Tasty Time: Crock Pot Mexican Chicken Casserole, Crock Pot Corn Pudding, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Well, I am stuffed!  I made a super easy meal tonight and had two crock pots going for most of the day.  My main dish came from chef in training, who adapted it from Paula Deen.  It was not originally a crock pot recipe, but I made it one.  You can even make these into quesadillas.  I will tell you how to do that under the recipe.  On the side is my crock pot corn pudding.  I really can't remember where I got this recipe from.  Actually, I think it was in a recipe book that came with my crock pot about 10 years ago.  Here's my dinner:

Crock Pot Mexican Chicken Casserole (the way I made it):

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of cheddar cheese soup

1 can diced tomatoes with green chiles

4 chicken breasts (I tossed mine in frozen)

crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)

tortillas

shredded cheddar cheese

Spray your crock pot with Pam.  Place your chicken in the bottom and pour soups, tomatoes and pepper on top and mix around.  Cook on high for 5 1/2 hours.  Shred the chicken and cook an additional 30 minutes.  Using a 13x9 casserole dish, layer the chicken mixture and tortillas starting and ending with a tortilla.  I ended up with 3 layers of tortillas and 2 layers of chicken mixture, but you can make the chicken layers thinner if you want more tortilla layers.  Sprinkle shredded cheese on top and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until cheese has melted.  

I have not mastered the art of perfect layered dishes.  My lasagna always comes out runny and never in a perfect square.  Neither did this, but it was delicious!

To make these quesadillas, you will need a baking sheet.  Take a tortilla and place the chicken mixture in the middle.  Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.  Dab your finger in water and run it along the edges of the tortilla and then fold it over in half, pressing the edges together and seal it shut.  Place it on the baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the edges are a nice golden brown.  Yum!

Crock Pot Corn Pudding:

1 can cream corn

1 can kernel corn

8oz sour cream

1 stick butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

1 box Jiff corn bread mix

cayenne pepper

Beat the eggs first and melt the butter.  Spray your crock pot, toss everything in and stir it up.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4 hours.  I stir mine every so often, but you really don't have to.

I forgot I bought bananas at the store last week and they were getting brown, so I had no choice but to make banana bread!  I'm always weary about doing this because I can never get it perfect.  It's usually too dry.  I found a basic recipe and thought why not.  The recipe came from For the Love of Cooking and I changed it up a bit.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread:

1 stick butter, melted

3/4 c light brown sugar

2 eggs

4 large ripe bananas, mashed

1 t vanilla (overflowing)

2 c flour

1 t baking soda

1 t cinnamon (overflowing)

1/4 t salt

1/4 t nutmeg (overflowing)

chocolate chips

and because it was the first thing I saw when I opened my spice cabinet, 1/4 t pumpkin spice (completely optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 and coat a bread loaf pan with cooking spray.  Beat butter and sugar until creamy.  Add the eggs, bananas and vanilla and keep beating.  In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and then add it to the bananas.  Pour in your desired amount of chocolate chips.  The recipe said to bake for 55-60 minutes, but mine was more like 90 minutes.  I ended up with a lot of batter, so the loaf pan was filled pretty high.  Insert a knife to make sure it pulls out clean.  

This was the best banana bread I've ever made.  The best banana bread I've ever had was in a little restaurant on the beach in Maui.  They gave everyone a banana muffin with breakfast and it was to die for!  (we had breakfast there a few times throughout our vacation) This reminds me so much of that banana muffin.

I am going to have a slice for dessert after the kids go to bead, but I'm going to make it even better with a scoop of this: