This week's theme is...

Camping! Except that since we're going camping tomorrow for the rest of the week, it's really only the theme for today. When Michelle started coming with my family on our annual camping trip, of course, she wanted to do her fair share of the cooking. Since the first day's dinner is usually the most stressful (since we all just got there and we're all tired from setting up camp) we decided to give that one to Michelle. I promise it wasn't that we were trying to be mean, but she just stayed in my folks' RV so she didn't have much setting up to do. The first year she impressed us all by coming up with two already-prepared pans of chicken enchiladas that we just had to throw in the oven. Why none of the rest of us thought of that is still a mystery to me. For the next four years we had Michelle's chicken enchiladas for the first dinner of our trip. Once, my brother even told her she couldn't come unless she made them. To be perfectly honest, it feels really weird to be going on the camping trip without chicken enchiladas tomorrow night.

The traditional camping enchiladas were definitely not this recipe. They were just typical enchiladas with meat, cheese, enchilada sauce, and tortillas put together in some magical way by Michelle. I found this recipe in the recipe box and just couldn't resist putting it up here for you.

Chicken Onion Enchiladas
Serves 4-6

2 medium sweet Spanish Onions
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tb oil
1 small green pepper
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
2 cans (5 oz each) chicken meat (or you could just shred up 10 ounces of chicken)
1 small jalapeno, minced
salt
6 small flour tortillas
1 cup sour cream
chicken broth
chopped parsley

Peel and thinly slice onions, and separate into rings (should be about four cups). Saute in oil with garlic until soft. Stir in pepper, cheese, chicken, jalapeno, and salt to taste. Heat through. Spoon onto center of tortillas. Roll up and place in shallow, buttered casserole dish. Spoon any additional filling around edges. Dilute sour cream with chicken broth to thin cream consistency. Spoon over enchiladas. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Baste with additional broth if top dries. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

In addition to this enchilada recipe I found another that I simply cannot keep from you. It would make me a bad person to keep this one to myself. I should let you know that this is not Michelle's original recipe, but it came from a magazine.

Crab and Green Chile Enchiladas

8 corn tortillas
2 cups green chile sauce (recipe follows)
1 cup cooked crabmeat
3/4 cup purple Bermuda onion, chopped
2 cups jack cheese, grated
2 cups sour cream

Lightly fry tortillas in 2 inches of oil and drain. Dip each into the green chile sauce. Heat four plates in the oven and place 2 tortillas on each. Place 2 Tb crab in a strip down the center of each tortilla. Combine onion, cheese, and sour cream and dollop generously over crabmeat. Fold bottom of tortilla up over filling, fold one side over, and roll closed. Place plates in 350 degree oven and heat for 10-15 minutes. Top with warmed green chile sauce.

Green Chile Sauce

1 Tb butter or lard
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 Tb. flour
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1+ cup green chiles, chopped (fresh or frozen)
1 clove of garlic, crushed
3/4 tsp salt
dash of cumin

Melt fat over medium heat. Add onion and saute until limp (3-4 mins). Stir in flour and mix well. Add stock, chiles, garlic, salt, and cumin. Cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes.