King Ranch Casserole

As I approach my third straight week of "try something completely new" challenge, I am already finding myself gravitating towards recipes that are familiar - similar flavors and textures to those things I have in my arsenal. This King Ranch Casserole sounds really yummy, and I'm excited to try it out. Also, it will use up the rest of that package of corn tortillas I bought for the Mexican Lasagna from last week...

This recipe comes from "The Casserole Queens Cookbook". I love their recipes for the way they incorporate our favorite childhood dishes, but make them a bit healthier, classier, more grown-up.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 C chicken broth
• 1 can Rotel (or whatever brand of diced tomatoes with green chiles you buy)
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• cooking spray (I use my Pampered Chef mister filled with EVOO)
• 12 8-inch corn tortillas, cut into quarters
• 1 3-pound roasted chicken, boned and shredded (I admit to having 3 lbs worth of pieces, that I baked up, skinned, boned and shredded and popped into the freezer sometime in the fall, not a freshly roasted chicken)
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 C grated Mexican-blend cheese (8 oz when weighed)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, combine cream soups, broth, tomatoes and garlic salt. Stir until warm through - about 5 minutes. remove from heat and set aside
• Grease a 13x9 baking dish with cooking spray. Cover the bottom with half of the corn tortilla quarters.
• Layer in half EACH of the chicken, and onion, then sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese.
• Pour half of the soup mixture over top, then repeat layers.
• Top the casserole with the remaining cheese.
• Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and lightly browned.

I'll let you know on Friday how this one turns out! We're having it Wednesday night, and we'll see how it goes over.