Mex-I-Can! Chilaquiles Casserole

Mex-I-Can! In our house we love Mexican food for its comforting flavors, unique spice combinations, and the fact that you can find it everywhere in SoCal. Our area is known for its abundance of avocado trees, and a lady at Hubby’s church brought several over for the staff the other day. Hubby brought some home and I was all too happy to oblige – how can you turn down delicious fresh produce?

We used the avocadoes to make Alton Brown’s guacamole. It was fantastic! I highly recommend it if you are looking for a recipe – easy, tasty, simple. Can’t get any better than that. It was hard to wait that hour with the yummy lime and cilantro smells taunting us, but I promise it’s worth it. The lime kind of melds all the flavors together and just makes it awesome. I forgot to take a picture but you all know how the guac rocks.

The rockin’ guac inspired me to think of another Mexican dish to enjoy the next night. I was in the mood for enchiladas, and had saved Eating Well’s chilaquiles recipe in my files, so I decided to run with it. If you’ve never tried chilaquiles (pronounced chee-la-KEE-lays), I’d describe it as enchilada filling spread between layers of tortilla wedges, if that makes sense. Traditional recipes call for frying the tortillas first. This version is much healthier, and extremely tasty even without any meat. I used to be a vegetarian several years ago so I am a full-fledged supporter of less meat in our diets. More veggies are always a good thing J

We didn’t have enchilada sauce in the apartment, so I thought about making a grocery store run but realized we had all the ingredients to make it. Here’s the recipe. It made about 3 cups of sauce, and I used all of it. Runny chilaquiles ensued, but it was still tasty J

To make the sauce:

Just brown your spices in some EVOO...

...and add the wet ingredients for the sauce and keep a-stirrin’ until you get something like this:

Good job. I know the sauce makes you wanna salsa now, but please wait until your food is ready. Now get all your chilly keely ingredients togetha. I followed the recipe pretty closely except for the following substitutions: Monterey Jack cheese for the Cheddar, and a can of refried black beans for the regular black beans since that’s all they had at the store.

Brown yer onions...

Layer your tortilla wedges in the pan...

Add grated zucchini to your onions...

Add your black beans...

Diced tomatoes...

Corn...

...and stir like Sir-Mix-a-Lot, 'cause these chilaquiles got back. Spread the mixture on top of the tortilla wedges like so:

Add your sauce...

...and your cheese. Repeat the layering once more and BAKE until it's gooey and bubbly :)

Y el fin. ¡Es delicioso!

We enjoyed several more servings of leftovers. It’s great heated up in the microwave the next day. ¡Buen provecho!