Day One: Pacing Myself

Tonight's menu: enchiladas a la me.

It's Friday. Fridays are hard for me. We keep it simple. It's also day one, another reason to ramp up into the pace.

I'm also cooking up a pot of stock. Going to need that in the upcoming days. I don't even know what I'm making tomorrow but I bet it'll need stock. I wish I had some today, the enchiladas would have been better with.

From the store:
1 can of red enchilada sauce, Hatch is the brand, I went for the mid-priced option
1 lb shredded cheese, the taco/nacho cheese in the bag was the best value
An eggplant, a pretty small one, only about 6" long
1 zucchini, also pretty small
2 green bell peppers, on the large side
A 5-lb bag of carrots, certainly not going to use all of those today
2 large sweet onions, slightly smaller than softballs

Total: $16

I had some garlic and corn tortillas laying around.

Prices are going to be approximate. This isn't an accounting gig, just trying to get a rough idea of how much dinner costs. Spices and stuff probably won't factor into this much and there's always some stuff in my pantry or fridge.

Cut the onions into large pieces, chop about half a cup and keep those aside. Cut up the zucchini into 1/4-inch eighths and the bell pepper into about 1/2-inch pieces. I used about 10 carrots, rough cut.

I smashed some garlic, chopped up about a half cup of fresh cilantro and sliced 3 small Thai chiles. I'd recommend the garlic but the cilantro and chiles are completely optional. I would have preferred poblano peppers to the bell peppers but the store was out of those.

Saute the chopped onions and smashed garlic in some vegetable oil. Don't use olive oil, it burns too easily. Throw in the zucchini and peppers. Saute briefly then add spices and liquid. I used about a tablespoon of cumin, a teaspoon of oregano, salt and pepper. If you're skipping the chiles but want it hot, add cayenne flakes or powder, to taste. Otherwise, put that and the cilantro in. I used some white wine I had left over, about 2 tablespoons of vinegar and some vinegary Mexican hot sauce. Depending on what you like, you can just use water instead of any of that. Saute over high heat until the edges of the onions start to brown a little, then turn down, add water, cover and simmer.

Throw the rest of the onions and the carrots in a large pot. Fill with water. Add a bay leaf if you want. Nothing else. That's for the stock. Turn that on high until it boils.

The enchilada stuffing is simmering as I type this, it's been going for about 10 minutes. I type quickly. Total chopping time was 16 minutes, prep otherwise was 5 minutes additional. There's going to be more time to assemble the enchiladas. Clearly this stuff takes too long so far. I'm going to need to find shortcuts. 21 minutes of prep time will not fly for an average weekday meal and it's still going to take an hour start to finish. No bueno.

Preheat the oven. 350 is fine. We're mostly just melting cheese so anything from about 280 to 450 will give you varied timing.

The stuffing is done when the peppers are soft. Grease a small baking dish or casserole pan. I used an 8" square glass baking dish, the kind you'd make brownies in. Grease it well. I use PAM. Tortillas, especially corn ones, stick like champions to bakeware. Use butter or veggie oil if you want. If you keep the oven temp low, you can even use olive oil. Put a few tortillas at the bottom, throw on the stuffing, 3/4 of the enchilada sauce, then cover with more tortillas, then the rest of the enchilada sauce, then cheese. I used about 2/3 of the 1-lb bag. I saved a little enchilada sauce and a touch of stuffing for the top. Bake until the cheese is melted. This should be about 15 minutes at 350. Prep time was only about 3 minutes, not too bad. When you take it out of the oven, let it sit for some time to allow the cheese to set a bit. If you're in a rush, you can skip this but you get a slightly lesser experience.

This deal ain't gonna look pretty. It's not going to be something you'd get in a $25-a-plate restaurant. I think it's going to be yummy though.

When the stock boils, turn it down. Let it cook over low heat for a long time. We're talking like 3 hours here, for real. You can't overcook it. If the water boils away, add more, cold water is fine. Don't mess with it otherwise, maybe an occasional stir. When it's done, strain out the vegetables and throw 'em out. The liquid should have some color. That'll be tomorrow's stock.

I was going to make some fresh tortilla chips while I waited. I have a deep fryer that's always ready to go. If you have one, this is highly recommended. Cut the small tortillas into quarters and fry for about a minute. I can't imagine how they'd be worse for you than the ones from the bag. Serve with salsa. I ran out of tortillas.

This whole deal takes over an hour. Yikes. That won't cut it. Definitely have to find something to speed up this process and I chop veggies fast.

I didn't use the eggplant. I think maybe some eggplant Parmesan-like thing is happening tomorrow.

The good news is that it's delicious. The enchilada sauce is cheating: most of the flavor comes from that, I think. The texture is great and I think someone who generally doesn't like zucchini may completely not care or even notice. The bell peppers are slightly crunchy, enough to give the feeling that you're eating something. Eating a plate of mush isn't often rewarding.

From a nutritional standpoint, it's a little lacking. I'm going to guess the nutritional content is approximately the same as the equivalent volume of pizza, but there's a lot more vegetables. It's definitely lacking on protein if we're targeting 150g a day. Some tofu may make this better. I'll try that next time. Also, the tortillas need to be double-layered. If you make some chips on the side, this will probably use up an entire short stack of small corn tortillas. This would also be way better with homemade tortillas. We'll get there shortly.

It took a third of the dish to feed a hungry heavyweight dinner. With two people eating, this could easily leave 2 lunch-sized leftover portions. That's pretty spot-on with portion control. I would guess this will also taste better reheated tomorrow.

So the eggplant's on the chopping block for tomorrow. Need some pasta, tomato sauce and mozzarella. Also definitely need some protein to go with that tomorrow. I'll put the thinking cap on.