Banana Pepper Enchiladas

Ok, a few things:

1. These can be made vegetarian or not, so hurray for husbands that are all "you're pregnant, I hate for you to make two meals but no, I'm happppyyyyy to just eat mashed potatoes."  
2. Jay invented these, obviously, because he invents everything we cook and also because we had all these peppers from our "garden," aka 2 pepper plants and 3 tomato plants.  
3. The title is weird because really it's a mild pepper stuffed with cheese like a popper but then wrapped in a tortilla and covered with sauce and WHAT do you call that?

So now you know pretty much everything you need to know about your new favorite dinner, the one that you make in about five seconds that involves protein, carbs, and a vegetable, and can be gluten free if you go for corn tortillas, and FALL IS COLD THIS IS WARM YOU WANT IT FOR DINNER.  

Let's do it. 

You need banana peppers or some kind of long skinny pepper.  Go mild, unless you want the popper effect, but to me eating several whole jalapenos as a main dish would be a lot.  Up to you.  Then you need some kind of cheese that melts.  Seriously any kind you like.  You also need tortillas and enchilada sauce, and, if you're going for the meat-eater's version, some chorizo.  We used flour and corn tortillas to test both, and we honestly really liked both, so it depends on what kind of flavor you like best.  I will say that the most important thing is to have tortillas that are the same length as the peppers you're using, so consider that when you're shopping for both.  Err on the side of the tortillas being slightly shorter (at their widest point) than the peppers rather than the other way around to avoid mouthfuls of plain tortilla.  Ew.  Not sexy.  

The filling for this is really just cheese and chorizo.  So, if you're using the chorizo (or soyrizo if you like those kind of products), add it to a skillet over medium-high and cook it for 5 minutes until browned and crumbly.  

Then, grate the cheese.  

In a bowl combine the chorizo and cheese together.  Again, if you aren't using the chorizo you'll just have a pile of grated cheese - both versions are honestly delicious.  I did just cheese first, then after I stuffed half the peppers I added chorizo and stuffed the rest.  

For the peppers, cut off the tops and use a spoon or your fingers to take out the seeds and membranes.  If the peppers crack a little bit down the side that's ok!  

They get wrapped in a tortilla anyway so they'll be secure.  

Now, stuff the peppers with as much of the cheese mixture as you can - this is where the pepper might split even more from being handled, but just cram as much of the filling into the pepper as you can, then squish the pepper back together.  

Wrap the stuffed pepper in a tortilla.  If your peppers have been in the fridge you can microwave them for 10 seconds or so to help them be easier to fold.  I find that corn tortillas especially tend to break when wrapped around anything, so the microwave helps a lot here.  

Place all of the wrapped tortillas into a big baking dish or skillet.  I used the same skillet I used for the chorizo, but anything you have will work great!  

Pour the enchilada sauce all over the rolled peppers. 

Then bake!  375F for 30 minutes until the peppers are soft and the cheese is so ooey gooey.  

Dinner!  Depending on the size of your peppers and tortillas I find that 2 or 3 of these are great as an entree, and some sour cream and cilantro are great toppings if you're into that kind of thing.

This is such great comfort food, and I love how easy it is to throw together, but the dish doesn't feel thrown together in the slightest - I promise!  Once you make it once you can switch it up a thousand different ways - chopped veggies instead of chorizo, shredded chicken, different kinds of cheese...the works.  Just use this as a guideline and go. to. town.  Enjoy!