Spontaneous Enchilada

A few months back, my daughter Keisha and I discussed how we should organize a couple of cupboards in our basement. These cupboards stock our dry goods food supply. We had talked about pulling everything out and writing each item down to get a good idea of what we actually had since they were pretty full and disorganized. I was especially concerned with our spices as it seemed like I kept buying the same ones but they were always missing.

While I was at work one day this past week my daughter decided to surprise me by taking this project upon her self! What a wonderful blessing that girl is to me! She placed all similar products together and listed each food item on paper along with the amounts of each.

The next day she explained her idea of using the older food items in recipes. She suggested I start with a found box of hard shell tacos along with a half can of leftover refried beans to make some tacos. She would have the leftover macaroni and cheese from the previous night. Did I mention that my daughter does not like hard shell tacos?

While discussing the matter, her dad had come into the kitchen, taken half the mac ‘n cheese from the fridge and placed it into the dog’s dish before we realized what he was doing.

Horror upon horrors!! What would she have now?!? She insisted there was not enough of the mac 'n cheese left for a meal and would now have to go hungry because she really wanted me to use those tacos up. After all her efforts to organize my food shelves, I wanted to make something she would enjoy eating, too. Knowing she loves flour tortillas, I questioned whether we had any in the freezer. While the two of them headed out the door to bale hay, I got to work.

With the taco shells and refried beans, it definitely looked like the makings of tacos. This particular box of taco shells had the sauce and seasoning mix included. Now, what did I have for toppings? We didn’t have any lettuce, but we did have an onion, thawed hamburger, a jar of salsa with white corn and black beans, a jar of homemade tomatoes, shredded cheese and even one very small yellow pepper.

I recently taste tested some chicken enchiladas and decided I would try making an enchilada instead of the tacos. First I chopped up the onion ...

... heated some olive oil in a pan and threw the onions and ground beef in.

I continued to heat these until the pink was gone from the ground beef. While cooking, I cut up the pepper and placed the taco shells in a 200 degree oven for five minutes to make them crisp for breaking in half.

Once the meat was cooked, I added the pepper, salsa and refried beans, mixing them together.

Next I added the tomatoes and the sauce and taco seasoning mix from the taco box.

Once the ingredients were thoroughly mixed, I placed a third of it into a 9"x13" cake pan.

By this time the tacos were done and I broke them in half, placing them evenly over the first layer of meat.

I added another layer of meat onto the tacos, and then a layer of cheese.

Next I placed a layer of the remaining taco shells.

Finally, the remaining meat mixture.

I covered the pan with tin foil and baked it at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes, not knowing how long my husband and daughter would be out baling. When the timer rang off I turned the oven down to 200 degrees until Roger and Keisha were back, about another 15 minutes or so. Perfect timing!

I added a dollop of sour cream on mine.

Delicious! I received different reactions from Roger and Keisha after they took their first few bites. Roger did not care for the added taco seasonings and thought I made way too much. He is not a fan of leftovers, but in the end ate them anyway. Keisha loved it and commented that she was glad I put the taco seasoning in as it needed the extra kick! She was also thrilled I made extra because she wanted the leftovers for the next day.

I had leftovers for two work days and absolutely loved it! All in all I think I will probably make this again but will more than likely alter it somewhat based on the ingredients I'll have on hand.


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