The Suburban Herbivore

The pan that I use for my enchiladas only holds eight at a time, but I go ahead and prepare enough filling for two batches. You could easily cut this in half if you need to. I’ve called for 8 tortillas below, but if you want to use up all the filling, you’ll need about 16. This is a pretty free-form recipe, so you may need to experiment a little.

In case you’re not familiar with chipotle chiles, you buy them in a can. This recipe calls for 2 or 3 chiles from that can. Put the rest of them into a little container and refrigerate – they will keep for a long time. If you have time (and fresh tomatillos), you can make salsa verde. Lately, I’ve been using the Trader Joe’s brand and I keep forgetting to measure exactly how much I use. You want to pour on enough to cover the enchiladas, but not so much that they’re swimming in salsa.

If you’re making this using refrigerated beans and/or sweet potatoes, I recommend warming them up first, as this dish doesn’t spend very much time in the oven.

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes
2-3 chipotle chiles
olive oil
1 onion
2-3 jalapenos
2 cans black beans, or the equivalent
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1 tbsp tomato paste
8 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese
1-2 cups prepared salsa verde

1. Cook sweet potato using your preferred method: oven or microwave.
2. Dice or shred onion and jalapenos, and saute in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan (or your preferred amount). Cook until soft, about 5-10 minutes.
3. During this time, dice the chipotles.
4. Add tomato paste and mix well.
5. Drain and rinse black beans, and add to onion/jalapeno mixture, along with salt. Mash about half the beans and mix it all up. Turn down the heat, but keep the mixture warm.
6. Once sweet potatoes are cooked, mash, and mix in diced chipotles.
7. Warm the tortillas for about 20-30 seconds.
8. Add a little salsa verde to the bottom of the baking dish.
9. Put a heaping spoonful of the bean mixture in the middle of a tortilla, and fold both sides over to the middle. Put seam side down in the baking dish. Prepare three more bean enchiladas, and line those up. Then repeat the same procedure with the sweet potato mixture.
10. Pour on some salsa verde, enough to cover but not dowse the enchiladas. Add the shredded cheese on top.
11. Broil on high until cheese is bubbling and has maybe a few small brown patches. This will only take a couple of minutes.

Black Beans and Saffron Rice

One of the very first recipes that my mom made when I became a vegetarian – nearly twenty years ago! – was this tasty rendition of black beans. It was always served with Mahatma (i.e. packaged) saffron rice, and that’s what I continue to do out of both convenience and habit. One day, I would like to try out some homemade saffron rice, though. Originally my mom made this with Cajun stewed tomatoes, but I haven’t seen those in the store in like fifteen years, so I substitute Mexican.

I always, always double it, since it keeps for a while in the fridge and also freezes well. Though I wouldn’t recommend doubling the amount of green bell pepper until you really, really like green bell pepper. One is fine. If you do double it, definitely make it in a large pot. The one I use is six quarts.

Ingredients:

1 large onion
1 large green bell pepper
2-3 cloves garlic
olive oil as needed – enough to cover the bottom of the pot
3 15-oz cans black beans
1 15-oz can Cajun or Mexican stewed tomatoes
1.5 cups water
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

1. Chop onion and bell pepper, and mince garlic.
2. In a large saucepan or stockpot, sauté onion, bell pepper, and garlic in olive oil until soft.
3. While sautéing, rinse the beans and drain.
4. Add beans, tomatoes, water, tomato sauce, red wine vinegar, salt, black pepper, and sugar, and heat until it starts to boil.
5. Cover and reduce heat to medium low (or thereabouts), and simmer for one hour (you could probably get away with 45 min).
6. Uncover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Use this time to make your saffron rice.