Enchilada Casserole

As a first time parent, sometimes I’ve felt like a 5-year old walking into the first day of kindergarten. Excited, nervous, and completely clueless. There have been many times in the past year that Zach and I have said well, I don’t know! Such as “is she getting enough to eat?” or “does her poop look normal?” or “should take her to the doctor now or wait til tomorrow?”…. I always said to myself, gosh, if only she could tell me how she feels!!

Since she was 6 months old, her caregivers at daycare have been teaching her sign language… talk about learning curve! Ha! But in all honesty, we only really use two signs: eat and more (although she’s also seemed to learn that tugging on her ears means ear infection too 😉)

Anyway, now that she’s 15 months, she’s gotten pretty good at using these signs. She loves food – peas, carrots, tuna, bananas, plain yogurt, potatoes, chicken, pork chops, ice cream, anything….well except green beans (like her Grandma Gent!). However, if there’s one food in the past month that has gotten McKinley saying “more” the most, it would be enchiladas.

You guys, she ate an entire enchilada a couple weeks ago. Not sure if that’s normal or not (clueless first-time-parent-syndrome), but man did she love those. And it makes me smile because it's always been one of my favorite things my mom made.....she might look more like her "dada" but I think she's got my taste! 😉

Easy Enchiladas - A super simple pan of enchiladas, perfect for a quick weeknight meal!

Ingredients
-1 lb ground beef
-1 tablespoon minced onion
-1 16-oz can refried beans
-8 8-inch flour tortillas
-3 c shredded cheddar cheese
-1 19-oz can red enchilada sauce

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Brown the ground beef with the onions in a large nonstick skillet; drain.
3. Stir in the refried beans.
4. Scoop ¼ cup of the meat and bean mixture on a tortilla. Sprinkle 2 tablespoon cheese, roll up the tortilla, and place in a greased 9x13 pan. Repeat with each of the 8 tortillas.
5. Mix the enchilada sauce into the remainder of the meat and bean mixture and pour over top of the enchiladas.
6. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes or until bubbly.
7. Top with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, avocados and cilantro, if desired.