GREEN ENCHILADAS

GREEN ENCHILADAS
8 All-Purpose Crepes III
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons butter
4-6 tablespoons Carbalose flour (see my comments below)
1 cup chicken broth
7 ounces green Mexican salsa
1/2 cup sour cream
4 ounce can chopped green chiles
4 ounces pepper-jack cheese, optional

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Whisk in the Carbalose flour well. Whisk in the broth and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Cook and stir until thickened. Remove from the heat and whisk in the green Mexican salsa and sour cream. Stir in the chiles.

Divide the cheese amongst the crepes, placing it down the center of each. Roll up and place seam side down in a greased baking dish. Pour the sauce evenly over the enchiladas and top with the pepper-jack cheese, if using. Bake 425?for about 20 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Makes 8 servings
Do not freeze

Without pepper-jack cheese:
Per Serving: 266 Calories; 21g Fat; 14g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

With pepper-jack cheese:
Per Serving: 291 Calories; 23g Fat; 16g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 4g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

I've based quite a few low carb recipes around the sauce of a high carb enchilada recipe I've made for years and I was finally able to "almost" recreate the original dish by using Carbalose flour. Rather than flour tortillas, I used crepes made with Carbalose and used Carbalose flour to thicken the sauce that goes over the enchiladas.

I did run into some trouble thickening the sauce. I thought I'd worked out the ratio of Carbalose flour to liquid needed to make a thick sauce, but lately I've been having trouble getting it to thicken much at all. My early experiments seemed to indicate that it would take about 1/4 cup of flour per 1 cup of liquid to make a very thick white sauce. That 1/4 cup doesn't seem to work for me most of the time lately. That means having to add at least another couple tablespoons of Carbalose as well as more carbs to the dish. The trouble is that once you start making the sauce, you can't add more flour. So, it's probably a good idea to start with more flour and thin the sauce down if necessary. The other option would be to add a tiny bit of xanthan gum if you find that your sauce isn't getting thick enough. When I made the sauce for this dish, I had to add 1/8 teaspoon of xanthan gum to achieve the proper thickness.

The thing that worries me about having to use so much more Carbalose than the original 2 tablespoons of regular flour called for in my high carb recipe is that, in the end, there is no carb savings by using the low carb flour. There is a significant carb savings by using low carb crepes over real tortillas or even low carb tortillas though. At this point I'm inclined to use my other low carb versions of this yummy green sauce over a nice piece of grilled chicken rather than splurge on so many unnecessary carbs from the Carbalose. I just don't miss bread and tortillas that much.

In case you'd like to compare them, below are the counts for the recipe above, using 2 tablespoons regular all-purpose flour instead of Carbalose to thicken the sauce:

Per Serving: 288 Calories; 23g Fat; 15g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

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