Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas with Swiss Chard

I realize it’s customary for food cravings to strike when you miss a particular dish, when you haven’t had the chance to taste a favorite thing for a long time, and when you can’t wait for the next opportunity to have whatever that is once again. However, even though I live smack in the middle of Austin where you can’t take too many steps in a row without tripping over another Tex-Mex restaurant, I constantly crave Tex-Mex food. I can order tacos for breakfast, burritos for lunch, and enchiladas for dinner by traveling a few blocks from home in any direction whenever I want, but sometimes, home-cooked Tex-Mex is the way to go. Our favorite spots do get crowded causing long waits for a table at peak times, and besides, by making my own enchiladas, I can do things like add some sauteed CSA Swiss chard and top them with sliced, fresh jalapenos for even more heat. These Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas are found in The Homesick Texan Cookbook as well as on the website, and this tangy sauce is one I’ll now be making often. The sauce is quick to make, and it starts like a veloute with a serrano chile-spiced roux to which chicken broth is added. Sour cream and roasted tomatillos are blended in to finish. It thickens as it bakes with the chicken- and cheese-filled enchiladas and makes you happy you’ll have some leftovers, which is another advantage of cooking at home. 

The recipe includes instructions for cooking chicken breasts for the enchiladas, but any cooked and shredded chicken will work here. With your chicken ready and some Monterey Jack cheese shredded, it’s time to make sauce. To start, I broiled a pound of cleaned tomatillos until well-browned on all sides, and transferred them to the blender. Then, butter was melted in a saucepan, and diced serrano chiles were added followed by minced garlic. Flour was whisked in to make a roux, and then chicken broth was slowly added while whisking. It was cooked until thickened, and I added sour cream, cumin, cayenne, and chopped, fresh cilantro off the heat. The sour cream mixture was poured into the blender with the tomatillos, but it was a little too much for my blender pitcher. I ended up pureeing in two batches. With the sauce completed, you can begin assembly of the enchiladas. I set up a row of warmed corn tortillas and started topping them with the fillings. A little shredded chicken was placed on each, followed by shredded cheese, and in my case sauteed Swiss chard. I skipped the suggested chopped onion because I tend to skip onions most of the time. With all the fillings in place, you just roll each tortilla into a cylinder. A cup of the sour cream sauce is poured into an oiled baking dish, and the filled tortillas are placed seam side down in the sauce. When all the enchiladas are in the pan, the remaining sauce is poured over top, the remaining cheese is sprinkled over it, and the dish is baked for 25 minutes. I gave it a few minutes under the broiler to brown the cheese at the end of the baking time. 

Not all of my food cravings are this crazy. Of course, I crave fresh, ripe tomatoes when there are none to be had in the winter, and I even start to long for dark, leafy greens when they just don’t grow here in the heat of summer. But, I don’t think a day will ever come when I won't crave a Tex-Mex meal either from a restaurant or home-cooked. 

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Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sauce

I seem to be on a savory pumpkin and cheddar kick. I still like pumpkin in sweet things too, I just happened to have a lot of it on hand after roasting one a couple of weeks ago. And, since the flavor of pumpkin, and winter squash and sweet potato, goes so well with Southwestern spices and chiles, I was excited to try these enchiladas. I found this idea in the Everyday Food: Great Food Fast book. The enchiladas are filled with shredded chicken mixed with some green onions, the sauce is a puree of pumpkin with chile powder and jalapenos, and the enchiladas are topped with grated cheddar cheese. As usual, I took the long way around in making this, but it could be put together very quickly. I had already roasted and mashed some pumpkin, but canned would be fine. Then, I roasted a couple of chicken breasts to use in the filling, but bringing home a rotisserie or smoked chicken would have saved that step.

So, with pumpkin puree and cooked chicken at the ready, you start by combining shredded chicken with sliced green onions and seasoning the mixture with salt and pepper. Then, the sauce is made in a blender by pureeing pumpkin, garlic, jalapeno, chile powder, water, and salt and pepper. Next, some of the sauce is poured into a baking dish, corn tortillas are filled with the chicken mixture and a little grated cheddar and set on top of the sauce, and the remaining sauce is poured over the enchiladas. Grated cheddar is sprinkled over the sauce, and the enchiladas are baked for about 30 minutes. I garnished with sliced jalapenos, cilantro, and pepitas.

Pumpkin with spicy chiles is a yes, and pumpkin with cheddar is another yes. There was no way these enchiladas could be anything but good. Actually, they were great. The baking dish was empty in record time, and I'm hoping I still have enough cooked pumpkin in the freezer to make this again soon.

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