by Not sure if it was my Texas upbringing that grew me into a Mexican food lover, but this enchilada recipe definitely sprouted from my Austin roots. Every New Year’s Eve our church would have a potluck and pray in the New Year together…and every year we all looked forward to Hugh’s Enchiladas…I’ve still never tasted better, and am so glad he shared the recipe with the church family…
It’s one of those recipes that is just as easy to double (or triple for large groups), it freezes well, and I just finished stashing two 9×13″ panfuls in my refrigerator for tomorrow night! Y’all be sure to try it sometime!
Hugh’s New Year’s Eve Enchiladas
Meat filling:
- 1 lb ground chuck
- 1 tsp cumin, ground
- 2 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp salt, if desired
- pepper to taste
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 small tomato, chopped fine
- 2 TB water (to keep meat moist)
- 10 oz grated cheddar cheese
Put the meat, garlic and onion in a skillet with no oil. Cook over high heat till meat loses color…do not brown…Turn heat to low, drain grease. Add remaining seasonings, and tomato and 2 TB water. Cook covered, over very low heat 20 minutes. Be sure meat stays moist. Add more water if needed.
Sauce:
- 4 TB flour
- 1/4 cup cooking oil
- 2 TB chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 1/4 cups hot water plus one 8 oz can of tomato sauce
Place the flour in a cake pan and brown in a 350*F oven, shaking occasionally, till golden brown.
In large pan, put oil, flour, chili powder, cumin, garlic and salt. Blend well.
On low heat gradually add water and tomato sauce. Stir constantly so it won’t lump. If lumps appear, remove from heat and stir until lumps are gone. Keep stirring. Simmer about an hour.
In a skillet in a tiny amount of oil, heat, one at a time, 10 flour tortillas. Turn and remove and keep warm in a pan. (I skip the “keep warm in a pan” part and work quickly, throwing one tortilla in the pan to heat as I take another and add filling ingredients, roll and place in baking dish)
In each tortilla put: 2 TB meat filling mixture and 2 TB cheese (or just enough to cover the meat, no need to be precise!). Roll and put in baking dish, seam side down. Pour any leftover meat mixture on top along with sauce. Top with more cheese.
Bake at 350*F for 15-20 minutes. Done when sauce starts bubbling all around. Be sure they don’t dry out as they bake. (Generally, if all the tortillas are covered in sauce prior to baking, they don’t dry out.)
Besides enchiladas, we’re sure to have a slew of snack foods handy for the evening’s duration…stuff like puppy chow, poppyseed bread, chips-veggies-dips, jerky etc…
Movie Recommendations
We always spend NYE at my b&sil’s house playing games and watching movies. This year I have three top-notch family movies to recommend…
- Facing the Giants~This tops the list! What I took away from this movie is that when our hurts and hardships overwhelm us, if we open our hearts to God, He is free to work amazingly in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We laughed and cried and LOVED this movie–all of us, even 3 year old! It’s been out a long time, and after asking around, we discovered that none of dh’s extended family had even heard of the movie! So don’t be shy about recommending it to people, or loaning out your copy. It’s hugely inspiring!
- Amazing Grace~The true story of “anti-slavery pioneer” Wilber Wilberforce, the man who took on slavery in England’s House of Commons more than a hundred years before we Americans abolished it on our soil. He was inspired by his contemporary, John Newton (writer of Amazing Grace)…this is a must-see movie, but we chose to watch it without our children, as some of the slavery parts are a bit hard to take. (FYI, we are way more careful than most parents–and I think my 10 yo could have handled it all right, but definitely not my tender-hearted 7 yo)
- The Christmas Card~I recently watched this Hallmark movie with one of my sisters, and promptly fell in love with the captivating cast, the storyline–and the military theme left me patriotically inspired from beginning to end. A great movie, despite all the kissing! My favorite Hallmark movie ever! (Don’t let the “kissing” comment automatically rate this as a chick flick, I think even my dh might like this one!)
- The ’07 Cutting Horse Futurity~my dh stopped by as I was writing this and suggested I add it to the “must-see” family-approved list…I’m telling you, if we had cable and the RFD channel, he’d never leave the house! His dad taped this event for him this year and sent it over…we have definitely NOT been TV or movie free this past week!
What NYE traditions do you embrace? Got any movies to recommend? Don’t forget, wherever you are, to pray the New Year in, something we all should do as we reflect on the blessings of the past year, and open our hearts to God’s will for us in 2008.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!
