Moving my recipes

Will be putting new recipes on this blog now, as it might be easier to keep the recipes in one place. Hope you visit me there!
http://bakingthroughtheyears.blogspot.com/

Busy

I won't be blogging probably until January. Busy making things for the holidays. See you then!

Crock Pot Recipe for Tex-Mex Beef

Last night I was thinking about what I wanted to make in my crock pot, for dinner tonight. So found this recipe for Tex-Mex Beef Wraps. Well, of course the ingredients sounded just right, so what did I do???? Turned it into the best beef enchiladas!!!

I wanted it to be pretty much plain-jane, but next time will add more ingredients to it, to possibly make it even better. The reason, I didn't add extras this time was to taste the flavor by itself. I am impressed, it was great just as is.
Here are the ingredients for the wraps - chili powder, ground cumin, salt, ground red pepper, beef chuck pot roast, onion, garlic, salsa, tortillas (corn or floured), cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, tomato, cilantro, avocado. Basically you put everything into the crock pot up to the tortillas and cook all day. Then of course, take a tortilla and add the rest of the ingredients, roll it up and eat like a wrap.
The ingredients I used:

1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt (I use Kosher salt)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 pound boneless chuck roast
1/2 chopped onion
1/2 big red bell pepper, sliced thinely
1/2 cup salsa
1 can - 4 ounce tomato sauce
1 cubed tomato boullion
2 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled
2 cups water
Put all of this into your crock pot and cook on low for about 6 hours.

Beef should be tender enough to shred. Take out the roast and shred, set aside.

Take the juices and vegetables that are left in the crock pot and pour over a seive that is over a medium bowl. Save this sauce and discard the vegetables. (I didn't want to add them to my enchiladas.)
Put the sauce (juice) into a 3 quart pot and add a can of tomato paste, a little at a time to get to the consistency you want for the thickness you want, for your now home-made enchilada sauce. (This taste so good!)

 

When I know that I am making enchiladas, I have a pint size heavy cream on hand. Since I didn't know that I was making these today, I did with what I had on hand and that was plain home-made yogurt. With the cream I add to canned enchilada sauce and dip the tortillas in it, to make them soft when they bake. And also have two glass pie pans, one with red sauce and one with the cream in it. Well, I just wanted to make 4 enchiladas to try out with. And I saved the rest of the beef and sauce for another day.
So this evening, what I did was to take my cooking dish and put some sauce and yogurt in it, then dipped a tortilla in it.

Sauce and yogurt

Then added some more sauce and yogurt, beef and cheese and rolled it up.

Then I decided just to go ahead and put just the beef and cheese and roll each enchilada up.

Made four of them and baked them at 350 degrees, for 20 minutes.
After the 20 minutes, I put them on a plate, along with some applesauce. That was just right to cool off the spice of the enchiladas. It was a great dinner and worth the time to make them.
This was the first time, I made home-made enchilada sauce, and it was totally by accident. The juices looked to good to throw away and tasted of just the right spices for a sauce, but it was thin. So that is when I thought of the tomato paste, and it worked out great!

Of course, you could make the wraps or shredded beef tacos with this meat or whatever you might like! It is very tender and delicious! Isn't it fun to recreate something from an already great recipe?
Enjoy!!!

My friend at Arctic Garden Studio

You know I love to read your blogs and try to keep up with your doings. Well, today while I was reading on Arctic Garden Studio blog, I see Nicole has a cool giveaway going on. So I just had to join and see if possible there's is a chance to win! Go here to check this out:http://arcticgardenstudio.blogspot.com/2011/09/eat-your-books-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArcticGardenStudio+%28Arctic+Garden+Studio%29

I mean how could one go wrong with this? To be able to list the titles of  your cookbooks and be able to find the recipe you want faster! So, I went down to my bookshelves and reorganized them and took these pictures:

And this is not all, because there are magazines and recipe card boxes. I sure enjoy cooking!

I didn't know that I have over 158 cookbooks, pretty cool. Don't you think I might have a chance???? You should enter yourself, it will be fun to see who wins!
I do enjoy reading Nicole's recipes and have tried a few. She lives in Alaska, what an adventure! Although I love reading everyone's blogs and where they are from. I think the old saying is true, "Home is where you hang your hat." Every place on this earth to me has beauty, we just have to find it.  I have lived in 3 different states of the United States and have found great people in each one. But I feel I have many friends now through blogging. Thanks, blog world!