Getting Creative!

For our family, I buy groceries every two weeks. I try to get the best bang for my buck, because we live on a tight budget. Now, when it come to cooking on that tight budget, things can get a bit interesting when it gets close to restock time. Tonight, was one of those meals that allowed for the perfect teaching moment.

Teaching kids to not be wasteful, and to do your best to use all that you have, is something we try to do in our home. We are not always successful, but we do our best. Tonight, I showed my kiddos how to use leftovers in a whole new way. In our fridge, we had pork green chili, refried beans, and steak cubes. As I was thinking about what to make, while using as much of my leftovers as possible, casserole popped into my head. I looked into the pantry to see if that would be possible, and I hit the jackpot with rice.

To begin our casserole, we knew we needed to cook the rice first. We were able to measure out 3 cups worth of green chili that we put in a cast iron skillet, along with 2 cups of water. We turned the stove on to medium high heat, while my youngest added 2 cup of rice that we rinsed with water to remove the surface starch. I prefer to soak the rice for at least 30 minutes, but forgot to do that today. We placed a covering over our mixture and allowed the rice to cook for 20 minutes. At this point we turned our oven on to 375 degrees.

As it cooked away we got all of our topping chopped, and sliced. We had a head of lettuce, one tomato, a few tortilla chips, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. My middle child got to try her hand at chopping the lettuce, and tomato. Even though I was right next to her helping her hold the knife, my nerves still shot up a little. Oh, how I don't like my kiddos getting bigger. It's definitely bitter sweet. My oldest cut the cheese to top off the casserole dish.

When the 20 minutes came to a close, I added the steak and beans stirring it all together. Then, each kid got to place the cheese on top. We placed it in the oven for 10 minutes. After the cheese had melted, I decided to add a crunch factor to the dish. I found some tortilla chips in the pantry, crushed them up, and dusted them on top. I broiled the top for maybe 3 minutes. When it was a beautiful brown on top, I took it out of the oven and finished it off with parsley.

The fun thing about this dish, was that none of us have tried it before. We tasted it as we went so we knew the flavors incorporated well together, but it was still fun, and exciting to try something new that we created. Each person got to make the dish unique to their own taste buds with the variety of toppings. Cooking has always been fun for me, but it's even better seeing the glow on my kids faces while we create together.