"Mormon" Enchiladas

Hello! We are back from a fun Thanksgiving vacation, which I will write about soon, probably after Thursday, since I have a major paper due then. I should be writing it right now, but every time I try, I get interrupted. So I figured I'd blog real quick until the kids are ready for bed.

Anyways, A little while ago, I said on Facebook that my favorite meal was "Mormon Enchiladas" and I decided that I would share that recipe the next time I made them. Well, we had them last night, so here is the recipe for you all! Sorry in advance for the terrible photos, it's hard enough trying to make dinner when you have a toddler who is running around, a fussy baby, and then trying to take photos. And, I also apologize in advance for the vague directions and measurements. It's going to be a little rough...

"Mormon Enchiladas"

We call them Mormon Enchiladas because my grandma is from the Mormon colonies in Colonial Juarez, Mexico, and this is how they make them there.

You will need:

Vegetable Oil

Flour

Tomato Sauce

White or yellow corn tortillas

Chili powder

See? So far it's easy peasy. And super cheap.

First: In a large pot, pour in enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom, set at medium-high heat. You want the oil hot, but not hot enough that it starts to boil or pop.

Second: Take a large heaping spoonful of flour and sprinkle it in the oil, once it's hot. The flour should sizzle slightly. If it's not, the oil isn't warm enough. I usually throw a pinch in there first to make sure it's hot enough. But don't let the oil get too hot, or else the flour will burn. (I warned you these measurements and directions would be vague...)

 (Notice the little bubbling sizzle there? But it's not burning! Perfect! Also, that is enough oil to cover the entire bottom, but my burners are crooked so it all slumps to one side.)

Third: QUICKLY stir the heck out of the flour/oil mixture. You want it all to mix fast so that it's even and so that you won't get lumps, or so the bottom wont burn.

Fourth: Pour 1 can of Tomato sauce in, immediately followed by 1 can of water and stir like mad. I use one giant can of tomato sauce (I don't know, like maybe the 16 oz can? Do they make 16 oz cans? If they do, that's what I use...) but if you want to reduce the amount of sauce made, then just use one or two tiny cans, or if making this for a large group, add more cans. But always add the same amount of water as you do sauce. 1 can of tomato sauce = 1 can of water, 2 cans of sauce = 2 cans of water, etc. Make sure it is all well blended, and turn the heat down to medium. You are done with the cooking, so it just needs to stay warm now.

Fifth: Pour in whatever amount of chili powder you want. I like a giant tablespoon full, but this is all preference. Stir again.

BAM! Sauce is DONE!

*Tip: I put my chili powder in a container and freeze it. It keeps it fresh longer

*Another tip: The longer your sauce sits, the thicker it will get. Too thin? Just keep cooking and stirring. Too thick? Take off the heat and add some water.

While you have your sauce going, stick some tortillas on a baking sheet and place in the oven to warm them up. I put mine in at 350 for just a few minutes. You want them a little firmer than they are strait out of the package, or else they will fall apart in the sauce, but you want them soft enough to cut with a fork. Play around with them, you'll get the hang of the timing.

*Tip: My mom flips them over after a minute or so and cooks them on the other side. I don't, mostly because my mom does it with her BARE HANDS and I'm too much of a wimp to touch hot tortillas. But my mom's are much better than mine, so you may want to do that.

Once the tortillas are warmed through and slightly firm, take them and dip them completely in your sauce with tongs. Then pull them out, plop it on a plate, sprinkle with cheese, and repeat as many as you would like. Think of them like pancakes. You're just stacking them up. Sauce, tortilla, cheese, repeat.

Slab some sour cream on top, and to make them true "Mormon Enchiladas" top it all off with a fried egg and cottage cheese. (Fried egg not pictured because... well.. I don't like eggs.) And don't forget and ice cold Mexican coke, straight out of the glass bottle!

This whole meals costs pennies per person, feeds a LOT of people, and grand total takes maybe 5-10 minutes. I'm not kidding, it's that quick! Because you don't want the oil and flour or tomato sauce to burn, you have to do everything pretty quickly. I usually open the can of tomato sauce before I even begin in order to throw it in there as fast as possible once I get the flour all mixed in.

