Southwest Chicken Casserole

Have I ever mentioned I'm from Texas? Oh, ok. Cause I am. Which means occasionally, I get a hankerin' for something Mexican-ish. Yes, I just said "hankerin'." I'm just that cool. Anyway...back to food. I like "Southwestern" flavors, but I'm not huge on tongue-on-fire spicy. I think this little number did pretty well, because it tasted "Southwestern" without making me want to drink a gallon of water. Victory is mine, friends. Victory is mine.

All joking aside...maybe...this did turn out better than I expected. It was another one of my "experiments" where I'm not quite sure if it will be successful or disgusting. In this case, successful. My hubby thought so too. That's always a plus. I used flour tortillas in mine, but you could use corn tortillas just as well. Whatever floats your boat. I'm not a huge corn tortilla fan, so flour did it for me.

What makes this meal for me is the tomatillos. They're my secret weapon. Do you know what a tomatillo is? They're these awesome little green tomato looking things. Except they don't taste like tomatoes. I don't like tomatoes. But I like tomatillos. They look like this, with they're cute little paper peel still on:

Then, once you peel them so you can cook them, they look like this:

Aren't they precious? Ok, now I'm losing it. Sorry folks. Back to the bigger picture. I make a sauce with these little things, chicken broth, and some spices. So good. If you like more spice in your food, it would be easy to add some green chiles to the tomatillo sauce in this casserole to kick up the heat factor substantially, so do what you will. I won't judge. And with that...I hope you enjoy this presentation of the Persnickety Picnic's Southwest Chicken Casserole. And...ACTION!

Ingredients:
-2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
-1 can whole kernel corn, drained
-1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
-1 cup shredded cheese (I used colby jack)
-6 fajita sized tortillas (I used flour, but corn is fine too)
A homemade enchilada sauce made from: (if you can't make it from scratch, just buy green enchilada sauce)
-10 medium sized tomatillos, peeled and quartered
-3 cups chicken broth
-1.5 tablespoon garlic powder
-1.5 teaspoons onion powder
-1 teaspoon cumin

Directions:
In a large bowl, mix together the shredded chicken, corn, and black beans.

Set aside.

In a large sauce pan, boil the chicken broth. Add the quartered tomatillos

and let them cook until tender, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and set aside. Let cool completely, then blend everything in the pot in a blender until it's smooth. You can leave some chunks of tomatillos if you prefer. Add the spices and stir to combine well. Sauce is done!

In a 9 x 9 baking dish, lay half the tortillas to cover the bottom.

I ripped two tortillas in half and laid the "flat" edges against the straight sides of the pan, then placed a whole tortilla in the middle to cover anything the others didn't. Spoon in half of the chicken mixture and smooth into a thick layer.

Spoon about half of the tomatillo sauce evenly over the chicken mixture.

Sprinkle half the cheese evenly over the sauce.

Place down another layer of the tortillas, same as before. Add the rest of the chicken mixture, spreading evenly. Add the remaining sauce evenly over the chicken mixture. Finally, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.

Bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes, until everything is hot and bubbly and the cheese is melted.

Serve hot and enjoy!