Dottie's Enchilada Sauce

My mother already had her hands full when I failed to make my grand entrance. Three weeks overdue with her eighth child, she juiced bushels of homegrown tomatoes with my then four-year-old sister in hopes that the activity would induce my birth. It's a family legend that I see in my mind's eye every hot September.

I grew up turning the handle of Mom's table-side juicer after every tomato harvest, wrinkling my nose at the clean smell of fresh juice splashing into the pan below and the pulpy "guts" that squeezed out the other side. I still don't care for fresh tomatoes, but nothing takes me home as quickly as the smell of the sauces my mom simmered and bottled from those gallons of juice.

I don't grow tomatoes myself, so I've experimented with Mom's recipes using store bought canned tomatoes. Replicating her enchilada sauce has been no small feat. The original recipe calls for 6 quarts of fresh tomato juice and similarly large volumes of the other ingredients. While my sauce is thicker than Mom's and stews up a considerably smaller batch, the taste is pretty spot on.

For a thinner sauce, you can substitute the can of crushed tomatoes with a second can of tomato sauce. I'm a bit of a brand snob and recommend Hunts for both. If you don't want to bother with blending some of the ingredients for a smooth sauce, it won't hurt anything to leave it chunky. I'll include the recipe for mom's beef enchiladas below, as I've recently discovered they're famously remembered by cousins and childhood friends. I think it's all in the sauce, but perhaps my dad's secret ingredient adds a little something...special...to them.


[Almost] Dottie's Enchilada Sauce
Yields about 6 cups of sauce

Ingredients:
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (29 oz) can tomato sauce
1 Tablespoon oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves minced garlic
1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 Tablespoon salt
1/2 Tablespoon oregano
1/2 Tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. ground sage

Directions:
In a 4 quart saucepan, saute the onion over medium heat in a tablespoon of oil until soft and slightly golden brown, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute another 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Blend the cooked onions, garlic, and the green chiles with the can of crushed tomatoes and return to the pan. Stir in the tomato sauce and the spices and seasonings. Simmer on low for 30 minutes.


Dottie & Ernie's Enchiladas

Ingredients:
2-3 cups of Dottie's Enchilada Sauce (depending on how saucy you like it)
12 corn tortillas
1 pound lean ground beef
1 package taco seasoning
1 can chili beans in sauce

8 oz. shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
             with
8 oz. shredded Cheddar cheese
             -OR-
16 oz. Mexican blend shredded cheese

*Optional: 6 oz. Velveeta cut into 12 strips (Ernie's secret ingredient)

Directions:
Lightly spray the tortillas with Pam and heat each side on a warm griddle until soft and pliable. Keep tortillas stacked and covered on a plate until assembling the enchiladas.

Meanwhile, brown the ground beef and cook with the taco seasoning according to the directions on the package. Drain (but do not rinse!) the chili beans and stir them into the beef.

Spread 1/2 - 1 cup of sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch casserole pan.

Lay the tortillas out on a clean surface and divide the beef and bean filling evenly between them in strips down the center of the tortilla.

Reserve 1 cup shredded cheese, and divide the rest between the tortillas. If using, place a strip of Velveeta on top of the filling of each tortilla.

Carefully roll each tortilla around the filling like a cigar and place them seam side down in the pan. (I usually end up with 8 enchiladas going lengthwise across the pan, and then two rows of two in the space below.)

Spoon enough sauce over the tops of the enchiladas to cover the tortillas and then sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Cover the pan with a sheet of foil and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes until bubbly, but spray the foil lightly with Pam to prevent all the cheese topping from sticking to it. Serve with lettuce and your other favorite toppings.

*Here's the low down on the Velveeta: I grew up on the stuff and probably never had a grilled cheese sandwich with anything else until college. But around the time I was 12 more than half of my siblings were married, and I learned the dirty truth from these adult brothers and sisters and their spouses. Velveeta was not cheese. Velveeta was redneck cheese substitute. So when I brought a mob of friends home for lunch in high school and served them Ahlborn enchiladas, I was mortified by one friend's curiosity about the ingredients. He'd never had anything like it! He had to know what kind of cheeses we used. I played dumb and insisted it was just your basic bag of shredded cheese. He was unconvinced but let it drop. So now it's out, Vaughn. It was the Velveeta.*

Chicken Enchiladas:

Sometimes I sub chicken for the beef, rice for the beans, and then throw in a generous handful of frozen corn kernals. It's fantastic. I prep my chicken by cooking a pound of chicken breast and a jar of salsa in a slow cooker until fork tender and shredding it.

Easy Peasey Shortcut Enchiladas:

I love a pretty rolled enchilada, but sometimes it's just too much work. Or sometimes it's too hot to turn on your oven so you make enchiladas in a slow cooker. In those cases here's what I do -

Forgo heating the tortillas and tear them into halves or quarter to fit the pan. Layer a little sauce, four (now torn) tortillas, a little more sauce, half the beef and beans, and a third of the cheese. Repeat until you finish with the last four tortillas, a little sauce, and the last of the cheese. Bake as usual, or layer the ingredients in your slow cooker (double lined with foil and lightly greased) and cook on low for 2 hours.