Squash and Fontina Casserole

The Arts & Living section of the Sunday News & Observer features a recipe each week. On this particular week I mentioned to Whitney that the featured squash and fontina casserole looked pretty good. Given that it was also a Vivian Howard (star of "A Chef's Life") recipe and we were somehow still getting summer squash from our CSA, it inevitably ended up on the meal plan the following week.

The only way I really like summer squash is when it is cooked long enough to release some of its water and start caramelizing. This recipe does just that and then bakes the squash with some herbs, cheese, and garlic, making for a delicious casserole (although I think the squash itself would be almost as good). Check out the link below for a little blurb from the N&O about the recipe. We served it with salmon and green beans.

Vivian Howard's Squash and Fontina Casserole
   Serves 10-12 (we halved)
Ingredients
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp cornmeal
2 tbsp bacon fat (we used evoo)
4 medium yellow onion halved and sliced thin, about 4 cups
2 tbsp minced garlic
8-10 medium yellow squash or zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch rounds or half moons
3 tsp finely chopped fresh sage or 1 1/2 tsp dried sage (we used dried sage)
1 tsp finely chopped rosemary
3 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 C grated Fontina, Swiss or white American cheese (we used Fontina)
1 large egg

Directions
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch-by-8-inch casserole dish and dust the inside of the dish with cornmeal. Alternately, you could use six (6-ounce) ramekins and make individual casseroles.
   Heat bacon fat over medium heat in a 12-inch saute pan or cast iron skillet. Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are translucent. Add the squash, sage, rosemary, salt and black pepper. Stir it all to combine and cook over medium-high heat for about 25 minutes, checking periodically to make sure things aren’t sticking. You are looking for the squash to release all its liquid and begin to brown. Remove pan from the heat. While things are still steamy, stir in cheese. Allow the mixture to cool slightly. Then stir in the egg.
   Fill whatever vessel you choose three-fourths of the way with the squash mixture. Bake uncovered for 30 to 45 minutes for the large casserole, or 15 to 20 minutes for the small ones. Either way you’re looking for it to brown on top and around the edges. Serve warm.

This particular meal came together easily as we were able to just
shove everything in the oven at the same time

Savory bread pudding

Now that October's here it's time to start breaking out the fall comfort foods and casseroles! This savory bread pudding certainly fits the bill. It's warm and hearty. This is really similar to egg breakfast casseroles with sausage but we've made a few swaps and additions to turn this into a supper dish.

My mom recently shared with me one of her delicious sourdough loaves and I thought this would be the perfect thing to try with it. The recipe took about half of the loaf (and then I made French toast with the other half, yum). This dish combines lots of our favorites foods - the sourdough bread, sweet Italian sausage, and arugula. Hope you try it and enjoy it!

Arugula & Sausage Savory bread pudding inspiration from Eating Well
   Serves 6 | Active Time 30 minutes | Total Time 1 3/4 hours
Ingredients
   For the custard
6 large eggs
1 cup milk
   For the seasonings
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup sliced fresh basil
   For the filling
4 cups whole-grain bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 cups chopped arugula, wilted
3/4 cup chopped artichoke hearts, canned
1 cup diced cooked sweet Italian sausage
   For the topping
3/4 cup shredded fontina cheese

Directions
   Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Coat an 11-by-7-inch glass baking dish or a 2-quart casserole with cooking spray.
   To prepare custard: Whisk eggs and milk in a medium bowl. Add mustard, salt, pepper and basil; whisk to combine.
   Toss bread, arugula, artichokes and sausage in a large bowl.

Add the custard and toss well to coat.

Transfer to the prepared baking dish and push down to compact. Cover with foil.

   Bake until the custard has set, 40 to 45 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese and continue baking until the pudding is puffed and golden on top, 15 to 20 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

First Meals in New House! Freezer Meals

I've got some fun pics to share with you today! They're back from mid-June when we were moving into the house and some of our first meals. After many moves (almost yearly since college) I felt like everything came together that I'd learned from those past moves and this was a fairly seamless move. Many thanks to my mom for coming up the week after everything was out of the old house and helping us give it a thorough cleaning - due to all of our efforts we received our full security deposit back! I feel like this rarely happens ... there's always that random $50 stove-cleaning fee that they seem to always think is necessary to take out. The one thing I had blocked out from previous moves was how long it took to unpack! Felt like that took quite awhile.

