Chicken Salsa Casserole - 100th Blog Post!

100 blog posts, woo! Time to celebrate with tasty noms.

My mother found this recipe when she was staying with me after I first gave birth to E. Like any mother who recently gave birth, I was ravenously hungry all the time. Having someone around to make food for you is awesome. It's doubly awesome when that someone make fabulous meals like this.

Another great benefit of this meal is the prep is absurdly easy. Chop up some chicken, plop everything in a casserole dish, and bake. This is actually the primary reason I make so many casseroles. They are so simple and delicious. This dish has the added bonus of being relatively healthy for you as well. Here is what you will need.

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 1 small can or corn
• 1 15oz can of black beans
• 1 16oz jar of salsa (I use medium)
• 1 cup chicken broth (or 1 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup of water)
• 1.5 tsp cayenne  pepper
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 4 chicken tenderloins
• 1 cup shredded cheddar
• 2 green onions, sliced

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Drain your corn and black beans (give the beans a quick rinse). Add your corn, beans, dry rice, salsa, chicken broth, and spices to an 8x8 pan and mix well.

Quick tip: Line the pan with aluminum foil first for super fast clean up later.  

2. Cut each chicken tenderloin in half. Push them down into the mixture ensuring they are evenly dispersed as well as completely covered. The original says to cover the dish tightly in foil, but I've forgotten to do that plenty of times (mom-brain, derp), and it comes out the same every time. Cook for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes (you want your rice to be soft). 

Another tip: If you are using brown rice, you will want to soak them in very hot water first while you prep. Brown rice takes a lot longer to cook and your casserole will dry out if you attempt it without the pre-soak. Or just use white rice and you won't have this problem. 

3. When your rice is cooked, sprinkle the shredded cheddar on top and allow it to melt. If you are super impatient like me, you can stick it back in your oven for a minute to expedite the cheese melting process. Add your green onions on top and you are good to go!

Mmmmm, cheeeeeeese.

I eat everything out of bowls (no idea why, I just do), but you should now have a very delicious chicken salsa casserole. You can serve it on tortillas if you like or eat it as is. 

Nutrition

Here is the nutrition data for 1/6 of the casserole

	Calories	Fat	Sat Fat	Sodium	Carbs	Fiber	Sugar	Protein
Brown Rice	113	1	0	0	24	1.3	0	2.7
Medium Salsa	26	0	0	396	5.3	0	5.3	0
Black Beans	73	0	0	266.8	13.3	3.3	0.7	4.7
Corn	10	0.2	0	53.4	2.2	0.3	0.5	0.2
Chicken	50	0.2	0	95	0	0	0	11
Cheddar cheese	55	4.5	2.5	90	0	0	0	3.5
Total	327	5.9	2.5	901.2	44.8	4.9	6.5	22.1

11 Months Old: Teeth, Talking, and Tylenol

I cannot believe that in less than a month, my baby girl will be one-year-old. That is insane. She is so big now, it makes me sad how fast she is growing.

She walks like a champ now and spends most of her time getting into drawers and pulling everything out of them. Surprise, surprise. She also has three little teeth now, with her 4th one on the way. Poor thing has swollen gums and is not a happy camper.

She can also say a few words. She says mama, dada, and kitty cat. Or at least she attempts to say kitty cat. It comes out more like KitKat.

Now back to this whole teething thing. Maybe I'm just behind the curve on this one, but I think Tylenol has been pulling a scam on us moms. I try to avoid giving my daughter Tylenol for teething pain. She usually does just fine with teething rings or Hyland's teething tablets. However, if she is clearly in pain, I'll give her some infant Tylenol.

Infant tylenol.

I've been under the assumption that infant Tylenol is somehow different from children's Tylenol. I believed this because one box says Infants while the other says Children age 2-11. Obviously, if they are packaged this way they must somehow be different. The concentration of acetaminophen must be higher in the children's Tylenol.

Wrong.

Both packages say 160mg of acetominaphen per 5ml. Both boxes say for children under 2 years and under 24 pounds, ask your doctor. They are the same exact thing.

So what's the big deal? Money.

People with babies are willing to pay significantly more for a product labeled "infant" than they are for a product labeled "children." They think it is designed for babies rather than a full grown child. They think it is somehow better for their baby, so they will pay more for it.

Don't believe me?

Pop on over to Target, Walmart, or any store that carries Tylenol. The examples below are from Target. I highlighted the label information in a red box on each image.

Here is the link.

Here is the link.

You will pay $5.69 for 4oz of children's Tylenol ($1.42/oz) vs $7.99 for 2oz of infant Tylenol ($3.99/oz). That is almost 3X the cost. The difference? A picture of a baby vs a picture of a child on the box.

Note: This is NOT true for Motrin. Motrin has different concentrations for infants and children. Always be sure to read the label. If I had been, I would've caught on to the Tylenol shenanigans before now.