Julia Child Meets Betty Crocker

In my household, I am known, formally, as "The Girl Who Cannot Boil Rice". Although I have not prepared any recipes that involve the boiling of rice, I have proven to be a quite excellent cook and baker. 

Lately, I have been channeling my need to busy myself, into delicious deserts. It started as just chocolate chip cookies, trickled down into brownies, and I have now landed myself in cake and frosting territory.

Food.com is my new best friend. They have so many amazing and really easy meals! Yesterday, I prepared a Mexican Lasagna (recipe found on Food.com). I was super nervous about making, but actually it was really simple. I have attached the link to the bottom of this entry, in case anyone else wants to try it. Kudos to the chef behind this fantastic recipe. I wish it had been me.

The oven is set to 350 degrees; it bakes for about an hour (30 minutes covered with foil, 30 without), and it took only 15 minutes to throw all of the ingredients together. 

Ingredients:

12 ounces, cooked chicken, cut into 1 inch cubes (about 3 cups)

 - Sidenote: Boil chicken cutlets in pot of water for 10 minutes, or until chicken is white and appears cooked. This works for already cut chicken or whole cutlets

1 cup sour cream

1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup salsa (mild, medium, or hot)

1 (4 ounce) can, chopped green chilies

1 teaspoon ground chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

8 flour tortillas, cut in half

Another helpful hint: Do NOT double the layers of taco shells, especially on the bottom. It creates major problems, when trying to divide the slices. Also, it says only one can of green chilies, but next time I am going to add a second because I wish there had been more. I felt like they got lost in the cheese and the sour cream.

Whilst my dinner was baking in the main oven, I began mixing the ingredients together for my cake. Sadly there was not enough time to make a cake from scratch, but my brother and I picked out one of those crazy color cake mixes from Stop & Shop. The blue cake looked awesome underneath my homemade, green frosting. I never knew how easy it is to make frosting. I might start making more things involving it, or as a snack when I am super PMS-y. 

I had fun learning my way through this recipe. This is the first thing I have cooked, from scratch, all on my own. 

It's funny though. I always found baking so simple, but baking is supposed to be harder because when you bake everything has to be measured exactly, otherwise you could screw up your fabulous dessert and end up with mush. 

I plan to start cooking a lot more now that I know how easy it really is. 

Food.com - Mexican Lasagna