One thing that is most important to me during a move is making sure we can stay somewhat normal in our eating habits. My body does not like eating out for a week straight - there are the days leading up to the move because everything is packed away and then the days afterwards when you're getting the kitchen set up. I did my best to avoid this scenario by prepping some freezer meals. All of my freezer meals can be found on this pdf document. What a life saver these were! I made Hungry Jack casserole, meatballs and sauce, Baked Cheesy Chicken Penne, and breakfast English muffins. More special thanks to my mom who helped assemble these things. And - exciting news here, folks - we have a garage freezer! I whipped up all these freezer meals at our old house before move and then drove them over to the new house.

So we moved and things looked like this:

Fortunately we were able to set up a table in our "formal" dining room and we made a big effort to always keep this table clean so that we could have somewhere to sit and eat because it took awhile to figure out where all that stuff should go.

One of our very first meals in the house was Baked Cheesy Chicken Penne! And it was delicious. It has sun-dried tomatoes in it. We learned that we needed to allow ample time for the freezer meal to either thaw or cook for extra time. Sometimes we would be super hungry and think we could just put one in the toaster oven and eat in a short amount of time ... boy was that a miscalculation on our part!

Our move day was the weekend after my parent's anniversary. They celebrated it in Asheville and stopped by to visit on their way home to check out the new place. They brought us some fancy beer from Biltmore - Cedric's Pale Ale - which we enjoyed with our freezer meal after a hard day of unpacking.

Then after we were a bit more "settled" and felt like we could use some pots and pans we were able to make this pasta with salad. This is actually a frozen pasta saute from Trader Joe's that I purchased prior to move-in and stashed in the freezer for a quick meal. Even though pots and pans were in their places at this point we were still worn out from our hard work and didn't quite have the energy to also prep a recipe. This was a great mid-way transition meal to taking over our kitchen.

I know I just said that we kept the dining room table clean so we could eat on it but we made this on a Monday night and Bachelor was on so eating on the coffee table was a splurge!

Do you have any tips and tricks for making moving easier?

Chicken Parm Meatloaf

We closed on our new house about six weeks ago. Since then I had been mentally preparing for the move and what things I could do to make the transition easier. One of those things was planning a few freezer meals! I found about five recipes that I wanted to try. I don't have much experience with freezer meals besides spaghetti sauces and soups so I really had to spend some time researching.

I debated making them all separately and doubling each recipe - that way the recipe would be on the meal plan, doubled during prep, and then frozen for a future meal. I did this for one meal -- the Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf featured here. For the others I made them all in one day two weeks before Move Day when my mom was in town to assist with packing. More on that later! But for now here's Chicken Parm Meatloaf...

Chicken Parm Meatloaf served with sauteed kale

Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf from smiles and piles blog
Ingredients
   We doubled all ingredients for a double batch - one for now, one for later
1 lb. ground chicken
1 egg
¼ cup breadcrumbs
1 ½ tsp. Italian spice mix
2 tbsp minced garlic
½ cup onion, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
½ cup Parmesan cheese
¾ cup marinara
½ Italian-style shredded cheese

Directions
   Make your meat mixture by combining everything EXCEPT the marinara and shredded cheese. Place the loaf into a lightly greased loaf pan and pour on your marinara. [**STOP HERE if you’re planning to freeze. Baking instructions at the bottom.]

Assembling! Right before Patrick put the marinara on the loaf.

For now dish (on the left) prepared in a pyrex dish
For later dish (on the right) prepared in a freezer ready aluminum pan

   Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Pull it out and top with your shredded cheese, then bake a few more minutes to melt cheese. Let it sit for 10 minutes before cutting, this will allow it to setup a bit and not fall apart when you take a slice from the pan.

**To make as a freezer meal, prepare as instructed EXCEPT for putting the shredded cheese on top. Save that for baking day. You can bake from frozen by putting the loaf pan on a cookie sheet and baking for one hour. Pull out to add the cheese and stick in for a few minutes to melt it then let it rest before cutting.

For the freezer meal we double wrapped in saran wrap and then wrote the directions for reheating on the lid.

