Beef Enchiladas

Like many Texans, there is hardly anything I like more than Mexican food. Tacos...Enchiladas...Fajitas...Chips and Salsa...etc. It just does NOT get any better. Making Mexican food can be easy. I LOVE tacos and find I like our homemade kind more than any other. We don't add any of that gross taco seasoning stuff to ours. I just season with garlic salt and pepper...add shredded lettuce, cheese and salsa into Stand & Stuff Taco Shells and they are fantastic!!

I have always wanted to make restaurant style enchiladas...but getting the sauce right is HARD!!! Canned enchilada sauce is kinda gross and watery.

Amazingly enough, last week Daniel had a cooking class (it was FREE at HEB) and they had the kids make a mexican meatloaf and beef enchiladas. I was SO impressed, that I decided to try to make it at home. I did just that last night and my family LOVED them. I followed the instructions pretty good with a few modifications and will make one more modification next time. Here is what I did!

First...I browned a pound of ground beef. As it was browning, I seasoned generously with garlic salt and pepper...having the flavors cook into the meat.

When the meat was done, I put the drained meat in a bowl. I mixed into the meat a small container of prepared Pico de Gallo, a couple handfuls of shredded mexican blend cheese, and a few tablespoons of Cookwell & Company's Chili Mix. I combined the ingredients together and tasted to see if I thought it tasted like it needed something. I wished I had had a bigger container of pico...this one was VERY small. You can add whatever seasoning you think it might need.

I took flour tortillas and heated them up. In a seperate bowl I heated up a can of enchilada sauce (yes, the kind I just called gross). This is the one change I would make next time: I would use corn tortillas.

I took several tablespoons of the Cookwell chili and spread it on the bottom of my 9x13 pan. Next I dipped a tortilla in the enchilada sauce on both sides, put some hamburger mix filling and rolled and put into the pan. Repeat until you run out of mixture (this made 11 enchiladas for me). I then covered the enchiladas with more of the chili sauce...however much it took before I was satisfied that it was covered.

I put in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes and topped with a fair amount of cheese (I am not much on measuring) and baked for an additional 10-15 minutes. YUMMY!!!

Like I said, I will try next time with corn tortillas. BUT, my kids and hubs all loved it. It packed some heat (Matt got the spicy chili). I think it would have been good with some shredded lettuce and fresh pico de gallo on top!!