Santa Fe Pinto Beans

Here is my version of a recipe I got off of a can of Bush's Pinto Beans. It was a nice change for a side dish. The boys wouldn't even try it, but my hubby and I really liked it.

Ingredients

1/2 C. frozen chopped bell pepper
1 C. of frozen chopped onion
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 T. of olive oil or canola oil
1 T. of chicken base or bouillon
1/4 c. of water
1/2 tsp. of cumin
2 cans (16 oz.) of pinto beans (drained and rinsed) - the original recipe called for one can of pinto beans and one can of black beans. Since I only had pinto, that's what I used, but you could use one of each.
1 can of rotel tomatoes, undrained
1 and 1/2 C. of frozen corn

In a large skillet, saute the green pepper, onion, and garlic in the oil. Stir in the chicken base, water and cumin. Bring to a boil and add the beans, tomato and corn. Reduce heat and simmer until heated through.

To see what else is cooking on Wednesday, check out What's Cooking Wednesday.

Marsala Ranch Chicken

If this looks mysteriously like the Creamy Italian Chicken that I posted last week, there's a reason. The five year old asked for it for dinner. Since you never know what a preschooler is going to like from day to day, I jumped at the chance to make something he wanted. I normally have the ingredients to make the CIC because it is one of their favorites. Well, when I went to make it right at the last possible minute, I didn't have the dry Italian dressing mix, so I improvised and came up with this. The five year old liked it as did my hubby and baby (the three year old doesn't want to eat anything but candy and bread these days ... although he did eat an apple today and even requested more).

Back to the recipe, this may be a recipe of someone's, but I've never looked for it or seen it. Here's my "what I had on hand" version of Creamy Italian Chicken that I have named Marsala Ranch Chicken.

INGREDIENTS

4 Chicken Breast Halves
1 can of 98% FF cream of chicken soup
1 package of dry ranch dressing mix
1/2 tsp. of garlic powder
1/4 cup of marsala cooking wine (a white wine would work, too ... don't know what Marsala wine is classified as, but I had Marsala cooking wine in the pantry so that is what I used)
1 package of low fat cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the soup, cream cheese, garlic powder, ranch dressing mix and wine together. Spray a small casserole dish, place the chicken in the bottom and pour the soup/dressing mix over the chicken. Bake for about 30 to 45 minutes.

I served this over whole wheat pasta spirals with a broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots vegetable mix (from the frozen food section) and some WONDERFUL bread my husband's sister-in-law introduced me to ... you can get it at Sam's and have hot, fresh baked, crusty bread in on TEN minutes! It is in the frozen food section at Sam's and is Member's Mark Organic Tuscan Artisan Bread. I know I serve a lot of prepared, frozen stuff like the veggies and the bread ... I really can bake homemade bread (and sometimes do ... I'll post a recipe for that tomorrow) ... but with three preschool age boys, I do good to keep the laundry washed and put away and the floors relatively clean much less cooking a full meal from scratch! Anyway, hope you enjoy this version.

If you have a recipe to post on Wednesday, send an e-mail to the Fairy Blogmother at fairyblogmother@sympatico.ca and she'll link back to you for "What's Cooking Wednesday". She has a collection of lots of YUMMY looking recipes linked on her blog.