It feels good to have the freezer meal ready when we are. One of the nice things about making the recipe and doubling it is we know it was tasty. I imagine we'll be taking this out soon while we are getting settled in our new house!

Do you have a favorite freezer meal??

Mom's Pork Chop Casserole

It's finally made it to the blog: Mom's pork chop casserole that I couldn't ever quite seem to get right. This was one of Mom's go-to recipes and I always enjoyed it; the rice is so moist and the pork chops are quite tasty. I have attempted this a few times without much success. One time I forgot to put the extra liquid in the rice so it was anything but moist. The next time I used boneless pork chops and they weren't moist or tasty either. But finally I got it right! And finally Patrick approved and said I could continue making it.

Brown Rice & Pork Chops
1 cup rice (not instant)
   Mom recommends using Uncle Ben's
1 - 10.5oz can beef consomme
water
4-6 bone-in pork chops

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix rice, consomme, and water (refill the consomme can and use that amount) in 9x13 pan.
Place pork chops on top of rice mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and poke a few holes in there.
Cook for an hour or until liquid is soaked up; remove foil first 30 minutes.

We served with homemade apple sauce and green beans.

Breakfast Potluck

Here's our third installment of Wipeout Potluck night: BREAKFAST!! You knew this was coming, right?!

Out wonderful feast included pancakes, breakfast casserole, fruit, hash browns, and smoked salmon and cream cheese bites!

Pancakes
Chefs Tim & Ryan: They used Hungry Jack Complete Buttermilk mix; just add water! For the blueberry pancakes add fresh blueberries and a little cinnamon to the batter. For the chocolate chip pancakes add Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips and cook according to package directions.

Smoked Salmon Bites
Chef Richard: Directly from the cook himself: "I just got some smoked salmon from a package that's pre-sliced; I added some chopped dill, salt and pepper to some whipped cream cheese, and filled them into some mini phyllo dough shells."

Hashbrowns & Fruit
Chef Holly: Prepare frozen hashbrowns according to package directions and add butter! Fresh fruit includes apples, oranges, grapes, and melon.

Breakfast Casserole
Chefs Whitney & Patrick
1/2 lb grated cheese, 1 lb sausage, 6 slices stale bread, 4 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 tsp mustard, salt to taste
Grease 9x13 inch pan. Brown sausage and drain. In a bowl, mix eggs, milk, mustard, and salt. In pan, layer bread, cheese, and sausage; repeat. Pour egg mixture on top. Refrigerate over night. Take out 15 minutes before baking. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Our feast again and don't forget your mimosa!!

Meet our new guest of honor at Wipeout Potluck nights!! Helo! He's still working on staying awake during dinner.

Chicken Pot Pie

Whitney made a chicken pot pie for me some time ago that turned out pretty well, but wasn't exactly what I was looking for (mostly in vegetable content). This time, I decided to make the recipe in my new How to Make Pot Pies and Casseroles cookbook. This one conveniently makes use of boneless, skinless chicken breasts which I keep in large supply thanks to Costco. Here's the abridged recipe:

1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts and/or thighs
2 c chicken stock or canned low-sodium broth
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium-large onion, finely chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut crosswise 1/4-in thick
2 stalks celery, chopped
Salt and ground black pepper
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp dried thyme
3 tbsp dry sherry
3/4 c frozen green peas, thawed
3 tbsp minced fresh parsley leaves
1 sheet frozen puff pastry


Heat oven to 400 degrees. Simmer chicken in stock until chicken is just done, 8-10 min. Transfer meat to large bowl, reserving broth in measuring cup. Saute onion, carrots, and celery in heated oil until tender, about 5 min. Season with salt and pepper. While vegetables saute, shred chicken. Transfer cooked vegetables to bowl with chicken. Heat butter in same pan. When foaming subsides, add flour and cook 1 min, stirring. Whisk in chicken broth, milk, any accumulated chicken juices, and thyme. Simmer until sauce fully thickens, about 1 min. Season to taste with salt and pepper; stir in sherry. Pour sauce over chicken mixture and combine. Stir in peas and parsley. Adjust seasonings. Pour mixture into 13x9-in pan or six 12-oz oven proof dishes. Top with puff pastry; bake until topping is golden brown and filling is bubbly, 30 min. for a large pie and 20-25 min. for individual pies.

