Stacked Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

This was a quick week night meal.  It doesn't look like much, but it tasted wonderful.

I love enchiladas, but I don't always love the idea of the assembly.  This method yields the same delicious results, but with none of the work.

I can't take credit for this, however.  There was a Tex-Mex restaurant not too far from where we used to live in Alamosa, CO that made their enchiladas this way.  Too bad I can't remember the name of the restaurant....I have their cookbook....somewhere.

So I started with the batch of home made salsa I had in the ice box, but you could certainly use jarred salsa, or even canned enchilada sauce (whatever you have on hand).  I put a few spoonfuls on the bottom of the plate.

One word about oven to table dinnerware.  My dishes are supposed to be oven safe- up to 450.  But really, they aren't.  They can take a low oven (say 200 or 250 for keeping pancakes warm) but right after we ate dinner, both of these plates cracked in half.  Next time, I'll do this on a parchment lined baking sheet, then transfer with a large spatula.  Or better yet- use this as an excuse to buy a set of shallow terra cotta bakers I've had my eye on for a while.... :)

Ok- where were we... Oh yeah, we had a couple of spoonfuls of salsa on the plate.  On top of that, put a flour tortilla.  I didn't even bother to heat them.  If you are being authentic, you could dredge the tortilla in your red sauce first.  Whatever floats your boat!  On top of the flour tortilla, I spread about 4 tablespoons of refried beans with chorizo.  You could use whatever you wanted- even whole beans. On top of the beans I put a layer of grated sharp cheddar and chopped scallions.  White onions would be good here, too, and probably more authentic.  Then stack another tortilla, more beans, more cheese, more onions and one more tortilla.  I put more salsa on top, then covered it with cheese and more onion.   I baked mine on 375 for about 15 or 20 minutes.  You want it to go kinda slow to warm everything and melt all the gooey cheese.

I took them out of the oven and put them on the table.  The garnish was chopped cucumber.  If had cilantro and fresh tomato, I would have used that, too.

This is really rich, but it's a belly filler.  If you wanted to add a nice, clean touch, you could put a salad out there with it.  I didn't.  It was Wednesday.  I was hungry and tired.