Guilty Pleasure Confessions

I cook most of my own meals. I swear. But occasionally, I either don't want to cook, or I just want to go out. Around here, it's pretty slim vegan pickins'. There aren't many non-chain restaurants in the first place, and most of the chain restaurants are pretty much no-gos. I try not to order dishes that I need to request to leave off the main part of it, like a chicken salad with no chicken, because I'm still paying for it. If a restaurant has just one option that I can order mostly as it comes, I'm psyched. Plus, once you start asking for "No cheese on the enchilada and no sour cream in my salsa and no butter on my head--" they get all confused and your plate will almost definitely come out wrong. I've lately been ordering pretending I have a "dairy allergy" because they seem like they won't pay attention otherwise.

Anyhow, much more frequently than I'd like, we go to On The Border, and I get the Avocado and Red Chile Enchilada. With "no everything." I decided I can totally make this at home. So I did.

The enchilada is filled with a red chile pesto and chopped avocado with sauteed poblano peppers and red onions. The rice is brown basmati with annatto powder and the beans are black eyed peas with chipotle chiles in adobo. It totally did the trick.

Avocado and Red Chile Pesto Enchilada

4 large whole wheat or corn tortillas
1-2 avocados, diced
1 red onion, sliced
2 poblanos, sliced into strips

red chile pesto:
2 cloves garlic, peeled
3 red jalapeño or fresno peppers
1 dried ancho chile
2 dried chile de arbols
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons nooch
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon chile powder

Place dried peppers in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let stand for about 20 minutes and remove them from the bowl. Pull out their stems. Remove stems from fresno peppers and add to a food processor with the reconstituted dried chiles, garlic and pine nuts. Puree until smooth. Pour in the oil, add the salt, pepper, chile powder, and nooch. Puree and taste for heat and seasonings.
In a large skillet, sautee poblanos and red onion in a little olive oil, if desired, until soft. Toss with 1-2 tablespoons of the pesto. Turn off heat.
Heat the largest skillet you've got over med-high heat, and spray with some canola oil. Lay a tortilla out and place some onions and peppers down the middle of the tortilla and add some chopped avocado on top of that. Drizzle another tablespoon of the pesto over that and fold edged over the filling.
Place the enchilada seam-side down on the hot pan. Sear for about 3 minutes, the flip over and sear 2nd side. Repeat with remaining tortillas.
Serve with Rice and beans!