White Chicken Enchiladas with Sour Cream Sauce

I'm thinking some of you may have rolled your eyes a bit when you read about our hurricane "preparations."

We didn't stock up on water, there wasn't much outdoor stuff to tie down, and the only food we bought on Saturday was entirely perishable...particularly chicken, cheese, and sour cream. And after Irene passed through Springfield with a stiff wind and some rain, we were left with the fixings for these delicious enchiladas for our Sunday Funday dinner.

I adapted my recipe from this one at the blog, Kim's Concoctions - I couldn't find some of things mentioned (green enchilada sauce) and for others, there were no can or jar sizes listed. So, I improvised, and they were excellent! Clearly a very forgiving "recipe" - go with what you like and what you have on hand. 

These enchiladas were so good that I didn't even get a picture of them (and we gave the leftovers to Brian's neighbor, Derrick, and his family in thanks for the great pork and rice & beans his wife sent over for our lunch), but Kim has a ton of pictures on her blog. Even with all my edits, my pictures would have looked almost exactly the same. (I "borrowed" the picture above from Google...)

Ingredients
1 medium sweet onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 4oz. cans fire roasted chilies, not drained
1 tsp. low sodium taco seasoning*
1 tsp. ground cumin
4 oz. low fat cream cheese, room temperature
2 8oz. jars green taco sauce, divided
About 3C cooked, shredded chicken*
1/2 C low fat sour cream
2C shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
12 6in. corn tortillas*

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large skillet, saute the onion and bell pepper in about 1 T oil until soft.*
3. Stir in undrained fire roasted peppers and cook gently until warmed through.
4. Season with salt and pepper, then add taco seasoning and cumin. Stir to combine.
5. Stir in the cream cheese and blend until melted.
6. Stir in about 1/2 jar taco sauce and combine well.
7. Fold in shredded chicken. (If mixture seems too dry, drizzle in additional taco sauce.)
8. Set chicken mixture aside.
9. In a separate pot, over low heat, warm remaining taco sauce.
10. Whisk in sour cream and combine well. Keep flame low to avoid curdling the sour cream.
11. Whisk in 1 C Monterey Jack cheese and stir to combine. Remove from heat when combined.
12. Lightly grease a 9 X 13 in. baking dish.
13. Warm tortillas in microwave or on flat griddle/saute pan to make them more pliable.*
14. Scoop about 1/4C chicken mixture down center of tortilla, sprinkle with 1 - 2 T Monterey Jack cheese, and roll tightly.
15. Place seam side down in prepared pan.
16. Continue until chicken mixture and/or tortillas are gone.
17. Cover tortillas evenly with sour cream sauce and bake in prepared oven for about 30 minutes, or until enchiladas are hot and the sauce is bubbly.

Serve with extra sour cream, salsa, cilantro, etc.

*Notes:

• I used one teaspoon from a packet of taco seasoning. Next time I'll either make my own mixture or buy a jar of seasoning so as not to let so much go to waste.
• Left over chicken or a rotisserie chicken would work - I used fresh roasted bone in, skin on breasts (using Ina Garten's recipe - it's the best!).
• I could only find a package of 30 6 in. tortillas. Not sure how long they will keep - next time would double the recipe and freeze a pan.
• Next time I'd add some garlic and maybe a jalapeno, and will stir in a few T of fresh cilantro at the end.
• We put the tortillas in the fridge and I didn't have time for them to come to room temperature before I started working with them. Even warming them in a saute pan, they were falling apart. I eventually warmed them in the microwave then in the saute pan - and they were perfect.