They are sweet, not spicy, and you can add anything you want to them. Olives, green onions, peppers, whatever! Sometimes I make this as a casserole. You make the same sauce, but you don't heat the tortillas. Just take a 9X13 inch pan, line the bottom with sauce, place tortillas along the bottom, sprinkle some ground beef (or chicken), cheese, more sauce, tortillas, beef, cheese etc, like a lasagna. Then bake at 350 until heated through, about 15 minutes.

If you ever want the real, authentic thing though, you're going to have to go to grandma. Her's (and my mom's) always turn out about a million times better than mine. They just have the gift I guess.

This really is my favorite meal. So easy, and a great tradition in my family. I request them for all my birthday dinners, and we have even had them for Christmas Eve dinner before (enchiladas on nice fancy china is pretty awesome!)

Ta Da!

Enjoy!

Pretty sure I was sick last valentines day too...

(my "sick" survival kit. Water, tums, tissues, puke bowl, throat lozenges, my nook, and cold medicine)

All weekend long I've been sick. This is probably my 3rd or 4th time being sick while pregnant. You see, when I was 19, I caught a bad case of pneumonia that had me literally drowning in my own body. I was in the hospital for a week and then at home in bed with a PIC line hanging out my arm and a stash full of IV's in the fridge for a month. Afterwords, the pulmonologist told me she thought I wasn't going to make it and was happy to see I was perking up.

She also told me that the pneumonia had wrecked havoc on my immune system, and that it would take years before it got back to normal, meaning I would get sick often. Then, as most anyone who has been pregnant knows, when you are preggo, your body shuts its immune system down, this is to prevent your body from seeing your baby as a foreign object (it is a parasite after all...) and ejecting it.

So what little immunity towards diseases I was slowly gaining with each cold, got tossed out the window when I became pregnant.

Anyways, I was feeling better Saturday, just a little stuffy, but the "Phantom of the Opera" was playing at my old high school and I really wanted to go. My brother told me that people were already lining up at 10:00 for the 2:00 matinee, so we rushed on down there. The line started inside, but one guy told us there was no more room (even though there was plenty) and that we needed to stand outside. In the cold. Obviously, there was no sympathy for a pregnant, sick woman and her little brother. So we waited outside, in the cold, for 2 1/2 hours to get tickets. (oh the lengths I go through to get a little culture in this town!) From the time I got there to the time the play was over, I was there for 6 hours! And thats when I began to really feel crummy.

But the play was really good!

Sunday morning arrived and I was so sore, so achy, so mucus filled and gross that I was not going to be able to make it into work. I called everyone and everyone was busy (but I can't blame them, it was short notice, and everyone hates working Sundays.) I was going to have to go in... But thankfully, one of my co-workers called me back! We agreed to switch shifts and I went back to bed and slept until almost 1 in the afternoon! I spent most of the day reading the Girl Who Played With Fire (highly recommend that series! Amazing!) and trying to eat since I had no appetite. But as the saying goes "sweat a fever, feed a cold".

Then, that afternoon, my parents invited us up for dinner. They had invited 2 other families in our neighborhood and we enjoyed enchilada casserole and chocolate fondue!



We had tons of fun, but I ate way too much and I was sick to my stomach the rest of the night. I guess that happens when your stomach is being squished and pushed by a little girl...



Bryant was having way too much fun teasing our neighbors kids. The youngest would just run up to him and start giggling like crazy! I was having a blast watching them. I can't WAIT until our baby is here to watch Bryant play with her!


This is the devastation of the fondue table after the kids attacked it. It was super yummy!

Today, I'm feeling slightly better. I actually just got a text from Bryant asking me to go out to lunch with him on his break and I think I'll be OK to go. Tonight, we start our prenatal class at the hospital, so I need to be feeling better by tonight for sure!

I'm pretty sure I was sick on Valentines day last year too because my cousins baby was born a few days later and I was just getting over it.

Stupid colds..

Happy Valentines day everyone! I'll write another post soon on how mine went!

Thats Right, Be Jealous!

I have an amazing husband.
No really, the BEST!

