Sour Cream Enchiladas and Guacamole

One of the great things about coworkers is sharing recipes. I'm very lucky that a girl in my office has a father that runs a Mexican restaurant and occasionally brings in Guacamole. And by that, I mean she cuts everything up and makes it in the office. Amazing! Well, I had some sour cream left over from my ranch dressing and I found some chubs of ground beef in the freezer that I needed to use. So I decided I'd grab some avocados and do something Tex-Mex.

As far as using the sour cream went, I LOVE Chicken sour Cream enchiladas. And the nephews always have tortillas around the house. It seemed to me, that switching in ground beef would work out all right, so I looked up some taco seasoning for it and found a promising enchilada recipe. Plus, I ran out of chili powder so I couldn't do a red sauce, and I had no chicken. So, improvising!

Chicken Enchiladas with Creamy Green Chile Sauce

This is the recipe I used as a guide. I picked it because I had most of the ingredients on hand, like the cilantro and green chiles. I think it's a little tough to ruin a recipe like this even when substituting things you have in the fridge. For example, other than using beef instead, I had cheddar, not monterey jack. And I used flour rather than corn tortillas. Use, they were a bit droopy, but they were tasty and I'm not that picky about them.

And they look pretty. So there! For the beef, I mixed up some seasoning and dumped what was left of a jar of jalapenos into it, plus half of my can of chiles as I had too many. If you buy pre-mixed seasonings you should search around on allrecipes or Yummly. Most of the time, you probably already own all the spices you need to make the mix.

Taco Seasoning

And of course, the aforementioned Guacamole recipe that is just perfect. Though I argue with one of the nephews as to whether or not Cilantro is a must. In my opinion, it is.

Guacamole 

Now to chase all that down, I decided to make a key lime pie. I've never made one before and rarely get a piece. Usually only if I go out to lunch with my sister and split one with her. But, we rarely get dessert, so...

Key Lime Pie

Note, the recipe uses sour cream. See a trend here? That's my justification for making pie right there. I was cleaning the sour cream out of the fridge... really...

Grating key limes, let it be said, it awful. Next time I try this I'm using big limes to see how it goes. Also, this little casserole dish is stoneware I got from World Market. It's awesome and cleans up great and is basically a 9" pie plate. The crust you see is just a standard Betty Crocker pie crust recipe out of Ye Olde cookbook.

And that little chunk out of the pie? That is a nephew, caught red-handed taking slivers. To "test" the pie before getting some. Right. Testing. Well, that is why I don't have a picture of an intact pie. :D

Why yes, it is a pretty tasty key lime recipe.