My favorite veggie combo!

Delicious filling

Needed to cut my slits a little wider! They closed up and some filling bubbled up on the edge.

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie is a dish I've enjoyed in various restaurants, but this was my first attempt at preparing it myself. I selected a recipe from my new Cook's Country Cookbook, and cooked it in my new dutch oven. The dutch oven was a delight to use and a dish-saver; for this recipe, I was able to sauté, boil, bake, and broil in it, and then cover and transfer the leftovers to the refrigerator.

Filling:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 large onion, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped fine
2 lb ground beef
Salt and pepper
5 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 c heavy cream
1 3/4 c low-sodium chicken broth
3/4 c beer
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp minced fresh thyme
1 c frozen peas


Topping:
2 1/2 lb russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-in pieces
Salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c heavy cream, warmed
Pepper
1 large egg


Filling:
Heat butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Add onion and carrots and cook until soft, about 8 min. Add meat, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper and cook until browned, about 12 min. Add flour and tomato paste and cook until paste begins to darken, about 1 min. Add the cream and cook until it spatters, about 1 min. Add broth, beer, soy sauce, and thyme and simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently, until mixture is thick but saucy, 15 to 20 min. Remove from heat, stir in the peas, adjust the seasonings as needed, and transfer to broiler-safe 2-quart casserole dish (we just left it in the dutch oven).

Topping:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring potatoes, 1/2 tsp salt, and water to cover to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, 15 to 20 min. Drain the potatoes, return to saucepan, and mash potatoes with butter and cream until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread potatoes over the filling, using a spatula to smooth the top. Brush with egg and drag a fork across the top to make ridges. Bake until the filling is bubbling, about 15 min. Turn on broiler and cook until top is golden brown, 3 to 5 min. Remove from oven and cool for 10 min. Serve.

The filling was flavorful, and I really enjoyed the texture of the potatoes.

The topping and filling can be prepared simultaneously.

Simmering the filling...

Fresh from the broiler with my new oven mitts! I got a little artistic with the potato ridges.

Hungry Jack Casserole

It's finally here! The recipe I've cooked the most, know now by heart, and is enjoyed by all... is finally making it to the blog. This has been my favorite dish ever since I can remember (thanks Mom!) so it has definitely earned the "family recipe" label. This is actually one of the first recipes I cooked for Patrick and it turns out the way to his heart was with this recipe!

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef (make it healthier: lean beef)
1 - 16 oz can pork and beans (make it healthier: vegetarian beans)
3/4 cup barbeque sauce (make it healthier: light bbq sauce)
1 small onion, chopped
2 tbs brown sugar
1 can biscuits
1 cup shredded cheese (make it healthier: 2% milk cheese)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375F. Saute onions and brown beef, drain. In separate bowl mix beans, bbq sauce, brown sugar, and some cheese. Add drained beef and onions. Place into a 2-qt casserole dish and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Cook in oven for 15 minutes (or until bubbly). Then remove and add biscuits. Cook until biscuits are golden unless you're Patrick and want them pale.

top left: Bean mixture waiting for the beef and onions! 

top right: In the casserole dish with sprinkled cheese before the oven. 

bottom left: Half-way through baking, just added the biscuits. 

bottom right: All done! Nice & golden!

Pizza Casserole

One day Whitney decided we should make a pizza casserole. When she described it to me, it just sounded like regular-old pasta in a casserole dish, so I made suggestions of including pizza crust and using pizza sauce. Unfortunately, the store didn't have big jars of pizza sauce and I didn't have a recipe for it while I was there, but we did get to try the crust idea, and it turned out great.

Ingredients

Sauce (We ended up just using a pasta sauce, but I would have liked to try it with a pizza sauce to give it more of an overall pizza flavor)

Mozzarella cheese

Bite-size pasta (We used rotini)

Pizza dough (We used Pillsbury pizza crust dough from a can)

Pizza toppings (Whatever you like on your pizza! We used mushrooms, onions, pepperoni)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven for the pizza dough. Grease casserole dish and spread dough to cover it. Bake crust by itself just short of desired doneness and remove from oven.

2. Reduce oven heat to 325. Prepare toppings (for our version, sautéing onions and mushrooms) and cook pasta 2 minutes short of al dente.

