Shamelessly.... lazy? (and a new casserole!)

So among the things that I am (apparently) horrible at doing regularly - I assure you that a long list of household chores is included in that statement - blogging appears to be one of them.

I will use the gold standard of excuses (which is anything WEDDING RELATED for those of you who haven't figured that out yet) and absolve myself of any real responsibility or accountability for much of anything else.

Sadly for me, I think the anything-wedding-related excuse window is running out - since... well, the Honeymoon was really the last box to check in that category.  sad for me. 

But since we were on our (totally fabulous wonderfully magical and completely exhausing) honeymoon, I don't feel bad about ignoring my cute little domestic blog.

I am choosing not to address the fact that the blog remained ignored for a few weeks upon our return.  I suggest you ignore that fact as well.

Thank you.

So! for my triumphant return, I bring to you a tried and tested recipe - and a casserole at that! cooked in my Le Creuset! If that doesn't sound domestic to you I don't know what would.  Maybe attaching mop heads to my feet so that I simultaneously scrub the floor while I chase the cat... who knows.

Chicken Tamale Casserole (courtesy of Cooking Light)

Ingredients

Click to see savings

Click to see savings

1 cup (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided (I'm pretty sure I used more)

1/3 cup fat-free milk (I used Lactaid)

1/4 cup egg substitute (I used an egg)

1 teaspoon ground cumin (tablespoon!)

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper (more!)

1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn (ew. normal corn, RINSED)

1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (Jiffy!)

1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained

Cooking spray

1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (spicy!)

2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (I shredded a roasted chicken from the deli and used all of it)

 Preheat the oven to 400. and combine 1/4 cup of the cheese (I probably used more.. if you're noticing a pattern, good for you Gumshoe!) with the next 7 ingredients (through the chiles).  This should make a pretty lumpy, not too wet cornbread mixtrue.  Spray your 9x13 le creuset and dump it all in.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes - but error on the side of over cooking the bread/crust.  If the base is mushy, it's only going to get mushier and that's not delicious.
Then, the recipe calls for poking holes in the bread, pouring the enchilada sauce over it and covering the whole thing in chicken, then cheese and popping it back in the oven for another 15 minutes to warm, melt and get burbbly (technical term patented by my mom).

I decided that I wanted a bit more flavor so I chopped up some onion shallots that have been in my fridge for 2 months and a can of (rinsed) black beans to the chicken.  I think I also salted the chicken and gave it a healthy sprinkle of more chili powder.  I definitely did NOT use all of the enchilada sauce since the only negative reviews I saw were that this came out soupy and mushy.  (also, I cheaped out and bought some weird enchilada sauce that was on sale and I thought it tasted weird).

15 minutes for the second baking seemed perfect and the result was beyond delicious.  I used a few minutes of convection baking to really brown up the cheese and then let the thing sit for 5 minutes before dissecting it.  I garnished with sour cream (Cooking Light says "fat free" sour cream, but that tastes like crap) and some chopped avocado. 

I definitely used more cheese than called for...

 If I were to make it again, I think I'd consider more fresh peppers or onion in the cornbread and maybe playing more with the chicken spices before adding that layer.  All in all, totally delicious, minimal prep time and lots of leftovers so I won't have to cook again for a few days.

ta-da!