Recipe Hunting 101 - Enchilada's with Homemade Enchilada Sauce

I used to make enchilada's a lot.  I would buy a can of enchilada sauce at the store and just follow the recipe on the label to make the enchilada's.  I stopped making them this past year, because we started trying to eat more natural and organic foods.  It is really hard to find canned enchilada sauce that is natural or organic.  I sort of gave them up, not really ever thinking I could make enchilada sauce from scratch.  At least, not until I was browsing around the blogesphere and happened upon a blogger who posted a recipe for homemade enchilada sauce. 

I became really excited about this, even after reading through the recipe and realizing I would be standing over a hot stove, stirring for an hour.  I didn't care.  I wanted me some enchilada's!  About 15 minutes after I began the process of making the sauce, I got to wondering if this would be worth all this effort.  I was starting to sweat from the heat of the burner.  The sauce was really begining to thicken up and my hand was starting to get a tad tired of monotonously stirring, round and round, through it.  I even attempted to see if maybe, just maybe, the blogger got it wrong when she said you had to stir this constantly.  I left for about 5 minutes and when I came back it was clumping together on the bottom.  Ughhh....so I guess she wasn't joking about this stirring business.  I would just have to keep on, keeping on.

The first thing I noticed about my final product was it was pretty darn thick.  A lot more thicker then I am used to from the can, but it tasted about 100 times better.  This was really worth the effort.  One thing to note, it will make a TON of sauce so make sure have some freezer safe containers to freeze your leftovers.  I realize this is a good thing, because I can probably make 4 different batches of enchilada's out this one hour worth of cooking. 

Enchilada's with Homemade Enchilada Sauce - sauce recipe from weeklybite.com

Sauce Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
5 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp pepper
7 cups water

Sauce Directions:
1.  Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.  Transfer to a large sauce pot.  Add 3 cups of water and mix well. 
2.  Turn the heat on medium-low and add 2 more cups of water.  Stir continually for the next hour, adding 2 more cups of water throughout the time frame. 

Enchilada Ingredients:
6 flour tortilla's
1 lb ground beef
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups enchilada sauce

Enchilada Directions:
1.  Brown the ground beef and drain off the grease.
2.  Add 1 cup of cheese and 1 cup of enchilada sauce to the ground beef, stirring well.
3.  Evenly divide your beef mixture between 6 tortilla's, roll them up and place seam side down in a greased, 9x13 baking dish.  Top with the rest of the enchilada sauce and cheese. 
4.  Bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes.