Sweet Potato Enchiladas

A filling dinner for any night

We know it sounds weird. We thought it sounded weird. But after trying it, you'll see it's really not, we promise!

The best part is that it all comes together with a minimum of fuss and mess if you do a little of the prep work the day before, and you'll even have a little left over for later!

You'll need some pantry staples, some fresh produce and a little bit from the store. Feel free to play with the ingredients a little until you get the consistency or the aroma you like best. Take our mix here as a suggestion - a starting point, if you will.

 Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes

2 cups cooked dry beans (black or pinto - avoid garbanzo and kidney)

1/4 of one sweet onion

2 cups salsa

10 corn tortillas

8 ounces shredded cheese

1 Tablespoon butter (salted)

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon dry chopped chives

1 teaspoon parsley

1 teaspoon Adobo (can substitute favorite taco seasoning)

2 Tablespoons minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Optional suggestions (for cooking beans):

1 bay leaf

2 tsp garlic powder

Tools:

Aluminum foil, rimmed baking pan, colander, potato masher, knife, cutting board, spoon, fork, spatula, measuring spoons, two covered microwave-safe bowls, two plates or a tortilla keeper.

The day before you want to make your enchiladas, you'll want to soak and cook your dry beans and roast your sweet potatoes. The beans will take about two hours on the stovetop or four in the crock pot - or if you have an instant pot, they'll take almost exactly as long as the potatoes (40 minutes on high, followed by natural decompression). We like to add a bay leaf and some garlic powder while the beans are cooking, but this is entirely optional. When they're done, rinse and drain the beans and refrigerate overnight in a covered container. Or you can skip all this and just crack open two cans of already prepared beans tomorrow, as long as you'll still have time to rinse and drain them.

Jab your sweet potatoes a few times with a fork, wrap them in foil and place them in the oven. It's fine if they're directly on the rack as long as the wrap is sealed. They do have a tendency to ooze a little bit, so if they're loosely wrapped, you might consider putting them on a baking sheet to save yourself the cleanup later. Let them roast in there at 400 for an hour and twenty minutes. Refrigerate overnight in their wrap.

Enchilada day!

 Pull the potatoes and beans from the fridge. Reheat the beans on medium in the microwave, in a covered dish. Skin the sweet potatoes and chop them into chunks, and put them in the other microwave safe dish. Mash them to the desired consistency (we like lumps, but you may not) with your potato masher, or make one of the kids do it.

Chop your onion (again, to desired size) and add it to the sweet potatoes. Measure your spices into this bowl, too - the cumin, chili powder, garlic, Adobo or taco seasoning, onion powder, chives, parsley, salt and pepper. Give everything a good stir and make sure you're not leaving lumps of garlic all clumped together along one edge. Sure, garlic is great, but if it's not thoroughly incorporated, it tries to take over the flavor of the dish.

Once it's all mixed, drop in that tablespoon of butter, cover the dish and swap it with the beans. Heat it for thirty seconds at a time until it's nice and warm, and stir in the butter that's now melted in a little well on top of it.

Flip the bowl of beans into the bowl of sweet potatoes and stir like your life depends on it. Just kidding. Maybe don't get too aggressive with it, because we weren't looking to puree the beans here.

Once it's well-mixed, take your ten corn tortillas and put them in a tortilla keeper or drop them on a microwave safe plate. Invert another plate on top of it and put them into the microwave for 30 seconds. Don't remove the upper plate or the tortilla keeper lid until you go to grab a tortilla and roll an enchilada.

Now is a good time to grab the cheese from the fridge and to line your pan with foil. You can leave the tortillas in the microwave for a minute or two as long as it's not running. Please do not zap them for more than half a minute! Any longer and you'll dry them out. You really need them to stay soft and pliable for this.

Pour some of your salsa into the bottom of the pan - maybe half a cup to one cup, depending on the size of the pan - and use a spoon to smear it around a little bit. You want something sticky so your enchiladas stay where you put them instead of falling open and spilling the good stuff all over the pan.

Preheat your oven to 400 (yes, again).

