Oh hey! Remember how I have a blog? Sorry, I got a little distracted for a while there. Fear not, I have been making things at my usual break neck speed. Thanks to all of you who kept checking in on the blog despite my laziness. You really would think I would have upped my game when the blog was mentioned in the family Christmas letter.
Anyway, today I thought I would share a side-by-side comparison of two recent hot dishes ('tis the season for hot dish, aka winter)--Tamale Pie times two.
The first comes from Cooking Light Magazine. I made this for the first time a few months ago and Steve declared it one of his favorites out of everything I had ever cooked.
Chicken Tamale Casserole
1 cup preshredded mexican blend cheese, divided
1/2 cup fat free milk
1/4 cup egg substitue (I used 1 egg)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
1 can (14 3/4 oz) cream-style corn
1 (8.5 oz) box corn muffin mix
1 (4 oz) can chopped green chiles, drained
Cooking spray
1 (10-oz) can enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
Preheat oven to 400. Combine 1/4 cup cheese with next 7 ingredients (through green chiles). Stir until just moist. Pour mixture into a 13"x9" pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until set.
Pierce entire surface with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken; sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese (or if you are me, more). Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove, let sit for 5 minutes. Cut into squares and serve topped with sour cream. Serves 8.
Like I said, this was pretty popular in our house. I kind of think corn bread should be prepared in the way the base of this dish is for regular old corn bread purposes. The only problem I found with it was that it didn't really satiate my hunger for a long period of time. I decided to look for other options with more stuff in them. As always, The Joy of Cooking comes to the rescue.
Corn Bread Tamale Pie
Saute in a large skillet over med-high heat:
1 lb ground beef (I used ground turkey)
1 medium onion, chopped
When meat is browned and the onion translucent, about 10 minutes, add:
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can drained canned or frozen corn
1 cup tomato sauce
1 cup water or broth
1 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Simmer 15 minutes. Set aside. Preheat oven to 450.
In a medium bowl, whisk together:
3/4 cup corn meal
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
In a small bowl, whisk together until well blended:
1 egg, 1/3 cup milk, and 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk until well combined. Spread the meat mixture in a greased 3-quart casserole and cover with the corn bread topping. The topping will (supposedly) disappear into the meat mixture but will rise during baking and form a layer of corn bread. Bake until corn bread is brown, 20-25 minutes.
OK, this one did not work out as well as I had hoped. First of all there seemed to be waaay too much of the meat mixture, and then there wasn't enough of the corn bread to even cover the whole top of the casserole. So I decided to double the corn bread part of the recipe, which made the whole thing pretty dry. So fail on my part, but we ate it anyway. This was a while ago so I can't really remember what we did to remedy the dry corn bread problem, but it seems like just reheating it with a little broth or enchilada sauce would make it all better.
Cooking light wins this round.
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