Week 27 Recipe: Creamy Enchilada Pie

You know what I was thinking the other day?  Casseroles are awesome!  You mix everything together and throw it in the oven.  It gets all bubbly and crusty on top and best of all....the longer you leave them in the fridge the better they seem to taste.  reheated or cold, they just taste yummy.  So here's this week's tip 'o the hat to casseroles: Creamy Enchilada Pie.

I'm a big fan of enchilada sauce.  For some reason my hubby likes enchiladas, but if you use the sauce in a casserole then not so much.  Weird, right?  So I thought I would try to pump up the volume on the normal enchilada casserole recipe to see if I could win him over.

Ingredients:

Serves 8

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey

1 24 oz can of red enchilada sauce

corn tortillas

1/2 cup of corn

1/2 cup of black beans

1 jalapeño pepper chopped fine

1/2 cup of onion chopped fine

8 oz cream cheese softened

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350°.

Brown your ground beef and drain off any liquid.  

Add the black beans, corn and some of the enchilada sauce to the meat, mix well.  I say some of the sauce because you only want to add enough to moisten the meat; you don't want it overly soupy.

mix the cream cheese, jalapeño and onion in a bowl.  

Line a 9"x 9" casserole dish with foil.  

Spread a small amount of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the dish.

Dip your tortillas in the enchilada sauce and lay in the bottom of the dish.  4 to 5 should get you good coverage and I usually cut some in half to make sure the bottom gets totally covered.

Spread half of the cream cheese mixture over the tortillas.  This can get a little messy, but what fun is cooking if you aren't getting messy?

Layer on half of the meat mixture and sprinkle with some cheese.  

Repeat.

Cover with a third layer of tortillas and sprinkle the top generously with cheese.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes.  That's another reason casseroles are so great; all the ingredients are already cooked so you don't have to be so precise on baking time.  You just want everything to marry together.

Serve with your favorite cornbread.  Yum!