Grab your first tortilla, put the cover back on the others, sprinkle in some cheese and drop a big blob of filling into the center (usually about 1/4 cup at a time). Leaving the ends open, roll it up and place it seam side down in the pan. Repeat until the pan is full or you run out of filling or tortillas.

Once they're all in the pan, sprinkle your remaining cheese over them and drizzle the remaining salsa on top. Spread it all around with the spoon so that everything has at least a thin layer of salsa and/or cheese on it - anything left exposed risks being scorched.

Put the pan into the oven and bake uncovered for half an hour. Allow it to cool for five minutes before you get a spatula in there so the tortillas have time to firm back up a bit. Enjoy with a salad or a side of rice.

Now that you’ve tried it, what do you think? Delicious, right? Let us know over on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you. 

If you need something to pair with this, or you’re really looking to go all out check out this recipe from our archives. 

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Chorizo and Fancy Cheeses

Decadent and Simple Peanut Butter Cup Pudding

For when you want more than just one candy.

We would really like to call this recipe something more specific, but that would risk running afoul of some copyright laws. We like to think our favorite candy manufacturer would give us a green light, but better safe than sorry. Imagine, if you will, a familiar orange wrapper with yellow letters and the fantastic peanut butter and chocolate treat it contains. And now you can see what we want to call this recipe, but cannot. 

Chances are, if your imagination is strong enough (or your stomach empty enough), you can now also taste exactly what we were thinking of. Sorry. For what it's worth, this pudding is a pretty close approximation. And you probably don't even have to run to the store for anything! Phew - candy crisis avoided (narrowly).

You'll need a lot of milk, some peanut butter, some baker's chocolate, sugar, starch, butter, vanilla and a bit of chill time for this recipe. You'll only be actively working on it for five or ten minutes, because the fridge will do the rest for you - provided it's working, of course. If it isn't, please see our contact information at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons corn starch

1/4 teaspoon table salt

3 cups milk (full fat works best)

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons baker's cocoa

3/4 cup peanut butter (we recommend smooth; crunchy is terribly difficult to whisk)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Tools:

Pan, whisk, fine sieve or sifter, measuring cups and spoons, heat-proof bowl that is also safe to move to the refrigerator (so, plastic, most likely), something to cover the bowl (a lid, foil, an overturned plate, etc.).

For starters, use a bigger pan than you think you need. Go for at least a two quart pan. We know, three cups of milk doesn't sound like a lot, and you're certainly not adding a whole lot of volume to it... But keep in mind that milk foams. Plus, you're going to be vigorously whisking this in a few steps. So to save yourself from having to scrub scalded milk off the stove later, just use a bigger pan. Trust us on this one.

Measure your milk, sugar, salt and starch into the pan. In order to avoid lumpy pudding, you may wish to sift the corn starch into the milk. It's optional, but we don't think anyone really wants lumps of starch in their pudding. When you're done, don't toss the sieve or sifter into the sink for a wash yet - you'll probably want it again later.

Turn the heat on under the pan and bring it up to medium. Your goal is to get the milk mixture to foam aggressively and begin to boil, but you don't want to allow it to scald (scalded milk is great for hot chocolate, but will negatively affect the taste of the pudding). Stir it frequently while you wait for it to come up to boil. If you see the foam around the edge pan starting to brown, lower the heat a notch. It'll take longer to come to boil, but you want uniformity, not speed here.

Once you have it up at a foamy boil, take the heat all the way down as low as it will go and whisk /constantly/ for a minute or two. Don't let it rest here. You can stop whisking when you see the whisk leaving tracks in the foam that take more than three seconds to fill back in. If you get past the two minute mark whisking constantly, and you still don't have a visible track from the whisk when you slow down, turn the heat back up, simmer it another minute, and then try again. This step is a big deal for getting the pudding to set later, so please don't be tempted to cut a corner. If you're really, really struggling, you can add another half teaspoon of corn starch - but stop at half a teaspoon!

After you've achieved the ideal texture, pour or sift in the baker's cocoa. This is why we mentioned that you might not want to put the sieve up for a wash yet - cocoa tends to form little lumps. (We kind of like the cocoa lumps, though, so we leave them alone. Not sifting makes it look a little like the cookie bits in cookies and cream ice cream.)

Once the cocoa has been mixed in, turn the heat completely off. Drop in the peanut butter, butter and vanilla extract. Whisk until it's all thoroughly incorporated.

Whisking room temperature peanut butter is no easy task. If you'd like, you can melt it in the microwave before pouring it into the milk. That will make it easier to stir, but you have to be extra careful to heat it only just barely enough in the microwave. Melting is the goal, but even a few seconds too long on high can burn the edges and make them solidify. Solidified, scorched peanut butter will not make tasty pudding (although it's actually pretty good as an ice cream topping, believe it or not. Also, we clearly have ice cream on the brain today).

Once you've reached the point where it's all one color and you're no longer turning up hidden pockets of peanut butter, you're good to put it into that heat-proof bowl (or perhaps portion containers), cover it with plastic wrap, foil or a lid, and tuck it safely into the fridge to chill. It will take a couple hours to set up completely, but once it does, you have dessert ready to go.

We know your kitchen is going to be full of the smell of peanut-buttery goodness, but the wait is worth it. Go do something while the timer counts down. Maybe you could let us know over on Facebook what you thought of this recipe. When the timer has gone off and you’ve dished up the pudding, you can top it with a couple of different things. We like keeping it simple, a little bit of whipped cream and some chocolate syrup is all this needs for us. For kiddos, you might add some sprinkles though, or you could add in some fruit preserves. We’ve heard that strawberry or grape make a good addition. You can even use the pudding as layers for a trifle if you want to get really fancy. 

Remember up top how we mentioned your fridge not working? Heaven forbid that’s the case not that it’s officially summer, but if so, we can help. We’ve got the knowledge and skill to fix all of your major appliances, from your trust refrigerator to your dryer and anything in between. Just give us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or set up an appointment on our website. We want to help keep your home running smoothly, even when the heat is driving the world crazy. 

Some other articles we think you might like. 

Double Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes 

Easy As 1-2-3 Christmas Cookies 

Rock Your Weekend Lemon Berry Cake

When You Need a Conversation Stopper

Last time around, we did some breakfast food. This time, let's go all the way to the opposite end of the day and do a dessert!

We do hope you're not tired of blueberries yet, as they'll feature in this recipe too - this time as a supporting character instead of as a star.

Do you like berry lemonade? We think this is the best time of year for it, as the weather heats back up and the days get longer. The thing with berry lemonade, though, is that it gets awfully watered down in all the heat. But if you bake all the same flavors into a cake, there's no melting ice to ruin it. It's like six times as sticky, though, so maybe keep in mind the need for a plate and fork instead of a cup and straw.

Lemon Berry Cake

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix (18 ounce, give or take a bit)

1 cup vanilla flavored Greek yogurt

4 extra large eggs (5 if using large or medium size)

1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil or melted butter

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

1 cup cherry pie filling

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 Tablespoon strawberry syrup

1 teaspoon lemon extract

Tools:

Mixing bowl, spoon, measuring cups and spoons, blender or food processor, Bundt pan, non-stick spray, hand mixer (optional)

First off, pour that box of dry cake mix into the mixing bowl. Break up any large lumps you might find - it's easier to do this now, before adding any wet ingredients to it. 

Measure your yogurt and oil or butter into the bowl. Crack the eggs into it, and jab the yolks with the spoon to break them. Don't get too excited and start stirring it yet, though - we still haven't added the bulk of the wet ingredients.

Now is probably a good time to go wake the oven up (even though running the oven in warm weather is such a distasteful idea). You'll want to set it to preheat to 325. Look on the bright side: at least we're not making pizza or bread. We'd be telling you 450 for either of those!

Crack open your can of cherry pie filling (well, we always just use the canned stuff, but maybe your family is extra fancy and makes it from scratch. If you do make it yourself, we're jealous and would like to try some) and dump a cup of it into the blender or food processor, along with the blueberries, lemon juice, lemon extract and strawberry syrup. Blend it up until it's a purplish mixture about the consistency of a jar of store-bought jelly. Alternatively, you can choose to stop a little sooner and go for the consistency of preserves - lumps are fine, they just lend the cake more texture.

