What's for Dinner?

Weeknight meals are often a challenge in my kitchen. Yes, occassionally I will put something in the crockpot, but I'll be the first to admit that I am not the best planner-aheader. So when I need to put something tasty together in a timely manner, I turn to Tex-Mex. Our favorites are Mexican chicken soup, enchiladas, and southwest style casseroles.

Pictured here is a "What's for Dinner?" dish we had last night: Chicken Enchilada CasseroleWhen I gathered up the ingredients for this last night I saw that I didn't have enough cheese, so I made my basic cheese sauce adding Rotel tomatoes and taco sauce to it. If you have never made a cheese sauce you may not realize that you don't need a lot of cheese to make a cheesily delicious, smooth sauce. In fact, it made my original Chicken Enchilada Casserole even better, I must say. And it really didn't add much more time.

Here it is before I put it in the oven. I layered torn flour tortillas topped with broken up tortilla chips. Then a layer of boiled, shredded chicken breast combined with cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups + a cup of chicken broth. The next layer was the cheese sauce. I repeated the layers: tortilla/chips/chicken mixture/cheese sauce. Then topped it with a small amount (all I had) of grated jack cheese. Into the oven @350 until it's heated through and bubbly.
Y aqui esta en mi plato! (And here it is on my plate!) Served with salad dressed with Hidden Valley Southwest Ranch dressing and baked scoops (offsets all that cheese!). It's What's for Dinner at my house. What about you? Do you have a favorite go to meal when you're short on time? I'd love to know!