the gregarious homebody


Friday, August 31, 2012

French Indian Enchiladas for Dinner

I had no idea these were going to turn out so good which is why I took no pictures until after we'd eaten them.  Notice the sawed-off ends "to make them fit."  Just go with it.

This recipe's inception began like so many of mine do--from the purchase of an esoteric ingredient I thought I needed for another recipe and an overwhelming desire to not leave my house.

We went out to dinner last week to the wonderful new-to-us little Indian joint which lives at the back of an Indian grocery store.  This is my favorite kind of place--you can eat the food they make for you and then buy the ingredients to try to recreate what you just ate at home.  

This is my idea of fun.  

So we had our wonderful food and decided to walk around the store afterwards.  I wanted to buy something.  Anything!  Everything looked so interesting!  But I've been trying to curb my impulse buying so I wanted something I needed.  And then I saw it--the chickpea flour that I needed to make the yummy-sounding flat breads Sue made on one of my favorite blogs.  Score!  A justifiable purchase as making one's own flatbreads instead of purchasing them was surely a money-saving idea, right? So home we go with our little bag of flour that costs more than a large bag of regular all-purpose  or wheat that I can make ANYTHING with.  But I was going to make these flat breads.

So I look them up on Sue's blog and....they are made with what Sue calls "plain" flour or, wait for it...................... whole wheat flour. Which I have.  In many forms (high gluten, pastry, cake, and even whole wheat pastry).  Crap.

So it sat on my counter for exactly one week, taunting me.

Until tonight, when I was slated to make chicken enchiladas for dinner because they are a) a guaranteed crowd-pleaser; b) use up the rest of the roasted chicken I made earlier in the week; and c) dead easy to make with other past-their-former-glory refrigerated leftovers and vegies.
See?  They really were slated.  (Pay no attention to the insane arrows or the fact that today is Friday, not Thursday. It was a tough week).

I'd  realized last night that I didn't have tortillas, which, hello! you need to make said enchiladas. Which there was no way in hell I was going to want to go buy after work today because I would immediately go home and my bra would be off once I had one foot in the door.

It was that kind of week.  

So I'm needing these tortillas (because I was going to make enchiladas, damn it) and wondering what I was going to do (I briefly considered a *shiver* no-carb version with lettuce leaves but then realized I also had no lettuce).  

Which is when I saw the chickpea flour flirting with me.  So I made crepes.  

And tortillas can now kiss the chickpeas' butts because wow were they good.
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Chickpea Crepe Enchiladas (which makes no sense, I know) 
  • Chickpea flour crepes  *recipe, prepared and cooled 
 Filling:
  • 1/2 a leftover roasted chicken, diced 
  • one small onion that you slowly sauteed in 1tablespoon of oil (I did mine in **coconut oil which added a subtle and wonderful coconut flavor) until brown and delicious) sprinkled with some salt
  • 1/2 cup (or more to your liking) peach mango salsa (I used Wegmans brand which is way too sweet for anything else and was another impulse purchase)
  • A couple tablespoons of lime juice because the salsa was too damn sweet 
  • 4 oz. of feta cheese, crumbled
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the filling ingredients and taste often to make sure it's just right (and seasoned with enough salt and pepper).

Coat a long casserole with oil or nonstick spray (again, I used coconut oil.  It is so good).  Lay out your crepes and get rolling.  Place in pan, sprinkle with a teensy bit of cheddar cheese (or a lot--your call) and cover with foil.  Bake in oven for 20 minutes until heated through.

Enjoy!!

*I doubled the crepe recipe and made 7 (annoying number!) crepes with the above filling amount and had 6 crepes left over which I wrapped and froze.  Recipes for crepes never make the amount they say they will, in my experience.  It could be my ineptness but for once I don't think so.  If you've never made crepes before, don't fret when the first one (or the second) turn out terribly.  Eat it and move on.  Once I get a rhythm I find crepe-making oddly soothing.

**This shit is expensive but worth it. I recently found out that Trader Joe's has it much cheaper than Wegmans.  I have to travel almost an hour to buy it but that makes perfect sense, doesn't it, because I save $4 if I go to Trader Joe's.  Right???  DON'T get anything but the virgin or extra virgin or it will have no discernible coconut flavor.  Don't fear the flavor--it is subtle but delicious.
 

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