Black Bean and Cheese Enchiladas with Ranchero Sauce

I have had quite the hankering for Mexican recently, so I was so happy that the October issue of Cooking Light included a bunch of delicious sounding Mexican inspired vegetarian meals. I decided to go for the Black Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, because they can easily be frozen for future lunches and dinners. I substituted a few of the ingredients for what I already had, but you can find the original recipe here.
Ingredients:
2 Cajun peppers, stemmed, seeded and chopped
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion
5 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups chicken broth, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons no-salt-added tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
The juice of 1 lime
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups pre-shredded Mexican-blend cheese, divided
3 thinly sliced green onions, divided
Cooking spray
10 (6-inch) corn tortillas
5 tablespoons light sour cream
Preheat oven to 400°.  Prepare the peppers, onion and garlic cloves. Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over high heat. Add onion and cook for 1 minute.
Reduce heat to medium and add the garlic and salt. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add 2 cups broth, parsley, tomato paste, and cumin.
Cook for 10 minutes, or until it thickens slightly, stirring occasionally.
While this is cooking, add the extra cup water and the chopped peppers to a food processor. Pour the onion mixture into the food processor when finished cooking. Blend until smooth. Stir in lime juice and cayenne.
Combine the beans, 1 cup of cheese, and half the green onions in a bowl.
Add 1/2 of the sauce to the bottom of a cookie pan coated with cooking spray. Add 3 tablespoons of the bean mixture to to each tortilla.
Roll up, placing the seam side down.
Add to the cookie pan.
Pour the remaining sauce over the tortillas.
Top with the remaining cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Sprinkle with remaining green onions and serve with sour cream.

This recipe has so much flavor! I was really pleasantly surprised with how this turned out. I am pretty sure I didn’t allow the sauce to reduce enough, but it thickened up in the oven and still tasted wonderful.

A serving is two enchiladas, so I actually have 4 meals left over after making this. As I mentioned before, enchiladas freeze really well, so 3 are going into the freezer and one will be my lunch tomorrow, win!

To make this recipe more effective for a weeknight, you can make the ranchero sauce ahead of time an refrigerate it until ready to use. The recipe took about an hour from start to finish.

Shredded Chicken Tacos with Tomatoes and Grilled Corn

Tacos are one of my favorite “quick dinners.” For the most part, it all comes down to assembly. I tend to make tacos more as a way to clean my fridge of various vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, corn, avocados, etc.) but this recipe from the August issue of Cooking Light sounded so tasty I couldn’t wait for a fridge-cleaning day, went out, and bought these ingredients.

 

Ingredients:
2 ears shucked corn (or 1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed)
1 package baby heirloom tomatoes
Salt and pepper, to taste
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1/4 rotisserie chicken
1 peeled avocado, cut into 16 slices
8 lime wedges

Preheat your broiler. Place the corn on a pan and broil the corn for 18 minutes, rotating every 6 minutes to allow for an even char. If you are using frozen corn kernels, allow them to thaw. No cooking/broiling needed — you can skip down to combining the kernels with the tomatoes.

 

While the corn is cooking, quarter the tomatoes. Shred your chicken.
Cut the kernels from the corn.

 

Place the kernels in a bowl and mix in the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

 

Heat the tortillas.  Divide the chicken evenly among the tortillas.

Top each with 1/4 cup of the corn mixture and 2 avocado slices. Serve with lime wedges.

I loved the flavors in this dish. However, I don’t feel like the flavor of the corn had the chance to shine through, so I’d suggest using defrosted corn kernels to speed up the process. The colors of this are so pretty too! Heirloom tomatoes add extra pizazz, but using plain old cherry or grape tomatoes would get the job done.

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