easy enchiladas & margaritas

It's been the perfect lazy weekend. No work. No travel. No stress. Yesterday I wanted comfort food--Mexican comfort food. A quick convo with my sister yielded the perfect answer: Black Bean Spinach Enchiladas. It was like she crawled into my head and pinpointed my exact craving.

Before sharing the enchiladas recipe, first things first: Margaritas (who cooks without a cocktail/glass of something in hand?). One of my girls, Kayla, introduced me several weeks ago to the Skinny Girl margarita. A total and complete margarita snob, I was more than a little skeptical when she made the recommendation. But I went ahead and made a quick trip to the greatest liquor store on the planet and purchased a bottle. Wow--they don't suck. At all. I add mucho fresh lime to mine, but for a low-cal margarita, you won't be disappointed.

Back to the enchiladas.

Ingredients

10-12 small flour or corn tortillas (I used corn)

10 oz. package chopped spinach, thawed (you can use your microwave)

15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes with green chiles and spices, drained

3/4 cup scallions, chopped

19 oz. can green chile enchilada sauce

8oz. sour cream

3 cups shredded pepper jack cheese (I couldn't find shredded pepper jack, so I used jalapeno jack instead. Worked fine)

Garlic powder and onion powder (I left out the onion powder. Your call)

Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400-degrees and get out a 9x13 inch Pyrex baking dish.

2. In a colander, squeeze out as much water from the spinach as you can by pressing the spinach with the back of a spoon. Place the spinach in a large bowl. Add the rinsed beans, drained tomatoes, most of the scallions, and a dash of garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper, to taste. Set aside.

3. Mix together the sour cream and green chile enchilada sauce. Spread about 1/3 of the sauce mixture into the 9x13 inch dish.

4. On a plate, place a tortilla and top with some of the spinach mixture and a small amount of pepper jack cheese. Roll into cigar shape and place into the baking dish, seam side down. Repeat until the dish is full.

5. Spread the rest of the sauce on top of the enchiladas and top with the remaining cheese and scallions. Bake for about 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Wait a few minutes and serve.

I served my enchiladas with lime cilantro rice (white rice with chopped cilantro and fresh lime juice). It was a perfect mate.