We just watched Amazing Grace this week. What a wonderful story. I think my next read will definitely be a biography on William Wilberforce and Jon Newton.
When watching the special features. I loved a quote by the director saying they wanted to make a movie to show that politicians can be heroes or something to that effect. I found it inspiring since dh likes to dabble in politics.
mmm yum that sounds delicious! I always add lots of garlic and onion to mine.
And we need more wonderful politicians out there, Andrea! I loved how Wilberforce stuck it through…for years…and through many setbacks and finally got through. That’s a great testimony. We also enjoyed the special features, and knowing that there are still people out there fighting to abolish slavery of all kinds.
Amy, we are big garlic and onion fans here too!
Yumm…that sound so good! We are having a New Year party again this year for my children. We did this last year as well. My 11 year old has three friends that stay over. This year I am also watching one of my friends children (she has four) so that her and her husband can go out to dinner. So my two girls ages, 6 and 4 are having a party of thier own for a little while. LOL They are excited. As far as movies go, the notebook was a really wonderful one. Happy New Year
I am with you on Facing The Giants. One of my all time favorite movies ever. I got it for Christmas and can’t wait to watch again. I took so many things from that movie but the one that touched me most was the quote “If we win, we praise Him. And if we lose, we PRAISE Him.” It spoke to me so much about our situation…stepping out and trusting God through adopting the boys even, EVEN *IF*, it meant loss. If in the long run, we didn’t see “fruit” as we might hope and be praying for.
I rented Nativity Story last week and watched it while sick. Another very good movie, well done. I don’t know about letting little people watch it.
Our New Year’s seems to constantly morph but this year we will be joined by BIL & SIL and their kids and anther couple and their three. We’ll have 6 adults and 12 kids. Sounds like a party to me! 🙂
Happy New Year, Mary!
Juli, sounds like great memories for your kids and their friends! I can just hear them now, counting down the hours till everyone arrives! Mine are pretty excited about getting together with 5 of their cousins tonight! Thanks for the Notebook recommendation, I think we have seen that…was that the one with the elderly couple, and the woman has Alzheimer’s, and her hubby reads their love story to her in their last days together? That was a super sweet story! Do you have some good kid’s movies picked out? We recently watched Ratatouille as a family, and it was really good, nothing questionable, except a couple of “Shut ups”. And we laughed so much watching it! Happy New Year’s, Juli! Are you ready to start back into homeschooling? Getting back to it after Christmas break is always harder for me than after Spring break, for some reason!
Jana, I’m so glad to hear that about the Nativity Story! We haven’t checked it out yet, I keep forgetting it’s out there. Glad to know about the caution for the kids, too. I’m sure if they cover the part about Herod killing all the baby boys…it’s probably pretty hard to watch. Have you read the latest in the AD Chronicles series? The Thoenes did such an awesome job with the nativity story!
I loved that line in Facing the Giants too! I’ve always loved telling my kids your particular line when we’re playing games: it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about having fun. And this takes that to a whole new level…especially in the light of what you shared, the adoption. Here’s my new favorite quote: “The worst for us is not hardship.” (Tommy Nelson, Denton Bible Church) Hardship grows and strengthens faith like nothing else, as seen in the Facing the Giants movie!
Have a great New Year’s Eve, Jana! I’m so glad you have that huge ole house to host such grand parties in! Enjoy each other and I’ll see you in 2008! 😉
The enchiladas sound wonderful! I adore Mexican food, and for some reason it goes so well with New Years. Have fun tonight!
Thank you, Georgiana! You too!
Sounds yummy!!
I was thinking of watching my Pride and Prejudice DVD’s, it is six hours long.
I got bored with the Twilight Zone marathon, yep, already.
Hmmm….I have many DVD’s to choose from, I may just have to ask the family what they feel like watching.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen the new Pride and Prejudice…who stars in that Leticia? Have a fun time tonight watching movies!
Sounds de-lish! I love when you post recipes, makes my mouth water!
Thanks, Colleen! Just for you sometime I’ll post our favorite chicken enchilada recipe! 😉 It’s to-die-for!
Mary, I’m back online! Thank You, Father! I just have one question…are you going to tell how to make that candy where you make syrup and drizzle it over a pan filled with snow? And how about snow ice cream if we have another pristine snowfall?
