Hominy Casserole

My apologies for the lack of pictures - I am in great need of a digital camera, but it's going to have to wait until I can justify the expense of one.

So picture in your mind a beautiful golden cheesy casserole studded with green chiles.  Because tonight I made a lovely hominy casserole to go along with some bean and cheese burritos.

D and I agreed that salsa would have been very nice - but I didn't have on hand what I needed to make any.
Even so, the hominy casserole was very filling and 'comfort foody'.

The hominy itself was actually some cracked corn (cracked hominy) I'd bought a bit ago - dried cracked corn/hominy can be found in bags just like beans and lentils - I can't find it here in WV where I live, but I make frequent visits to the Washington DC area, where there are Jumbo International grocery stores that carry all sorts of interesting goodies, and I'd brought a couple bags of the dried hominy back with me.

I will most definitely be stocking up on more - I love hominy and there is a very hearty chewiness with the dried that is different from the canned.  A couple weeks ago I cooked up a bag (basically exactly as you would with dried beans - presoak, rinse, simmer), then divided the cooked hominy into portions and stowing them in the freezer for later use.

Here's the recipe I used as a starting point, switching the canned hominy for my cooked dried cracked corn.  I also felt it was still a bit dry after it was mixed together, so I added a couple tablespoonse of Mexican table cream to it, and that was a nice touch.

In thinking about it some more, I think I'd really like this as a main dish, adding some black beans and cooked sweet potato chunks or winter squash to it - I have a couple more portions of the cracked corn put up, so I'll have to give that a try soon.

I used 2 portions tonight - which made enough to serve 6 as a side dish, or 4 as a main dish.

All in all, a definite success!