The enchilada recipe from THE PROPOSAL is finally here!
Friends, The Wedding Party is out in just four days and I'm equal parts super excited and a nervous wreck. I hope you all like it, and I hope to get to see lots of you on tour! My events are all listed here, but as a reminder, I'll be in Oakland on July 15th, San Francisco on July 16th, Pasadena on July 17th, Culver City on July 18th, Phoenix on July 20th, Denver on July 21st, Minneapolis/St. Paul on July 23rd, Chicago on July 24th, and Cincinnati on July 25th. The stops in Culver City (at The Ripped Bodice) and Chicago (at the American Writer's Museum) are both ticketed, but everything else is free, so please stop by and say hi and get your books signed and have some snacks (okay I can only promise snacks in Oakland and San Francisco but I'm hoping there will be snacks elsewhere too). If you're in none of these places, you can preorder the book from any of those bookstores linked and I can sign it to you (and they'll ship right to you) or at any of the links here. And if you've read my other books and feel warmly about them, I'd appreciate it so much if you could rate and review them on Amazon, Goodreads, and anywhere people buy books. Thank you all so so much, I appreciate your preorders and reviews and excitement for my events more than I can say!
Okay so real talk: I have been doing two things to soothe my "my book is about to come out" nerves, and one is healthier than the other. The first is that I've been exercising every day (well, I missed a day when I had a migraine, but other than that) and I hate to inform you of this but it's really helped. People who watch my Instagram stories are asking me, Jasmine, don't you already do yoga every day? Yes, I do, but my daily yoga practice is often a lot more chill and doesn't make me sweat, and my goal for this daily exercise was to make my heart rate go up/breathing get difficult, because that's when it's impossible to worry about anything other than can I make it through the next 20 minutes without collapsing. The second is that I've been compulsively online shopping, and let me tell you, I have information to share! Many of you already know this, but the J. Crew Factory Clare cardigan and J. Crew Factory Caryn cardigan are both perfect cardigans, they come in lots of colors, go from sizes XX small to XX large for the Clare, and up to 3x for the Caryn, and are always available for great prices. Buy them in many colors for all of your summer dresses, either if you live in a place where it's always chilly in the mornings and at night (like the Bay Area) or if it's always cold inside air conditioning and you need to bring a sweater along wherever you go. ALSO FYI the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale is just starting and there are always great stuff there, and always fun beauty deals.
Here's a little behind the scenes for The Proposal story time: that scene with the enchiladas? Well, It Happened To Me. A number of years ago (it must be ten or so years ago, but I can't remember for sure) I was making enchiladas with my mom, my mom told me to put on gloves but I forgot, and after a few minutes where I first touched lots of chiles with my bare hands and then touched my face, MY FACE WAS ON FIRE. My sister frantically googled as I screamed "MY FACE IS ON FIRE MY FACE IS ON FIRE" and is the hero who suggested spreading sour cream all over my face, and I stole that terrible and hilarious experience of mine for fiction. I have made enchiladas many times since, but I always wear gloves now (and I've also tinkered with the recipe some so there isn't quite as much need to touch the chiles). My mom has been making this enchilada sauce for years, and I usually try to link to or tell you about where a recipe came from, but I have no idea with this one, it's an old copied sheet of paper from either a magazine or a cookbook. This sauce calls for a range of chiles, and if you have a Mexican market near you, you should be able to find them. If you don't, lots are available by mail order at Oaktown Spice Shop, a place I adore, and lots of other online spice stores too. My mom and I made enchiladas a few months ago for Mother's Day, and here's a picture of the finished product (swipe right to see the enchiladas, I also made cake that day), and I put the making of them as a saved Instagram story (up at the top of my profile).
Carlos' Enchilada Sauce
9-10 dried chiles, preferably a combination of ancho chiles, New Mexico chiles, California chiles, and pasilla chiles, whichever you can find.
1-2 dried chipotle chiles (optional, if you like a bit of a smoky flavor)
3-4 cups water
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
3 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup to 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth (if necessary)
WEAR GLOVES FOR THIS PART (thin, hospital style gloves work the best). Remove the stems and seeds from the chiles and discard. Place the chiles in a saucepan with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and let simmer for five minutes. Let this steep for about 30 minutes.
Drain the chiles, and reserve the liquid. WEAR GLOVES FOR THIS PART TOO. (I cannot stress this enough). Pull the skin and any remaining seeds off of the chiles, and discard the skin and seeds (this doesn’t have to be perfect, just get as much of it off as you can). OR, you can just do what you can and then strain the sauce really well at the end, which is what I do now. Put the chiles in a food processor with the garlic, salt, oregano, cumin and cloves and blend, then (if you want to) strain through a fine mesh strainer, pressing down on all of the solids to get as much out as you can.
In a wide, deep skillet, heat the oil on medium high heat, add the flour, and whisk until the mixture is a toasty brown. Make sure your kitchen is well ventilated here! Add the chile puree and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly. Measure the reserved liquid from soaking the chiles, and add chicken or vegetable broth until you get 3 ½ cups total liquid (the original recipe says to use 3 cups of water for soaking the chiles, but now I usually I just add more water when I soak the chiles so I have enough liquid there, and don't worry about adding broth). Slowly stir in the liquid to the chile puree, stirring constantly, until it’s well combined. Bring mixture to a boil, still stirring; when it reaches the boil, reduce to a simmer and simmer for five minutes. If you’re making the enchiladas immediately, keep warm; if not, let cool, transfer into airtight containers, and refrigerate or freeze.
Once you have this sauce (this recipe makes about enough for one pan of enchiladas; I usually double or triple it, it freezes very well), you can make the enchiladas any way you want. My mom and I usually do mostly beef, but some with just cheese and refried beans (sometimes with chard or kale cooked and mixed in with the refried beans). It's a good meal to make if you have some omnivores and some vegetarians/vegans coming over, because the sauce itself is vegan if you use all water or vegetable broth, and beans and greens make a great vegan filling. I LOVE this recipe for beef filling and that's what we always use now since I discovered it, but you can always do ground beef if you're pressed for time.
To make the enchiladas: preheat the oven to 350, and have your filling, tortillas, oil, a frying pan, the sauce, cheese, and a good size pan that will fit 8-12 enchiladas in it at the ready (something like this). This is easier with two people so one person can do the tortilla frying and the other person can fill and roll, but I've done it by myself in a pinch, just make sure you have space for everything and resign yourself that your kitchen will get messy. Heat the oil up to medium high, and fry the tortillas on each side for a few seconds on each side to soften them. Move the tortillas into the warm sauce, then immediately into your baking dish. Put some filling across the middle of the tortilla (not too much, you don't want to overfill them), roll the tortilla into a cylinder, and then put seam side down on the far side of the pan. Keep going until the pan is full, and then spoon about 1/2 a cup of enchilada sauce over the whole pan, making sure the ends of the tortillas are coated. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the top, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Damn it, now I'm VERY hungry.
Have a great weekend, everyone! And see some of you next week!
Jasmine
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