QUESADILLA CASSEROLE

remember a few weeks ago when i was all about cooking for my farmer? remember when i cooked him a maximum of two meels one week and i was pretty jazzed about it? well allow me to brag! here is one of the delish. recipes i made. it was super easy, pretty quick, and i even cut the fat/calorie content. word.

cast of characters:

2 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1/2 tsp oregano leaves, 1/2 tsp red pepps,
2 chicken breasts, 1/2 c chopped onion, 1 16 oz can tomato sauce, 1 can black beans,
1 can corn (undrained), 1 can salsa verde, tortillas, 2 cups shredded cheese
see that mccormick spice package? it has pre-measured spices and a recipe on the back. yum and yum. i've made two so far and they have both been just fine. no complaints here. then i threw in some reduced fat sargento mexican blend cheese and those mission whole wheat tortillas to round out the health factor. (as opposed to white flour tortillas and regular cheddar cheese.) 

another note: you're supposed to use ground beef, but i used diced chicken. i didn't include the chickn in the picture above because, as it turns out, raw chicken doesn't photograph all too well. ick. moving on...

first you're going to get a large skillet and toss in your two chicken breasts you've diced up. brown the chicken. perfecto. as the chicken is browning, throw in your diced onion (which i just realized isn't pictured either...woops). after those two are cooked/safely nibble-worthy, add the tomato sauce, beans, corn, salsa verde and all the spices except for the red pepps. save the red pepps for the topping right before you bake it in the oven. now your concoction is definitely nibble-worthy. don't do it, you'll spoil your dinner. okay, do it. you don't want to poison your family.

see what i mean about the raw chicken? ick.
now that all ingredients have been cooked up real real good-like, you're ready to preheat your oven. turn it to 350. fab. grab your 13x9x2 baking dish and spray the crap out of it with pam. trust. if you don't you'll be soaking it for nothing short of a week. done? good. now you can layer the bottom of the pan with 1/2 of your chicken mixture. next you're going to slap two tortillas atop the chicken mixture. add the rest of the chicken mixture, sprinkle with cheese, red pepps and voila! you've made yourself a quesadilla casserole. hip hip!


now plop this sucker in your preheated oven and cook it right on up for 15 minutes. when you pull it from the oven, let it relax for about 10 minutes. you'll burn the shiza out of your mouth and hand if you don't. trust.

after dinner, you'll have something that looks like this...


i know what you're thinking. did the farmer and bell really eat over half of the casserole? ummm...yes. it was good! i'm not mad about it.

at this point i feel i should let you know i deviated from the mccormick recipe quite a lot, but it still totally turned out yummy x 5000 and it was quite a bit healthier than their version. but if you really want to try their less-superior way:
  • use beef instead of chicken
  • regular cheese
  • and when you go to layer the casserole: use less of your mixture on the bottom, add tortillas, sprinkle cheese, more mixture, add tortillas, sprinkle cheese, remainder of mixture, sprinkle cheese
final thought: i bet this casserole would be super yum if you topped it with a little sour cream and some cilantro. my farmer doesn't care for cilantro...downright sinful.