Enchiladas

Last Saturday the lawnmower started to act funny. If you drove over a bump it would kind of stall. The funny thing is that this just started happening after we got it serviced. So I looked around and found a fuel line that was cracked. When the guy changed the fuel filter he wrenched the line around a little bit and it cracked. So I cut the old one out and put a new one in.

I also made some enchiladas. Sometimes I make them with Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce but this time I decided to make home made enchilada sauce. I also made Mexican red rice like you get in the restaurant.

Mexican Enchilada Sauce

1/3 cup finely ground New Mexico or California Chili Pepper (about 5 or 6)
(if you can't find those you can use just regular chili powder)
½ t cayenne pepper (optional)
2 t garlic salt
½ t pepper
3 t cumin (that’s what makes this sauce so proud)

¼ cup flour
water

New Mexico chilis are dried and you can find them in the grocery store. They are red in color. I think they are the same thing as the red dried California chilis, so you can use either one interchangeably. Grind up 5 or 6 in a coffee grinder until you have enough to make 1/3 cup. Mix in the rest of the ingredients except for the flour and water.

Put 1 T olive oil in the bottom of a saucepan. Heat it up over medium heat until its hot. Add the flour and stir it until the oil is soaked up and the flour is in little pebbles. Then add the pepper/spices mix and stir a little more, until it is mixed up and in little pebbles. Now you add the water, a little at a time. Stir constantly so that there are no lumps. The final consistency of the sauce is going to be about as thick as gravy. You will need to add a little more water than that consistency because it is going to cook for a minute or two and thicken to the right consistency.

Making enchiladas is easy. You just choose whatever fillings you want. I made ground beef enchiladas and also onion and cheese enchiladas. I pour a little enchilada sauce on a plate and drop a tortilla on the plate. I roll up the ingredients in the sauce to coat it well. I pour a little enchilada sauce in the bottom of a baking pan to coat the bottom and put the enchiladas in the pan as I make them. When you are done, pour the rest of the sauce over the enchiladas. I like to cover the pan with tin foil and bake at 350 for 1/2 hour.

Real Mexican Red Rice

1 cup short grain or medium grain rice
2 cups water
1 1/2 t onion powder
1 1/2 t garlic powder
1 t salt
1/8 to 1/4 cup tomato sauce, just enough to turn the water pinkish red

Dump everything together into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10 minutes or until rice is soft. Remove from heat and let sit 5 to 10 minutes.

Actually I forgot 1 detail about the rice that I remembered when I was making it:
Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of the pan and heat it up. Add the rice and cook it for a little while to 'parboil' it. Some of the kernels will puff up like popcorn. I don't know if it makes a huge difference but I do it that way and it tastes EXACTLY like the rice at Mexican restaurants.