I was craving 3 things tonight:

Italian doughnuts dipped in chocolate
Ice cream
milk

I didn't have doughnuts or ice cream (well, I had a teeny bit but most of it had freezer burn so I ate what I could and tossed the rest) and I only had a few sips left from the Jug of milk I made Bryant buy 2 nights ago. Yeah, I drank a whole gallon by myself in 2 days.

Give me a break, I'm pregnant!

I was also feeling like mush this evening. I came home from work, took a nap and was still groggy so there was no chance that I was going to personally go out and get the these items I so craved.

But Bryant came to my rescue!

The only place I know that sells doughnuts with chocolate to dip them in is the Olive Garden.


Soooo good!

He also spoiled me and brought me back dinner


Go ahead, you have the right to be jealous.

And yes, I used my footstool as a table. My kitchen table in in the future nursery at the moment covered in baby items and craft/scrapbooking supplies.

How awesome is the "But honey, I'm pregnant..." excuse?

Pretty awesome.

But it's ok. My father-in-law told me on the phone tonight that I was allowed to make Bryant do anything I wanted. I'm the "control chip" he said.

Next food network star anyone?

So for some really weird reason, I was craving alfredo like crazy yesterday!
So I made myself some for lunch yesterday.
The kind from a jar.

Then I went to work and the whole time I was craving it even more!
So I got a little adventurous...

I found a recipe for homemade alfredo sauce, headed to the store, came home and made it, threw some grilled chicken and lightly broiled some garlic bread and the result was...
delicious!

Even Bryant helped. :)

Catching Up

So it's been a while since my last post, but I have been so sick for the last 3 weeks that I haven't really done a whole lot, but the other night I was going through some pictures on Bryant's iphone that I have taken over the last couple of weeks so this is just going to be a "catching up" kind of post.
Isn't this just the creepiest picture? haha! I was kind of down because I never get to see my friends anymore, they are always so busy, but a couple of weeks ago My old roommate Sarah and my best friend Katie invited me over to watch a movie. We watched it at our friend Jason's apartment because he has a big T.V. This is a picture of Jason's roommate (who interestingly enough, I found out we have the same geography class, who knew?) who had a box of these masks from a concert he went to and it was freaking Sarah out.
Also a couple of weeks ago, My mom got a ton of tickets to the BYU vs New Mexico basketball game from a friend who had a bunch extra, so Bryant and I, Bryant's friend Eric, My brother Colter and his date Nicole, My other Brother Sawyer and his two best friends, my Mom and My Dad all got to go.
Sawyer pulling a funny faceI have gone to basketball games at BYU before but none that were this crazy! It was a full house and the crowd was nuts! I don't know a lot about how basketball ranking or playoffs or whatever works, but apparently this was an extremely important game. Unfortunately, I had to leave early to go to work. Thankfully, I had a couple come into the store that had a little girl dressed up like a BYU cheerleader so I was able to ask them if we won or not. We lost by just a couple of points and apparently there were some pretty bad calls right at the end.

I'm just putting this picture up here because I am so proud of this dinner. One night Bryant was taking a nap after work and I was bored, so instead of mac n cheese or pizza for dinner, I decided to go all out and make fried lemon chicken, stuffing, gravy, and potatoes au gratin, I even set the table instead of eating in the living room and using the footstool as a table! I was particularly proud of the potatoes, we couldn't eat all of them so I took the left overs to my family and had them try them. They were awesome!
And last but not least! Bryant has been working with Ace to teach him that he has a "spot". We put his pillow in the back corner of the living room, and moved his food bowl there too, and we have trained him to stay there until we let him roam around. It's nice because he's such a curious little guy that if you want to read or watch T.V. or cook, it's hard to keep track of what he's getting into. But now I can just tell him to go to his "spot" and he will stay there so I don't have to worry about him getting into trouble. So far, the longest he's stayed is about an hour, but that's because he fell asleep. I can't wait until it warms up! I want so badly to take my kayak out and I want him to learn to swim!

I had a dream the other night that my parents gave us two beagles and I was so upset that I would have to train them too, but then my dad said that I should just name them both Ace and then they would know all of the stuff he knows. It was weird.

Well, That's just my little update!
P.S. I'm finally not sick anymore! I was able to sleep through the night for the first time in 3 weeks last night!
P.P.S.S I'm going to be an aunt for the first time any day now! I'm so excited!!!