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Friday, July 25, 2014

Quick Dinner: Chicken and Bean Taco Bake

So.
It's summer, and that means I have time for things like phone calls with friends who I don't connect with often enough.  I had one of those such phone calls this week, and one of the many things we talked about in the hour we spent on the phone was cleaning out the freezer.  Apparently, my friend defrosts her freezer every summer.  She was cooking a turkey this week on her way to the bottom.
Since we moved 2 years ago, I have plugged my chest freezer in and put things in it.  While I am not planning to defrost my freezer anytime soon, I too would like to eat to the bottom of it over the summer.  Thankfully, I also don't have a turkey seeing as I'm the only person here who would eat it.  But perhaps I should defrost from time to time.  What would I do with everything in the freezer while I do that though?
This recipe, however, can help you clean out the freezer if your freezer is anything like mine.  I used up the end of packages of tortillas, cooked chicken that was hiding in a ziploc bag, and a bag of the pinto beans that I cooked in the crock pot last winter.
On a night where you need to clean out the freezer, and really don't have much time, I would recommend this.  J and I enjoyed it.
I present to you now Picky Palate's Chicken and Bean Taco Bake:

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 c cooked chicken, shredded
1-15 oz can beans (the original used black, I used pinto)
5 tortillas, cut into eighths
1 c salsa
1/2 c sour cream
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 c shredded cheese
Method:
1.  Preheat oven to 350F.  In an ovenproof skillet, heat oil and add onion.  Cook until soft before adding chicken and tortillas.  Stir to combine.
2.  In a measuring cup, combine salsa, sour cream and cumin.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over the chicken mixture and stir to combine.  Top with cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes, until heated through and the cheese is melted.  

From Picky Palate

You know how when you make a recipe there's always 2 tortillas left over, so you stick the leftovers in the freezer to dry out while you forget about them?  Maybe that's just me.  This was a good way to use those dried-out orphans.

It didn't stir well in the pan, but we did what we could and mixed things up before pouring the salsa over and sprinkling with cheese.

Ready for the oven!
All melty and ready to eat!  J and I bought a new skillet a couple of years ago, and I made sure that it had an oven-safe handle.  It's times like this that I'm glad we did.

Just like I'm sometimes glad that there are things lurking in the bottom of my freezer that can make a quick dinner like this.  Yum.

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