Vegetable & Bean stack enchiladas

(serves 6-7 people)

10 Corn Tortillas (to make it @ home, combine salt, maize flour and all-purpose flour in equal proportions)
3-4 cups Enchilada sauce (recipe: see below) (tomato puree, garlic powder, cumin powder, 1 tbsp all-purpose flour, vegetable stock, mixed herbs)
1 cups black beans (drained and cooked)
2 cup spring onions
6 large bell peppers (use 2 squash if available)
3 medium onions (finely chopped)
a handful of sun dried tomatoes and black olives
3 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (if not available, use Mozarella instead)
olive oil (organic if available)
(salt, chili powder, chili flakes, pepper, mixed herbs, to taste)

• Corn tortillas:

Buy 10 Corn tortillas (soft) from the nearest store or, the easy way to prepare your own is as below:

sieve 200 grams of maize flour and all-purpose flour, adding salt according to taste. Mix the three well, adding water and 4 tbsp of vegetable oil. Prepare the dough and making round tortillas not bigger than size of a pancake, and set aside. 

• Enchilada sauce:

Drain 10 medium-sized tomatoes in hot boiling water for not more than ten minutes. Peel off the skin and allow them to cool for sometime. Grind the tomatoes in a mixture till minimum amount of tomato chunks remain. pour the puree in a colander placed over a vessel. Allow it to settle for sometime, and you'll have a dense tomato paste in the colander. Keep aside the tomato juice collected in the vessel, as you might need it later. 

Take a huge pan, and heat up 2-3 tbsp of Olive oil. Add the dense tomato paste collected in the colander, adding chili powder (1-2 tbsp), cumin powder (1/2 tbsp), chili flakes and Mixed herbs. Now slowly stir in the Vegetable Stock, and 1 tbsp of all-purpose flour (for a thick consistency). Let it boil for another 5-7 minutes, and then set aside. 

*(If the vegetable stock isn't available, add additional Onion powder and garlic powder to the same, or add the tomato juice that we set aside earlier.) 

• Roasted Vegetable mixture:

Chop the bell-peppers and onions into long pieces, and grease them with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil adding salt and pepper to the vegetables. Grease a pan (suitable for an oven) with butter and roast the vegetable mixture for about 30 minutes. Allow them to cool and then set aside. 

• Beans:

Soak about 1 cup of black beans in hot water overnight. Boil the beans in a pressure cooker for about 30-35 minutes (6-7 whistles). 

Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and add the 2 cups of spring onions. Sauté the Onions for 2-3 minutes before adding the bean mixture. Add salt according to taste, and 3 tbsp of Taco seasoning/ Fajita seasoning.*

*(If the seasoning isn't available in a market, then you can DIY like this: 

50 gms of Cayenne  50 gms cumin seeds, fresh basil, fresh parsley, paprika, salt, dried oregano, dried thyme and onion powder. Dry the above ingredients for a day or two and as soon as they've dried crush them in a grinder and you'll have your very own seasoning to add in any Mexican Recipe. 

Method:

Take any vessel in which you'd like to serve the enchiladas (suitable to bake in an oven) and grease it with butter. Pour about 4-5 tbsp of the enchilada sauce towards the bottom. (The sauce shouldn't be too thick as a lot of it would dry up during baking.) Place the tortillas over the sauce-bed and adjust the stack according to shape and size of the vessel (I chose to cut the round tortillas into half placing them next to each other). Pour the bean-mixture next on the tortillas, covering the mixture with year another layer of tortillas. Next place the roasted vegetable mixture and finely chopped sun dried tomatoes and black olives, glazing it with a thin layer of our sauce. Add another layer of tortillas over it. Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the same (depending on the gravy you want) and the last layer would be of our 2 cups of Monterey Jack/ Mozzarella cheese. 

Bake it in the oven for about 25 minutes, and serve it hot with Iced-teas. 

Happy feasting! :)