Take everything in the blender and pour it out into the bowl of cake mix, and then add your poppy seeds. If you intend to employ the hand mixer, give everything a once- or twice-over with the spoon before turning it on so it doesn't go "poof!" and give your kitchen a nice dusting of cake mix bits. If you're not using a mixer, stir gently by hand for about two minutes to make sure everything is all homogeneous.

Once you have your cake batter stirred smooth, grab your Bundt pan. Spray it lightly with the non-stick spray, making sure to get into all the little fluted nooks. Pay special attention to the center, also - we've discovered that if the cake is going to stick somewhere, it's there. Pour your cake batter into the pan - be sure to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl and get all the berries! - and smooth it over with the spoon.

Tuck it into the oven on a center rack and let it bake up for about 45 minutes. Sometimes the cake is set and ready to go after 45, but more often than not, it needs a few minutes longer than that. We think it varies based on the amount of syrup in the cup of pie filling.

It's ready to leave the oven when a toothpick poked into the deepest part of the cake comes out clean, and the edges have begun to pull away from the sides of the Bundt pan.

Allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before you make any attempt to remove it - moving it too soon can result in cake chunks, instead of a whole cake. Wiggle a butter knife gently around the edges and the center if it's still holding on after you've tried inverting the pan.

This cake's texture will be springy and soft, and sort of custard-y when you cut into it. You can see for yourself in the photos - we jabbed it with the blunt end of a knife, and the cake just dented instead of crumbling. It even returned to shape before we got around to drizzling glaze over it!

Don't worry, it's done; we promise it’s cooked all the way through. The softness is the result of using yogurt when most cakes use milk or water, and rounding out the wet ingredients with egg and semi-solid fruits.

The berry flavors on their own aren't overly sweet - they're more tangy - so we do recommend breaking out your favorite glaze recipe or melting some store bought frosting over it before serving. Don't disappoint the resident sweet tooth!

When you decide to make this cake we want to see! You’ve seen how ours turned out we’d love to see yours! Show us over on Facebook? 

If you live in The Colony and you need someone to take a look at your appliances, don’t forget to give us a call. We’re here to keep your home running smooth whether something has broken, or just if you think something is off. 

Phone: (214) 599-0055
Website: https://appliance-rescue-service.com/contact-us

Culinary Adventure: Sourdough Pancakes!

Get ready to taste the best pancakes you’ve ever had. 

This recipe is going to require a good bit of planning ahead. It's going to take at least a week of forethought. We know, that sounds like an awful lot - usually these are one-day recipes, or even just a few minutes. But that week of planning will lead you to the best and fluffiest pancakes, and it will make things like bread and tortillas easier in the future if you choose to keep it going.

You're about to embark upon a culinary adventure. And it starts with a science experiment.

Allow us to introduce you to sourdough.

There are two ways to get started with this. Three, if you happen to have a friend with a starter who's willing to share (which we can basically guarantee they will be - keeping a starter alive requires frequent discarding, which means a nice chunk of active starter is up for grabs each time). You could start your own; there are tutorials all over the internet for it. You could order some dehydrated starter from a business, and bring it back to life with a little flour and water. Or maybe you can ask that friend we mentioned earlier - it seems like, after quarantine, everyone knows someone with a little sourdough monster living in a jar in their kitchen.

A starter requires a little bit of attention each day, as well as some feeding and some culling. Basically, once it's alive, you toss out enough of it to get it back down to a manageable size, then add flour and water until you've reached a 1:1:1 flour to water to starter ratio. Give it a stir, put a lid on it, and let it sit until feeding time tomorrow. Or if you're likely to bake a bunch, skip the discard and add that much more flour and water. (In case you haven't guessed, we bake a bunch.) And when you don't plan to bake too much, or if you might have to leave town and no one will be around to feed it, you can put it into the fridge or freezer so that it goes dormant.

Once you have that starter ready to go (it'll smell strongly of yeast and it'll be visibly bubbly), you get to do the fun part: make a great big mess measuring it out!

It's squishy. It smells funny. It might be a food. Your dog will love it. Please be sure to keep it away from the fuzzy friends in the house - sourdough starter is no good for them, but they have no way to know that themselves.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup active sourdough starter

1/4 cup melted butter

3 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons almond extract

1 2/3 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup fruit or chocolate chips (optional - we used blueberries for the example in the photos)

Double double… what? What do you mean it’s too early for that still?

Tools:

Mixing bowl, whisk, measuring cups and spoons, spatula, pan or griddle, non-stick spray. Optional: hand mixer.

Measure your liquid ingredients into the mixing bowl and whisk them all together. Try not to have too much of a difference in temperature between the eggs, milk and butter when you start mixing... because hot butter plus eggs plus milk is also the recipe for scrambled eggs.

Add your dry ingredients one at a time, holding the fruit or chocolate chips for last (if you've chosen to use them). Start gently so you don't wear the flour - but once you've got everything dampened, you can switch to using a hand mixer to speed things up if you prefer. Your batter will be thin, and possibly a little lumpy, but that's okay.

Start the heat under your pan or griddle and allow it to warm up to medium.

Fold your fruit or chocolate chips (again, assuming you've chosen to use them) into the batter. You should probably do this part by hand, as using a mixer can pulverize delicate fruit. Then again, pureed berries in the batter can dye the whole pancake vibrant colors. Maybe you're cooking for Rick Riordan fans who have been clamoring for blue pancakes. If that's the case, or if you want, say, pink or purple for a theme party, go ahead and smash all the berries you want.

Turn the heat under the pan or griddle down to low, spray with non-stick spray. Give the layer of spray a quick smear with the back of the spatula (this sounds weird, but it helps prevent the bubbly, uneven-looking cooking on the bottom) and pour a blob of pancake batter in.

Wait until you can see bubbles coming up to the uncooked top of the pancake most of the way into the middle, and the edges begin to look all set up. That usually takes a minute and a half to two minutes on our griddle, but you know your kitchen better than we know it, so make your own call here.

Slide the spatula under the pancake, lift and flip it all in one motion. Keep in mind, the more you drag it out, the more pancake batter drips you'll be stuck cleaning up later.

Cook for another minute on this side, lift an edge with the spatula and check for doneness. If it still looks pale, let it cook a little longer. If it's looking a bit scorched, lower the heat even more, and maybe feed that one to the family pet (cooked sourdough is fine!).

Once the pancake has reached the desired color on both sides, move it to a plate and start the process over again, repeating until you have enough pancakes or you run out of batter. We like to keep the plate of pancakes covered with another plate of the same size inverted over top to trap some of the heat, but be aware that it'll hold moisture too - and no one wants soggy pancakes unless they're drowning in syrup.

Now that you’ve got a stack of pancakes, let us know what you think over on Facebook! Is this going to be a regular breakfast addition for you? Would you rather try doing something else with your sourdough starter? (Hint: The internet has tons of ideas.) Or maybe you’d rather check out a different breakfast option entirely, something a little sweeter. For that we suggest checking out our Apple Oatcake, still just as good, if a little less work intensive.  

Now that we’ve helped you feed yourself, potentially for months if not years, it’s time to clean up the kitchen. What do you mean you’ve got a busted dishwasher? That’s ok, we can help with that too. If your dishwasher is busted and you live in The Colony or the surrounding area, we can help you. Dried out valves, peeling liners, flooding kitchens, we’ve seen them all and we’re here to keep your home running smoothly. Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055 ) or visit us at our website to set up an appointment today. 

Build Your Own Barbecue Sauce

15 Minutes and you’ve got a customized sauce that can’t be beat. 

Everyone appears to be getting ready for Memorial Day. In case you've forgotten (like we always seem to), it's the end of this month. And now that anyone over the age of 16 can get vaccinated, you might even be able to set up a backyard get-together with some of the people you've only been able to see on Zoom or at a distance all year.