3. Mix cheese, toppings, pasta, and sauce in bowl, and pour mixture into casserole dish. Bake for 15 minutes, top with cheese, and bake another five minutes. Serve and eat!

We mostly guessed on amounts, temperatures, and cooking times, so I'm sure there's plenty of flexibility there to experiment.

Step 1: Prepare crust!

Step 2: Prepare toppings and pasta!

Step 3: Mix sauce! Check out that action shot!

Ready to eat!

It tasted great, and made for very tasty leftovers. I'm excited to try more variations on this!

Foster's Creamy Mac, Chicken, and Cheese

Whitney's been bugging me about making a guest post for a while now. Last night she finally gave me the permissions to do so, so without any further excuses, here I am!

Whitney recently gifted me with Sara Foster's Fresh Every Day cookbook. This past Tuesday evening, she had some errands to run, so I offered to cook, and was excited to try something from my new cookbook! Most of the dinner meals in the book are a bit intimidating for the amateur cook, but the Creamy Mac, Chicken, and Cheese looked so good that I psyched myself up to try it. You can find the original recipe here; I've pasted it below with my notes.

Serves 8 to 10

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for buttering the baking dish

½ pound short, bite-size pasta such as penne, ziti, shells, bow ties, or orecchiette We used shells - worked great!

2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups milk

2 cups heavy cream Turns out those little cartons only have 1 cup, so that's what I used! Turned out fine still.

3½ cups cooked shredded chicken (from 3½ to 4-pound roasted chicken)

I didn't happen to have a roasted chicken lying around (give me a break, Sara), so I just picked up some raw chicken breast tenders, sliced them up, and cooked them in a pan. I also considered one of those grocery store rotisserie chickens.

2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces)

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (about 1½ ounces)

8 ounces fresh spinach, washed, stems removed, and drained (about 4 cups)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh marjoram leaves or 2 teaspoons dried

1 to 2 tablespoons hot sauce (Tabasco or Texas Pete) Whitney despises all things spicy, so I left this out to be safe.

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a 9 x 13-inch baking dish.

I just used the 9x9 dish I had. I hate measuring, so I just sort of fudged all the ingredient amounts down a little bit, and it ended up fitting mostly.

2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir, and cook until al dente. Drain in a colander and transfer the pasta to a large bowl. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and toss to coat.

3. Melt the butter with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute longer, stirring constantly so the garlic doesn’t brown.

4. Stir in the milk and cream, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is reduced by half and is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 20 minutes.

I had realized only after starting to cook this that I had picked a recipe from the "things that take a really long time to prepare" section of the book, so I figured I would try to speed up this step by boiling the mixture, covered, and walking away. Oops. After cleaning up that mess, I still didn't feel like simmering it all the way, so my impatience combined with the reduced amount of cream led to a sauce that was thinner than it should have been. I didn't really mind, but this was the main thing Whitney mentioned for improvement next time.

5. Remove the sauce from the heat and add the chicken, Cheddar, Parmesan, spinach, marjoram, hot sauce, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Stir until the cheeses have melted and the spinach is wilted. Pour into the bowl with the pasta and toss to coat the pasta with the sauce. Taste for salt and pepper and season with more to taste.

Couldn't believe that much spinach was going to fit in there, but after waiting for it to wilt a bit, it mixed in well.

6. Transfer the pasta to the prepared baking dish, scraping all the sauce out of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and bake for about 45 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling around the edges and the pasta is slightly brown on top. Let the pasta rest for about 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm.

Because we were already so hungry, I took out some to eat before it went in the oven, and it was fine. The oven just got everything hot and looking good, and let all the stuff blend and absorb.

The chef with his creation.

Close up.

Served with white wine (in front of the TV, of course!)

All in all, a great meal - tasty and hearty, and the spinach is a nice touch. I would cook this again, although I would probably try to find more than two people to eat it!

