altarflame | For Dama

Southwestern Chicken and Rice Casserole

-3/4 cup (before cooking) brown rice
-5-6 boneless chicken tenderloins, cubed
-half a green bell pepper, diced
-half a red bell pepper, diced (both toasted, I use the toaster oven, you could also bake them dry on a tray)
-1-2 roma tomatoes (or equivalent amount of other tomatoes)
-about a quarter cup of diced onion
-couple of cloves of minced garlic
-half a stick of butter
-olive oil
-seasoned salt
-chili powder
-regular salt
-about a handful of white flour
-cheddar and/or pepper jack cheese. I highly reccomend both.

I start working on this here and there throughout the day. Like you can put the rice on with a timer and cook it in the morning, or whenever, and likewise with dicing up the peppers and sticking them in the toaster oven (where they can sit until you're ready, as far as I'm concerned) or thawing out the chicken/sauteeing it up in the olive oil with seasoned salt all over it. In any case, in a casserole dish with a lid you will need to layer, from the bottom;

-the cooked rice, with chili powder stirred in to your taste
-the chicken, cooked in olive oil and slathered in seasoned salt
-the peppers
-a rou (sp?) which is the olive oil from cooking the chicken, with the butter melted into it, and the onion and garlic cooked together until they're done - then throw in the flour to thicken it, salt and pepper to season, and pour it somewhat evenly over what you have so far
-the tomatoes
-as much shredded cheddar and monterey/pepper jack cheese as you like

Bake it at 350, covered, for 45 minutes. I use lots of chili powder and a ton of pepper jack cheese, and do not find this at all spicy. Grant loads his bowl up with hot sauce since the rest of us don't want it spicy - Jake eats it with us, even. But I have been shocked by what other people think is "spicy" before, so who knows I guess.

Anyway...G and I both end up painfully full everytime I cook this. He curses me for it being so wonderful as he lays on the couch moaning. That has to count for something.