Good news! Even if you have forgotten the holiday, and you've been putting zero forethought into a party, we're here to help you make it look like you're totally on the ball with this one. You're ready for this party and you didn't even know it. Go you.

We're about to throw a fistful of things in a pan and make something awesome: homemade BBQ sauce. It's not like all that store-bought stuff that's too sweet and full of things you can't pronounce. This one will be a new "family secret" recipe that's the envy of the neighborhood block party a couple years from now.

And here's the kicker. It'll only take about 15 minutes of your time.

You're going to need less than a dozen ingredients - unless you change it to your own taste - and chances are they're all already in your kitchen or pantry.

 Ingredients:

30 ounces of tomato sauce

3 Tablespoons honey (or maple syrup, agave, corn syrup - whatever you have handy or like best; we had fantastic results with raspberry syrup)

2 Tablespoons molasses

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 Tablespoon hot sauce (again, choose what you like best - we like Tabasco or Sriracha)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Tools:

Measuring cups and spoons, saucepan with a lid, whisk, storage container or bottle, can opener (if using canned sauce)

Open up your tomato sauce and pour it into the saucepan. (How often do we really use a specific pot for its intended purpose? This is notable!) Light the burner and bring it up to medium-high. You might want to cover it if it's heating quickly, as tomato sauce likes to make a splatter-y mess.

Measure in your other liquid ingredients: the Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, the honey/syrup, molasses and any hot sauce you might want to use. It helps to do the stickiest one last and to spray the measuring cup with non-stick spray before you start measuring. Alternatively, you can just scrape the measuring cup clean with a regular spoon and throw them both into hot water as soon as you're done. Whichever way you like, just make sure not to let the molasses and honey or syrup dry in place. It's awfully irritating to try cleaning them once they've become a congealed lump, and they like to stick to the sponge or brush as they come off the cup.

Once all your liquid (semi-liquid? Molasses can be tricky) ingredients are in the pan, give everything a good stir with that whisk you only use once in a while. Put the lid back on the pan if you chose to use one.

We know the dry ingredients don't sound like you're using enough of them. Trust us, you are. The flavors will meld together as the sauce heats. And you can always add more of an individual spice later if you really feel you need to - but remember, the only way to lessen the amount of a spice in a sauce is to make more sauce! So unless you really need half a gallon of BBQ sauce (maybe you do, we're not sure here - you could be planning a really BIG outdoor party), just start small.

Scoop up your little teaspoons and half teaspoons and tablespoons of spices and add them to the pan. If you're a big fan of making things blend easier, you could even sift them into the pan rather than lump them in - but we feel like the heat, the moisture and the whisk will take care of any clumps for you over the next few minutes. The only thing that routinely gives us trouble is the mustard.

After everything is in the pan, give it a good stir with the whisk. Put the lid back on (unless you're not using one - daredevil) and lower the heat down to medium-low. Allow everything to simmer together for about eight minutes. To prevent scorching, stir it often, and make sure to scrape the sides.

At the eight minute mark, turn off the heat and remove the lid. Give it a few minutes to cool before you attempt taste testing or moving it to any kind of plastic container. Unfortunately, your sauce will probably not be the envy of the neighborhood if it's full of melty plastic bits.

Should your sauce not be spicy enough, add some more hot sauce - or if you're super adventurous, puree a hot pepper or two and stir that in. If it's lacking a zesty, tangy note, add a little orange extract or a squirt of lemon juice. If you'd rather it be sweeter, add a bit more of your honey/syrup or stir in some superfine sugar.

Make sure you keep a note of whatever you did to make the recipe your own! And enjoy your holiday.

And that’s that! Let us know if you opt to make this in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear about the different spices you add to make it your own. 

So long as your grill is fine, you’re good to go after this point, but what if it’s your stove that’s on the fritz? If that’s the case, you can give us a call  at ((214) 599-0055) or head over to our website. Wherever you live in Carrollton and the surrounding areas, we’ve got you covered. Appliance Rescue Service is here to help and here to keep your home, and your home appliances, running smoothly.