Mary,
The children did have a wonderful time. We all got up and went to church at nine the next morning too! Tomorrow is our first day to homeschool again. I am ready. The girls have done some math on thier own over Christmas time. I am blessed with the fact, that they love school work. That helps a lot. I hope that your new years was a wonderful one. God bless and happy New Year.
Mom! I’m so glad your back online…how?? Did you have to get a new computer? Can’t wait to hear…as for the recipe for the snow candy, maybe you can get it to me…I don’t remember it! And I think I’ve posted the snow ice cream recipe at Writer Interrupted before…but last year we did an experiment with the cleanest snow we could find and when melted it was pretty dirty! 🙁 But there is NOTHING like snow ice cream in taste…mmm!
Juli, glad to hear your NYE party was a hit! We stayed up till 3 am, how about you? 😉 We also start school again tomorrow, though we got a jump on our spelling lists today. Tonight I’ve been doing some last minute lesson planning on clipper ships and Pony Express stuff for oldest’s history questions…
Everyone: Sorry the blog is stagnating, hopefully I can post tomorrow! We’ve been busy busy!
Mmmm…these look delicious! My DH loves Mexican food so I think I’ll try these out tonight! And I still have to watch those movies! I’ve been wanting to get a hold of them but haven’t yet…and then DH picked up our movie for NY’s…Shrek 3
Was it good? We’re hopelessly behind on the Shrek movies, haven’t seen any of them, and they’re my nephews favorite movies…
But yes, you must get your hands on Facing the Giants, at the very least! 😉
Well…we thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 Shrek movies but this one wasn’t geared as much towards kids (in my opinion). The first 2 had some adult humour but randomly throughout the movies so kids rarely would pick up on it and the content was mild. This one had way more adult humour and constantly…so I didn’t like it as much. Also, Shrek becomes a daddy (it’s on the TV commercials so hope I’m not ruining it for anyone) and instead of showing him happy they make him all upset over becoming a dad. Me and DH both thought the way they portray him is not the best for young men…because then they might take it to heart and think that they can run away if something like that happens to them. I won’t go into to much more detail so I don’t ruin it for anyone but I just didn’t enjoy like I did the first two…but then again I seem to be getting more sensitive to things in movies and stuff the older I get…
These were SO good! And DH LOVES them! He ate half the pan. I had to make them with ground turkey (since out of the 2 tiny grocery stores we have here that is the only ground meat they had and I took the last package!) and it turned out so good…however I’m more of a beef fan so I can’t wait to try them with that! We have ordered a half side of beef from an organic farm that delivers so I can’t wait for that!
Ohh…and I made your poppyseed bread and it is AMAZING!! I love the glaze! It is by far the best I have ever tried! Thank you!
Yay!! Thanks for telling me, Geri! I’m so glad both things were a hit! That glaze makes the bread, doesn’t it? Yum!
Seems like I’ve heard that about Shrek 3…that it was a disappointment after the first two. 🙁
Yeah…I had high hopes because I liked the first two, but I just found they were encouraging single motherhood…or men running away from having a family. I guess after having a family it just makes me not like it when they send that message across to innocent minds.
And that glaze was unreal! I couldn’t find the butter extract anywhere here but I was dying to try the recipe and I loved it! Thank you!
Here in the states butter extract is sold on the spice aisle, right next to the almond flavoring, and rum extracts, etc…I hope you find a store that carries it, it really enhances the whole experience! 😉 But I’ve made it before w/o it, and it’s still good!
What is it with movie-makers? I wish they didn’t have to always throw those sometimes not so subtle undertones into kid’s movies. It’s like they are making these films for adults, with some of the issues and humor they sneak in. I guess they are taking an opportunity to brainwash our children and running with it.
Yeah I know. I was disappointed with it on the whole. But it seems I keep getting more disappointed with all movies lately…too much “schuck” as my Dad would say and just not my style of movies.
Oh and I looked there for the butter extract here in out little 2 “grocery” stores lol…and today we went into town and I forgot to write it down on my list. LOL my DH said today that the poppyseed bread was the best he’s ever had too. I still can’t get over how good it is. I had a slice when I got home and I just kept eating more and more…I’m going to be huge if I keep this up! Last night I went to have a slice before bed and had 3!!
I’m so glad (not that it’s a threat to your good health, but that you both love it)!! Our family had the same reaction 8 years ago when it was first given to us along with other sweet breads at Christmas!