This was also the night we discovered how fat we really should be. It also happened to be Valentine's Day.
We've made enchiladas before and both agreed enchiladas with shrimp in them would be quite delicious. I made the suggestion to make something with shrimp for Valentine's Day, since we never splurge on good shrimp (eco-friendly shrimp is nearly impossible to find). So it was natural that shrimp enchiladas was going to be our VDay menu. (That, and Rich had been asking for enchiladas for almost two weeks...)
Oh, you're in the kitchen? There must be food I can snub.
We've also recently discovered Whole Foods. Not in the sense that we didn't know it existed, but in the sense that until the last month or so Whole Foods was the wildly expensive yuppie grocery store you went to if you wanted to talk to staff members with dreads and those beanie hats that are only half on your head (how do those things stay on?). But I'd gone in there a couple times to find some body products for my ridiculously sensitive skin and discovered the prices weren't as ridiculous as I'd thought, especially for the quality.
One day we went in there together. The Hillcrest location forces you to enter through the produce section, where everything is organic and there's space for locally grown produce. Towards the back is the meat counter. I'll admit that the meat counter at Whole Foods is enticing. For a bunch of dead animal sitting on lettuce behind a glass it's a very sexy part of the store. And this is coming from an almost-vegetarian. Rich? He almost looked aroused at the meat counter.
And then we got to the beer aisle. So. Much. Beer. And it's all good and lots of it is local! Rich found heaven.
All the beer!
Anyway, so Whole Foods has a seafood counter within the meat counter, and every species is labeled with a form of certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (which may or may not be a great thing... best to do your own research on your seafood ahead of time). We bought shrimp. However, we were not the only people to want shrimp for our Valentine's Day dinner and were only able to get about a half pound of the uncooked shrimps. Should be plenty, right? It's enchiladas... how much shrimp do we need?
Get a full pound. Maybe we're just fat kids, but the thought of making an 8x8 inch dish of enchiladas seemed unfilling. A 9x13 dish was more appropriate (and leftovers!). But we did not buy enough shrimp for a full dish... so we had to get creative chopping them. A half pound would have been perfect for a 2 person serving, but we stretched it into a 4 person serving. Oh well.
Ingredients:
Shrimp
Tortillas
Pepper jack cheese
Enchilada sauce
Onions (optional, but awesome)
Cook your shrimps, if they don't come pre cooked. Stick them in some boiling water for 3-5 minutes (uncooked shrimps are slightly gray when purchased and turn pink the second they hit the water... it's really cool to watch!). Also, de-vein and de-tail your shrimps.
Cut them into little pieces, if necessary, if you didn't buy enough. We sliced them in half both vertically and horizontally.
Soften your tortillas. We use a tortilla warmer that goes in the microwave. Layer each tortilla with a small bit of cheese, as many shrimp bits as you want (but don't go overboard...), and onions if you want. Roll 'em up.
Once your pan is stacked with rolled enchiladas, pour enchilada sauce so that the rolled tortillas are covered. Cover that with shredded cheese.
Cook for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the cheese at the edges of the pan starts to bubble and brown.
Top your serving with sour cream, avocado, hot sauce and any other toppings you want. But in the interest of keeping the shrimp flavor, it's a good idea to not get too crazy with the toppings or other ingredients. We'd forgotten toppings so all we had was sriracha, but it was delicious anyway.
Total Cost: $10, plus market price of shrimp (serves 2-4, depending on how many shrimp you buy)
Total Time: ~35 minutes
We weren't about to share the shrimp with her, but she can have cheese!
