Enchiladas!!!

Every week my family always has an enchilada night, and it's usually our favorite meal of the week.  Now when I say enchiladas, you probably think of the unhealthy guilt food that's loaded with chicken and cheese, but our enchiladas are much better.  My mom helped me make them because I have a hand injury that must be rested, but I still took pictures!

Our enchilada filling has . . .

• 2 cans black beans
• 1 can olives
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 3 large sweet potatoes
• 1 can Trader Joe's Green Chiles
• 1 package Trader Joe's Taco Seasoning Mix
• 2 bags tortillas (ideally handmade from Trader Joe's)
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 jar salsa (I used Rojo's Tomatillo Avocado Salsa)
• 1 bag cheese (I used Trader Joe's Fancy Shredded Lite Mexican Blend)
• Olive oil (for coating pan)
• 1 can of Kirkland Tomato Sauce
• 1 cup sour cream

. . . so they are very healthy and delicious!

Roughly chop 3 large sweet potatoes.  Be careful with the knife!  A good technique to avoid getting cut is to hold all of your fingers up and away from the knife, using your palm to press down.

Put the sweet potatoes in a glass bowl and microwave them for 10 minutes.  I know it seems like a long time, but you need them to be soft!

Cut one onion into quarters.

Put it and five cloves of garlic into a Cuisinart Food Processor.  Nothing's good without garlic!

Pulse the onion and garlic until they are finely chopped, but not smooth.

Put them into a pan with preheated olive oil.

Pulse 2 red bell peppers in a Cuisinart Food Processor until they are finely chopped, but again, not smooth!

Add them to the pan with the onions and garlic and turn the heat to high.

Open 2 cans of plain black beans, 1 can of olives, 1 can of Trader Joe's green chiles, and put them in a colander to drain.  Don't rinse them!

Once the canned ingredients are drained, add them to a Cuisinart Food Processor.

Pulse them until they form a paste.  The reason for all the pulsing is so that the filling forms a kind of paste, then it doesn't fall out of the enchiladas.

By now the sweet potatoes should be soft, but if they stay on the fork like this, put them in for another 2 to 5 minutes.

Maybe it's just me, but I love this Rojo's Tomatillo Avocado Salsa.  I put it on practically all of my mexican food!  But if you don't have it, you can use any other kind of mexican salsa.

Add about ¼ cup of salsa to the bell pepper/onion mixture and mix.

Add all of the bean paste to the pan and stir thoroughly until it's all mixed in.  This takes a while, the paste is kind of thick!

Now normally I would NEVER use prepackaged seasoning, but we recently found this wonderful Trader Joe's Taco Seasoning Mix that has just the right amount of everything, so I'm making an acceptation!

Add half of the package to the taco filling and stir thoroughly.

There is some cheese in this recipe, so I use Trader Joe's Fancy Shredded Lite Mexican Blend.  Add ¼ cup of the blend to the filling.

Put half of the sweet potatoes into the Cuisinart Food Processor and pulse until a paste forms.  Repeat this process with the other half of the sweet potatoes.  If you do all of them at once, they won't mix properly, so don't go thinking you an save time!

Add all of the sweet potatoes to the filling, stir thoroughly, and turn of the heat.

Now it's time to make the sauce!  This is what makes the enchiladas so good!  Put 1 can of Kirkland Tomato Sauce, ¾ cup salsa, ½ sour cream, and the rest of the taco seasoning mix into a 4 cup measure.

Mix well until all of the ingredients come together to form a beautiful, tasty sauce!

Now for assembling the enchiladas!  But first, I think we need to have a talk about tortillas.  Many people think that all tortillas are the same, when in fact, some are much better than others!  That's why I buy Trader Joe's Handmade Tortillas instead of the ones from the grocery store that are filled with preservatives and corn syrup.  Well I'm glad we've had this talk, now lets get back to cooking!

Scoop a generous amount of filling onto the middle of a tortilla,

Roll it up,

And put it in a 13"x17" glass dish.  Repeat this process until all of the filling is gone, which should be about 2 pans of enchiladas.

Once all of your enchiladas are assembled and lined up in their pans, coat them in the sauce,

Sprinkle them with the Trader Joe's Fancy Shredded Lite Mexican Blend cheese, and put them in an oven preheated to broil.  Once the cheese on the enchiladas is melted, take them out of the oven.  Let them cool for 5 minutes before eating, them dig in!

I promise you everyone will love these healthy enchiladas just as much as (if not more than) regular ones.  I certainly do!