Bean Enchiladas (Veg Friendly)

The dish that I can absolutely eat until I'm sick: enchiladas. I've loved them since I was little and last night, as a birthday week present for myself, I cooked bean enchiladas for dinner.

An easy crowd pleaser, my mom and I have often made hundreds of enchiladas for events, and it never takes longer than an hour or so.

So, here is my easy, fool-proof recipe for enchiladas:

Makes 10

Bean Enchiladas (or meat if you want)

Ingredients:

• 1 can of refried bean
• shredded colby jack cheese
• 10 flour tortillas
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 packet McCormick enchilada spices
• OPTIONAL: ground beef or ground turkey (cooked)

Directions:

1. Simmer tomato sauce mixed with spice packet until warm.
2. Fill each tortilla with a large spoon full of beans, a sprinkle of cheese and a spoonful of sauce (add the meat and anything else you might want here too); spread evenly down the center of the tortilla.
3. Roll tortillas and place them side-by-side in the pan (the closer the better)
4. Top generously with cheese and sauce.
5. Cook at 350 F for 25 minutes, or until enchiladas are hot in the center.
6. Serve immediately.
7. Enjoy!

These enchiladas are great re-heated! You can also freeze them for about a month and take them out one at a time for lunches or dinners.

Black Bean Soup

One of my all-time favorites, I remember my mom ordering black bean soup at the now long-gone Espinosas (a Chatfield favorite). As I've grown to unabashedly adore beans of all kinds, black bean soup has been on my to-cook list for a while so the other night, I finally tried and based on boyfriend reviews (which might be slightly biased) succeeded. Here is my ramshackle black bean soup that I threw together out of my college-student pantry and turned out to be extremely quick and tasty.

Black Bean Soup

Recipe:

1 can black beans, juice poured off, but not strained

2.5 cans water (fill the black bean can)

1 large handful of brown rice

.5 medium onion, coarsely chopped

6 pieces cooked bacon (I used turkey bacon because I like it better)

1 large tomato diced

1-1.5 Tbs. chili powder (to taste)

1.5 Tbs. garlic powder (or 1 garlic clove if you have one)

handful of chopped, fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon of your favorite salsa (I use my homemade salsa)

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

OPTIONAL:

crumbled feta cheese for topping

sour cream for topping

Directions:

1. Sauté garlic (if you have it) and onions until onions are transparent.

2. Pour excess liquid off beans, put beans, rice, water, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, salsa and cooked bacon in large pot.

3. Bring mixture to boil and then reduce heat to simmer

4. Season mixture with garlic powder (if garlic cloves weren't used), chili powder, salt and pepper to taste.

5. Allow mixture to simmer until it has reduced to your desired consistency and the rice is cooked through(mine took about 10 minutes). Extra water can be added and reduced if the soup becomes to thick.

6. Serve hot with crumbled feta cheese, sour cream or both.

7. Eat up!

P.S. Sorry if this picture isn't the most appealing, we ate it so fast that the soup was almost completely gone before I remembered to take a picture.