Whisked Away Wednesday: Chili Relleno Casserole

Exciting news! I leave for Mexico tomorrow! Yay! I am going to visit Jose (my boyfriend) for an extended weekend. So, in honor of my trip to Mexico, I am sharing the recipe for a luscious, layered, chili relleno casserole. It is composed of roasted Anaheim chilies, melty cheese, creamy black beans, ground turkey, and olives, which are then smothered in green enchilada sauce and topped with more cheese. Mouth watering yet?

Recipe courtesy of For the Love of Cooking

Ingredients

3 - 5 Anaheim chilies (I used 3 but recommend using 5, the more the better, no?)

3 eggs

3 tbsp flour

3 tbsp sour cream

1 3 oz can of sliced black olives

2 cups of low fat Mexican blend cheese

1 can black beans, rinsed & drained

1 1/2 cups ground meat (I used turkey cause I'm healthy like that ☺)

1 can green enchilada sauce

Optional Toppers, take your pick:

Sour cream

Diced green onion

Salsa

Cheese

Avocado (or guacamole)

Rinse chilies and place on a baking sheet covered in foil. Move oven rack to very top of oven and broil chilies for about 5 minutes on each side or until skin is blackened.

Remove from oven and place in a Ziploc bag. Close bag and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Remove chilies. Skin and remove veins and seeds. Cut into strips.

Preheat oven to 350℉. Combine eggs, flour, sour cream, olives, salt and pepper to taste then mix thoroughly. Coat a baking dish with cooking spray.

Add a layer of the chilies.

Then egg mixture, then cheese, then black beans, then ground meat; repeat layers until gone.

I ended up making one large casserole and one small one with the extra.

Top with enchilada sauce and a more cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Serve with optional toppings and lots of napkins!

P.S. The mini casserole I made, I refrigerated and took for lunch the next day. It was even more sabroso (delicious, flavorful) after resting for a day in the fridge. As I was heating it up my coworkers were definitely struck with lunch envy ;)

Another Mexican street food recipe! Every heard of vaselote? I hadn't either until Jose introduced me to this heavenly corn snack, and now its one of my faves! It's Mexican comfort food at it's best. It is sold everywhere in Mexico going by the name vaselote or esquite. By either name... its good! You can order it however you like, off the cob, on the cob, extra chili powder, with lime juice, without lime juice, less mayo, more mayo, extra cheesy or less cheesy (but who would ever want anything LESS cheesy???). I didn't have time to actually grill the corn, so in order to give it that charred smokey taste, I used canned corn and put it in a dry skillet and charred it a bit over high heat. You can use queso fresco or queso cojita. Queso fresco is milder and moister, queso cojita is more crumbly and has a bit stronger flavor. I set out all the ingredients and let people put them together however they wanted. Scrumptious corny goodness... Ole!

Vaselote

Ingredients

Corn

2 cans sweet corn

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 tbsp salt

Drain corn well, heat a heavy bottomed skillet over high heat. When skillet is hot add corn. Cook stirring often until corn is lightly browned (if some pieces get a little charred this is good as it adds to the flavor!). When corn is light brown, add in butter and salt. Stir often until butter is melted. Remove from heat.

Add Ins

Salt

Sour cream

Mayonnaise

Queso fresco

Lime juice

Chili powder

Salsa Valentina (or Tabasco sauce)

I would recommend that each person serve themselves so that they can add whichever ingredients in whatever quantity they would like.

My favorite combination.....

For each individual vaselote, put 1 spoonful of mayo or sour cream in the bottom of a small dish or glass. Top with one cup of corn. Top corn with more mayo/sour cream, queso fresco, chili powder and a bit of salsa and about 2 tsp of lime juice. Mix well. Top with a bit more queso and chili powder. Serve.

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