This week, I decided it was time to dust off my pans and use my shiny new knife to make dinner for me and the roommate.  We both love food, but since we’ve been living together, we tend to eat most of our meals either on the go or in front of the TV (if you saw the number of shows we DVR each week, you would see why this is inevitable.)

When I’m not just googling recipes, my go-to cookbooks are either Rachael Ray’s 365: No Repeats or good old Betty Crocker (opting almost always for the low-fat variations).  But my lovely sister recently treated me to a cookbook from her publishing house and I am now the proud owner of Hungry Girl: 200 Under 200. The real point of this book is to make lots of little meals to eat over the course of a day, but I decided to give it a try for a satisfying and healthy dinner.

My base recipe was HG’s Lean Bean ‘n Cheese Enchiladas.  From here, I made a lot of changes due to personal preference and cooking style, along with supermarket availability.  Here’s what I ended up with:

Ingredients:

• tortillas – something small and healthy in case you want to eat them as a snack later (some of the ones I looked at had 160 calories per tortilla!)
• one small can enchilada sauce (I chose red)
• 1/2 cup fat free refried beans
• a handful of grated low-fat cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• a packet of taco seasoning mix
• toppings, including sour cream, scallions, salsa, etc

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (or in my oven’s case, set it to 350 and wait until it climbs to 450 and slowly turn it down.  Just keeping things interesting…)
2. In a nonstick pan, saute onion until lightly browned, about two minutes.
3. In a small dish, combine cooked onion with refried beans and 3 teaspoons (or so) taco seasoning; mix well.
4. Heat tortillas in microwave until slightly warm – this makes them easier to bend and wrap tightly.
5. Lay tortillas flat and spread about one heaping teaspoon of enchilada sauce on each one, spread it around like pizza sauce!  (Adjust amounts depending on the size of the tortilla – this was for the mini kind).
6. Sprinkle cheese down the middle of  the tortilla (I used sliced, but I would grate it next time).
7. Add bean mixture to the middle of the tortilla – wrap tightly.   I spread mine out and it made 7 tortillas total, which were three servings for us chicks.
8. Place tortillas seam-side down in a small baking dish with non-stick spray.  Add all tortillas closely together.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the enchiladas.
9. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes (I kept mine in longer to wait for the roomie to come home and they still came out perfectly).
10. Remove from oven and sprinkle shredded cheese on top.  Return to the oven for another five minutes, or until the cheese is melted and your dining partner is home!

Ta da!  Sally’s first enchiladas!

These were fast and fun to make, and delicious.  We enjoyed them at the dining room table, which I think made them even tastier.  They were a good filling dinner, and we even had room left for some light dessert!  (PS: I know it looks like there’s a lot of cheese there, but it was low fat and just grated into little pieces so it spread around well.)

I am not a big fan of red sauce, but I loved the rest of the recipe, especially the way it made it so easy to eat vegetarian.  I think next time I will try it with a homemade mole sauce.  I was thinking of it this time, but everything in the store had a bajillion calories.  Does anyone out there have a recipe they want to recommend for this next adventure?

Bon appetit!