winner winner, healthier chicken enchilada bake dinner

Hoagie and I haven’t had a normal week in quite awhile, with people visiting and trips back home.  Consequently, I haven’t attempted to cook anything in weeks.  I must say, it was extremely nice being at home and having my chef of a dad around to make me delicious things.  They take care of me, what can I say. 

Tonight I wanted to make some sort of casserole involving black beans.  I do what I always do, and Googled “casserole with black beans”.  Enlightening.  I found this recipe here for a “Black Bean Chicken Casserole”.  I basically followed this recipe, making a few substitutions and additions along the way. 

I started with cooking the chicken in preparation for shredder.

No, no.  Not him again.  More like:

I’ve never boiled chicken before, but I thought this might be the best way to cook the chicken without using my crock pot.  I placed three small breasts in a pot, submerged them in water, and set the temp. on high until the water boiled.  I then lowered the temperature to medium and covered the pot for around 12 more minutes. 

         

I removed the chicken and cut through each piece to check for pinkness.  Each passed inspection and I left them to cool. 

After they chilled out, I used the above two-fork method to shred the chicken

and I was ready to get started on the rest of the meal.

This is what was involved:

2 tbsp. Olive Oil

1/4 cup Onions

1/4 cup green peppers

1 tbsp. minced garlic

1/2 tsp. paprika

1/4 tsp. Coriander

1/2 tsp. Oregano

1 1/4 cups vegetable Broth

3/4 cup Tomato Sauce

1 1/2 cups Chicken, cooked and shredded

1 cup corn

1/2 cup Black Beans, canned (drained)

1 cup baby spinach

1/2 cup mushrooms

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/4 tsp. Black Pepper

22 Tortilla Chips (approximately), crushed (enough to cover bottom of pan)

1 cup Reduced Fat Shredded Cheese – (4 Cheese Mexican)

I promise, it took longer to gather everything together and arrange it photogenically  than it took to make the entire meal.  Check out the two sneaks monkeying around in the back right corner. 

First I heated the oil in a medium pan and added the onion, green peppers, chili powder, cumin, and oregano.   I sautéed this until the onions became a bit brown.  I never  thought I’d see the day when I chopped up an onion.  I’ve always hated onions, but I’ve decided that I need to give them a try as they seem to add so much flavor.  My dad claims onions don’t make him cry.  I obviously did not inherit this gene.  When he told me this I remember thinking, “OK Chuck Norris.  Let me guess, YOU make onions cry”. 

 

I then added the vegetable broth and tomato sauce, brought it to a boil, let it simmer for a few minutes, and then turned off the heat.

 

Finally I added the rest of the ingredients, including the chicken, mushrooms, spinach, corn, beans, salt, pepper, and mixed it all together. 

I crunched up some tortilla chips and layered them on the bottom of the baking dish, and then spread the above mixture on top.  The cheese was then sprinkled on top.

 

The whole thing went into the oven at 350 degrees, covered, for 20 minutes.  I then uncovered it and baked it for 15 more minutes. 

On the side we also had some roasted broccoli, which I made by coating the pieces in 1/2 tsp of garlic, 1/2 tsp of red pepper, 1 tbsp of olive oil, and a pinch of kosher salt.  I roasted the broccoli at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

 

Final verdict: deeeeeelicious.  Definitely a winner. 

I would call this meal something more along the lines of a chicken enchilada bake, with a few healthy veggie additions.  The good news is, we have leftovers for the rest of the week.  Which we probably won’t eat and they will get thrown away, we really need to get better at that.