Chicken Casserole

The other evening I offered to make Patrick a casserole. I asked if he had any suggestions. For example, would he want it to be pasta-based or meat-based? Any particular veggies? And so forth... well this is what he wanted: a creamy, chicken casserole with mushrooms and onions and something crunchy on top. Pretty basic, I thought. I'm a stickler for recipes and even though I love trying new things in the kitchen they're usually from recipes. I was having trouble finding a recipe that fit all these criteria. Finally Patrick said, "you don't really need a recipe for this, do you?" So I decided to experiment! Originally I had just wanted to put all the raw ingredients in a casserole dish and then cook! I opted to cook the ingredients and then warm it all up because I didn't want to gamble with cooking times! Here's my concoction. I think I'll name it in honor of Patrick! ha!

Patrick's Requested "Creamy-Chicken-Mushroom-Onions-Something Crunchy on top" Casserole
Serves 4

Ingredients
1/2 lb chicken breast or tenderloins*
1/2 carton of mushrooms*
1/2 medium onion*
1/2 frozen box chopped broccoli*
1 can cream of chicken (or any variety) soup -- get the healthy one!!
2 single serving cartons MINUTE Ready to Serve Brown Rice**
(or approx 2c cooked brown rice)
1 bag Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix
desired seasonings

Directions
1. Slice onions and mushrooms. Begin sauteing in a skillet with olive oil. Add seasonings. I used salt, pepper, and a rosemary garlic blend. Meanwhile begin cooking broccoli.
2. Slice chicken in bite size pieces. After onions and mushrooms have softened add chicken to skillet. Season chicken and cook until done. Meanwhile cook rice in microwave (only takes a minute!).
3. Combine onions, mushrooms, and chicken mixture with rice, broccoli, and cream of chicken soup in a bowl. Place in 9x9 casserole dish. Top with stuffing mix.
4. Warm in a preheated 350 oven for about 20 minutes.

My Notes
*I halved the chicken, onions, mushrooms, and broccoli for two reasons. Reason One was because I knew just two people would be eating this casserole. If you do include all the ingredients use a larger casserole dish! Reason Two was because I knew I could save the halved ingredients for another meal later on in the week... possibly chicken fried rice! Be on the lookout for this recipe!
**I found these amazing Minute Ready to Serve Brown Rice cartons! I'd highly recommend them. They turned out perfect. But if you'd prefer to cook the rice that's absolutely fine.

I'd definitely make this again and maybe even experiment again!

Chilaquiles Casserole

The other evening I made a Chilaquiles Casserole from eatingwell.com. Eating Well is one of my favorite websites to visit. You can access the recipe and website here: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/chilaquiles_casserole.html

For your convenience I've pasted it here with my comments.


Chilaquiles Casserole
From EatingWell: June/July 2006

Our version of this enchilada-style chilaquiles casserole is packed with nutritious beans and vegetables. Canned prepared enchilada sauce has great flavor and keeps the prep time quick. It can vary in heat level so find one that suits your taste. If you want to eliminate the heat altogether, try a green enchilada sauce (which is often milder than red) or substitute two 8-ounce cans of plain tomato sauce.

10 servings
Active Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients
* 1 tablespoon canola oil
* 1 medium onion, diced
* 1 medium zucchini, grated
* 1 19-ounce can black beans, rinsed
* 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
* 1 1/2 cups corn, frozen (thawed) or fresh
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 12 corn tortillas, quartered
* 1 19-ounce can mild red or green enchilada sauce
* 1 1/4 cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly coat a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in zucchini, beans, tomatoes, corn, cumin and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are heated through, about 3 minutes.
3. Scatter half the tortilla pieces in the pan. Top with half the vegetable mixture, half the enchilada sauce and half the cheese. Repeat with one more layer of tortillas, vegetables, sauce and cheese. Cover with foil.
4. Bake the casserole for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking until the casserole is bubbling around the edges and the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes more.

Nutrition
Per serving: 243 calories; 10 g fat (5 g sat, 4 g mono); 23 mg cholesterol; 30 g carbohydrates; 9 g protein; 5 g fiber; 338 mg sodium; 267 mg potassium.


My Notes!
I used canned corn and whole wheat tortillas which was a slight variation from the ingredients. I had trouble finding the right can sizes in the grocery store so actually used to cans of black beans. I didn't have cumin in my seasoning collection and used a chile powder instead. This is a rather large casserole -- serves 10! I imagine it could be easily halved.

Menu Ideas
I served this casserole with yellow rice and a tomato-avocado salsa.

Would I eat/make this again? Yes!