Vegetable Enchiladas

There are several components to this dish. We'll start with the enchiladas themselves.

Ingredients

• extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, diced
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups chicken stock (or veg)
  
• many cilantro leaves, chopped
• 2 small zucchinis, chopped
• small red onion, in rings/slices
  
• salt and pepper
• 6 flour tortillas (medium-large)
• 1/2 pound monterey jack cheese, shredded
• salsa (storebought is fine, but if you want to go all out and make your own, go for it)
  

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Heat some olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and cook until caramelized. Add garlic and cumin and cook for another minute.
Add flour and mix very well. Make sure that all the pieces of flour are incorporated. Add the chicken stock right away so the flour doesn't burn. Mix well.
Turn heat down to a simmer and continue to cook the mixture until thickened.
Turn off the heat and set aside.
In another pan, cook the zucchini and onions with some olive oil. Cook until the onions are caramelized. Season with salt and pepper.
When they are done cooking, add them to the flour mixture. Stir well to combine.
Change oven temp to 350 F and begin assembling enchiladas.
Smear some salsa onto the bottom of a baking pan (enough to coat).
This is the easiest way to fill the enchiladas:
Place the 6 tortillas in the bottom of the pan and position them so that they look like hardshell tacos. Then just go down the line and place a bunch of the flour/vegetable mixture on the tortilla, followed by some shredded cheese (use all the flour veggie mixture but save about half of the cheese). Once the tortillas are full, fold them over as best as you can. I don't know how to describe this. Just do what you feel like doing.
Smear the top of the enchiladas with more salsa, then sprinkle on the rest of the cheese.
Bake for about 30 minutes until the cheese is bubbly.
Serve with refried beans, yellow rice (recipe follows), guacamole, and salsa. Or whatever.


Ingredients for Yellow Rice

• 2 cups long grain rice
• 4 cups water
  
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt

Put all the ingredients in a pot, stir, and bring to a boil over medium-high/high heat.
Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and let cook over low heat until rice has absorbed water.
Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes.
Fluff with a fork and serve.

Thoughts: The enchiladas were pretty good. In our original foray, we made our own roasted tomatillo salsa, which was super acidic and totally not worth it. So we didn't even include that part in the recipe. Don't even bother. Just use store-bought salsa. Also, the original recipe (Tyler Florence's) called for a roasted deli-style chicken for the filling instead of just vegetables. We were going to use one but we forgot to go to the store and we were already half-way through the recipe SO we just said screw it. But we would definitely use chicken next time because it would make them so delicious. So yes.
As per the yellow rice, we would definitely use chicken stock instead of water because it would make the rice more savory. If you're a vegetarian (why??), you might try vegetable stock because it still might add some extra flavor. Also, Dan suggests that we add to the rice half a green bell pepper and then discard it when we serve the rice. Apparently it adds more flavor. So we'd do that too. Overall, very very delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10