Muffin Top

Tastebud Tuesday: Chicken & Black Bean Casserole

Wooooowee I love when the whole family loves what I make for dinner! Tonight was one of those nights -- and boy was I grateful, especially after the disaster I made the other night. (Be on the lookout for Tastebud Tuesday: Extreme Fail Edition.) 

Here's tonight's recipe if you want to give it a try! (side note - I honestly can't remember where I orginally got the recipe -- I tweaked it a bit, but if anyone recognizes it from somewhere, I'd love to give credit where it's due!)

Chicken& Black Bean Casserole

2/3 c. brown rice
1 c. vegetable or chicken broth
1 T. olive oil
1/3 c. diced onion (I used frozen diced onion -- easy peasy)
2 med. zucchini, thinly sliced
2 cooked chicken breasts, chopped (I used about 2 cups of my shredded rotisserie chicken!)
1/2 c. sliced mushrooms
1/2 tsp. cumin
salt to taste
ground cayenne to taste (I skipped this altogether)
15 oz. can black beans, drained & rinsed
4 oz. can diced green chiles, drained
1-2 c. shredded cheddar

1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease 9x13 baking dish.
2. Mix rice & broth in a pot & bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, & simmer 45 min, or until tender. (**I was short on time, so I used brown minute rice instead of regular. Simmered in chicken broth 5 min. Boom.)
3. Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat; cook onion until tender. Mix in zucchini, chicken, & mushrooms. Season with cumin, salt, & cayenne. Cook & stir until zucchini is lightly browned & chicken is heated through.
4. Remove from heat; mix in beans, chiles, 1/2 of the cheese, and the cooked rice.
5. TASTE IT, and adjust seasoning if needed. (I'm adding this step for myself in EVERY RECIPE. All those cooking shows are paying off!) Transfer to prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
6. Cover loosely & bake 30 min. Uncover, bake 10 min more. (**I baked it for 30 minutes total, uncovered, and thought it was perfect.)
I served this with a dollop of plain greek yogurt (as our go-to sour cream substitute) - YUM.



Matt and both kids asked for seconds! *winning*

Warning: could be habit-forming.

Over the past several months, I've developed some habits -- some aren't awesome. For example:

- staying up way too late

- irrational addiction to cooking competitions (Can I get a shout-out, Cupcake Wars? Chopped, anyone?)

- re-adoption of my late-night snacking habits that I thought I'd finally conquered

... and somehow I only just realized a suspicious correlation between all of those. Interesting.

Anyway, some of my new habits have actually been really great for our family - and for my sanity throughout the week (which is, of course, also great for our family)! One of those habits is to set aside time each weekend to prepare some healthy snacks for the week. A common complaint is that it's just too expensive or inconvenient to eat healthy -- but if I take 20 minutes on Saturday or Sunday to do some really basic washing & chopping, we are set up for easy, healthy, inexpensive snacking for the week!

First, let me make a disclaimer -- when I say "healthy," I mean that I'm trying to make simple choices about eating as many fresh, unprocessed foods as possible. I do not mean to say that I buy lots of organic, free-range, etc. I would like to, but because of the cost, I'll buy organic when it's on sale or if the price is already comparable to non-organic.  For the time being, I'm considering it a victory just to buy fresh produce, period (and everything else I try to stick to things that mainly contain ingredients that I recognize - and can pronounce!). Baby steps.

My go-to produce purchases are made each week at Aldi & our local produce stand -- I haven't been able to find better produce at a better price anywhere else. We love multi-colored bell peppers, carrots, and fresh broccoli for dipping in hummus! Just a few minutes to wash & chop, and we're all set! Add in the apples & berries, and there are some great options for all of us.

Oh and the lettuce! I almost forgot. I get heads of Romaine, then tear them up (don't chop with a knife -- it turns the edges brown faster!) & rinse in my salad spinner. Then I store it in the salad spinner in the fridge, and it keeps perfectly for over a week -- much cheaper & better than bagged salad!!

I also buy a rotisserie chicken from Costco almost every week. Removing the skin & shredding the chicken is much easier when I do it right after getting home, while it's still warm from the store -- but sticking it it in the fridge and taking care of it the next day isn't that bad. Actually, my favorite method is to let Matt do it -- have you looked at the underside of a rotisserie chicken lately!? Blech. But $4.99 for enough chicken to shred & use in at least one dinner recipe plus several lunches (salads, chicken & cheese quesadillas for the kids, etc.) - that's probably my favorite deal of the week!

The best part is knowing that this week when I get hungry - or when my kids say they're hungry (ie. every 5 minutes) I don't have to try hard to think of or prepare a wholesome option. And that is a habit I'd like to keep!

The Dream... The Reality...

When my dear friend Betty described her vision for her daughter's 5th birthday party, I was thrilled to join the party planning team. It would be a tea party fit for a princess. There would be tea served in real china. There would be toulle. There would be makeup and music and dancing.

And there would be cakes.

Little cakes.

And I would bake them.

Well, folks. There was a Dream. And then there was The Reality.

Here's how it all went down.

First, let's start with The Dream. Look at these delightful little cakes. Or petit fours if you're fancy like that. If you're not fancy like that, then you'll appreciate my clarifying that the pronunciation is "pettyfours," not "petite fours" as I had been saying up until two days ago. If you already knew that, I don't want to hear about it.

I found these beauties at Cake Journal.

Or look at these precious little wonders from That Winsome Girl. See how they're all smooth and wonderful and, well... perfect?



That is what I was going to make!! And take beautiful photos of! To post on my blog! And get pinned on Pinterest! And be amaaazing!!!!!!!

And so I began with Betty Crocker, naturally. And my trusty iPhone to document my culinary genius.

I will say that my one shining moment in this entire process was that container of plain, fat free Greek yogurt that you may notice lurking in this high-quality photo.

Thanks to a tip I learned somewhere (ahem, Pinterest), I knew that 1 cup of oil could be replaced with 3/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt. So, seeing as I was all out of oil and in a complete panic, I took the plunge and dumped Greek yogurt into a bowl of birthday cake mix.

And it was AMAZING.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. At this juncture, I didn't yet know it would be amazing, and I was saying my prayers as I stuck these parchment-paper-lined-cake-pans-of-golden-dreams in the oven.

 

And when I snuck a bite of the freshly baked cakes - after successfully removing them from the pans without demolishing them (never actually done that before!) - I began frantically tweeting about my undying love for Greek yogurt. And parchment paper. Or something like that.



So, at this point, I was feeling pretty good about myself, so I grabbed my knife & a mason jar lid and I got down to business. It was time to cut some circles.

Next up: frosting. The place where dreams go to die. You could say I was getting a wee bit nervous at this point in the process. The frosting is lumpy. Little bits of cake are getting pulled up into the frosting and jacking everything up. Deep breath. Just keep frosting. Pink glaze covers a multitude of sins. And oh yes, there is pink glaze in our future. So frost on, sister. Frost on.





And then it was time.

The Pink Glaze.

We had an... interesting time together. My initial dreams of covering the entire cakes with a smooth, glossy pink glazed finish died hard and fast. So I went for more of a "drizzled" look.





So, inspired by dreams of glossy pink perfection, I managed to create a dozen mini cakes that looked... not so perfect. 

But it sure was fun. :)