then inserted it in the slit. I then frosted the cupcake with dark chocolate frosting. A Circus Peanut was attached to the wafer with frosting. The eyes, nostrils and mane were piped frosting, and the tail is part of a pretzel.
Unfortunately, traveling with cupcakes is not an easy feat, and there were some casualties. These three fell twice before they got home. Ooops!
The penguins were safely packed in a container, but still there were some injuries. Bob fell over and lost part of his stomach. Ouch.
Suzy suffered a small head injury. I don't envy her the headache, still she looks happy.
The recipe called for one and a half cups of cooked ground beef. I modified by using one and a half cups of veggie crumbles from Morningstar Farms and a cup of black beans seasoned with McCormick taco seasoning and hot sauce.
The tortillas were warmed on a pan. The recipe called for shortening. I didn't have any, so I tried butter, which created a lot of smoke. I then tried oil. This cut down on the smoke and worked pretty well. The tongs worked great for turning the tortillas.
After heating the tortillas, I used the same pan to heat the enchilada sauce. Then the tortillas were dipped one by one in the sauce. Again the tongs worked great. After dipping, the tortillas were filled and rolled up. I made one group with cheese and one without, since I do not eat cheese, but the people I was eating with do :) Each tortilla was stuffed with a little of the crumble/bean mix, with a little cheese in the cheesy ones. The stuffed tortillas were rolled up and placed seam-down in a baking dish. The remaining sauce was ladled over the top of the enchiladas, and the cheesy ones were sprinkled with cheese. Then they were put in the oven, which was preheated to 350.
They stayed in the oven long enough to heat them through and melt the cheese. Basically I left them in there long enough for me to make the garnishes. Here's a picture of the baked enchiladas.
Here they are with all the garnishes. I made guacamole (mashed avocado, a little vegan mayonnaise, garlic, hot sauce, salt and pepper), salsa fresca, chopped lettuce, and chopped onion. As an afterthought I wish I had also had black olives and sour cream. Next time :) The enchiladas were delicious, and not one scrap of food was left over.
For drinks, we made our version of mojitos, for the first time. No recipe, no measuring.... just rum, mint, lime juice and a little club soda.
Yummy
We also tried a rum martini, another new recipe. Rum and a little dry vermouth shaken with ice, then served straight up.
It was an excellent meal, and I can't wait to try my next new recipe.
