2 Meals in a Day

Note the post title, I couldn't quite pull out 5 meals in a day like Rachael Ray, but I have a 9-5 and she makes money just from having her face on kitchenware. So you are just going to have to deal with 2 meals with some leftovers.

Today's recipes are ones I ganked from Allrecipes.com that just happened to have some similar ingredients. Now I made these over the course of two days because they had similar ingredients, but if you were wanting to cook a couple meals at one time for the week, this would be a good combination.

1st recipe:

Chicken and Black Bean Casserole

 http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-and-black-bean-casserole/detail.aspx

 I had to try this recipe since it has chicken and black beans which make for a high protein dinner. I also always have canned tomatoes, rice and green chiles on me since they are common to many of my other recipes. So this is a great meal if you have a lot of canned basics in your cupboard.

 Overall, this recipe was ok. It smelled great but it was somewhat bland. If this was spiced up more, it would be great. I think it could also use more rice as well. I took the advice of one of the comments and made sure I covered the dish so the rice would cook and the dish wouldn't dry up. Still, a great dish to cook if you want high protein and you have some canned goods on ya. Just be ready to spice it up.

2nd Recipe:

 Ranchero Enchilada Casserole

 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/ranchero-enchilada-casserole/detail.aspx 

So this recipe ties in well with the above recipe because they both use less than 1 can of black beans and they both use chicken. So you can cook all your chicken together and use 1 can of black beans and not have to throw it out or store them. However, this recipe does not use a full can of tomato paste, so you could try to find another recipe that uses a small amount of tomato paste....or throw away $.38 worth of tomato paste...your choice.

This recipe was very tasty. I am a sucker for casseroles that use cream of chicken soup and the way you spice it up, it tastes like enchilada sauce. I followed the recipe as it said and I don't know if you could make it too much better. It was really creamy and mexicany but not terrible on the calories--plus it still has chicken and black beans for the protein. It recommends using a shallow baking dish which is good because the cream mixture is pretty thick and needs to be spread out evenly as well as cooked evenly...or it will taste a little off.

 Definitely a good Mexican comfort food type recipe.

 Enjoy!