In the Kitchen~

Last weekend Haley had her best friend over for a sleepover and they were set on getting in the kitchen  to do a "project"  Their teacher at school has been in the hospital so they started with making her chocolate oatmeal cookies. I just let them take over. The cookies were delish, so I had them make another batch for the family. They were on a roll at this point and they came to me with a grocery list of items they would need for dinner. Haley usually wants to make some crazy dish, with ingredients I have never heard of or she wants to make an "experiment" dinner. One time her "experiment" dinner was spagetti tacos..yuck! When I saw they had actually picked something that look fairly easy and sounded amazing..I was off to the store for them. Hey, if there's going to be a great dinner served and dessert is already made, let's make it a party. So we invited her "partner chef's" family over for dinner that evening. They were spent the entire day in my kitchen. The nacho casserole was quite tasty and I was sad their were ZERO leftovers. This is def going to be on our monthly menu from now on, (and it's Haley's job to make it, ha) Only downfall of letting your child have the kitchen for the day, I'm still finding food splatters in strange places in there. So worth it though :)

NACHOS CASSEROLE

1 cup chunky medium taco sauce
1 (4 oz.) can green chilies or jalapenos, chopped
1 lb. ground beef
1 green or red bell pepper or 1 poblano pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1 cup black beans or refried beans
2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup beef broth
4 cup nachos
2 ripe tomatoes, diced
sour cream
green onions, minced
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Spray or brush a 8 x 12-inch glass baking dish with oil. Combine taco sauce and chilies in small bowl, set aside.In a large skillet, brown the ground beef, peppers, onions and garlic. Drain. Add cumin, beans, 1 cup cheese, half of taco sauce mixture and water.
Cover bottom of dish with nachos. Cover nachos with meat mixture and top with remaining taco sauce mixture. Add nachos on top. Bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes. Garnish with tomatoes, sour cream, green onions or minced yellow onions.
Makes 6 servings. (double recipe, you will want leftovers :)

Not the actual picture, this is from SouthernFoods

But it looks very similar, except I don't

have those super cool white plates!

The two little cooks :)

SIDENOTE: If you are looking for some easy, quick, simple, creative, HEALTHY recipes, check out my friend, Carly's new blog! I've used several of her recipes already!