Organic Veggie Enchiladas

This recipe checks so many healthy and overall positive boxes – organic, vegetarian, good for cooking with kids, and amazing for Halloween. All those things are very important to me. I am not sure if I could call this meal diet though, because it’s kind of swimming in cheese, but you can always have a small portion of it and stay on your dietary track while still enjoying life a bit. Guess where I got this fun recipe? It’s from Raddish, the fun cooking for kids.

Those who don’t care about vegetarian diet can always add chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp to those enchiladas. The recipe is easy and very versatile, so don’t feel like you have to follow my version to a T – being creative usually pays off.

I feel that it is very important to involve my kids in the cooking process early on and this recipe is definitely good for that. My 10 year old daughter worked with me almost the entire time and had a good time. Another fun aspect of this recipe is how the enchiladas can be made to look like mummies with black olive or pepper eyes. I might be making this for our Halloween get together this year!

It took us about 45 minutes to prepare everything and 20 minutes to cook, so expect to spend about an hour in the kitchen. And it’s easy even for people like me who don’t usually make Mexican food. Let’s take a look:

Ingredients:

• 1 8oz can of organic tomato sauce
• 2 ½ cups of organic vegetable broth
• 1 tbsp of organic tomato paste
• 2 tbsp of organic potato or corn starch
• 2 tbsp of chili powder or Cajun seasoning
• Salt
• 1 small organic sweet onion
• 1 organic bell pepper
• 1 organic zucchini
• Organic olive oil
• 1 can of organic black beans
• ½ can of organic corn
• Garlic powder
• 1 bag of organic shredded Colby Jack cheese
• 8 flour tortillas
• 3 organic string cheese sticks
• Black peppers for eyes

The first step is to mix all the liquid ingredients – tomato sauce, broth, tomato paste, and starch.

Add salt to taste and chili powder or Cajun seasoning.

Whisk everything together. This is enchiladas sauce, but I felt that it could’ve been thicker. To thicken it you can add more starch or some flour. I make my own potato starch, so I used that – maybe this was the problem, because some enchiladas recipes call for corn starch. This is definitely up for experimentation and improvement.

Next - start preheating the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Take a medium size baking dish and pour about 1 cup of the freshly mad enchiladas sauce. Set the rest aside for later.

Chop half an onion if it’s on a bigger side or whole small one.

Cube paprika and zucchini.

Mix all the veggies together and put them in the pan with olive oil.

Cook stirring frequently until soft, for about 10 minutes.

While the veggies are cooking, open black bean and corn cans and drain them.

I used about ½ of corn can, but you can definitely use more.

Add corn and black beans to the vegetables at the end of cooking. Also add garlic powder to taste and more chili powder or Cajun seasoning. Stir everything together for a couple of minutes and turn off the heat. Bring the baking dish closer and start rolling your enchiladas.

Place tortilla on a cutting board and scoop a healthy portion of cooked veggies. Top them off with some shredded Jack cheese. Then roll it all together and place ready enchiladas in the dish.

Do that for all 8 enchiladas and stack them as close to each other as possible.

At the end pour more enchiladas sauce over them and put more Jack cheese on top if you have some left. Make some strings from string cheese and place them all over the enchiladas, making them look like mummies. Finish off by putting some eyes on each one of them – I used small whole black peppers, but you can also use black olives.

Put the baking dish in the oven for 20 minutes and you are ready to serve. I tried some canned refried beans, but it was not that good and it’s completely optional. I liked my enchiladas with sour cream and thought that some lettuce would be nice too, so I am definitely getting some next time.

We loved this dish for our Friday night dinner and definitely enjoyed the making process. Enjoy!