Recipe: Brown Rice and Black Bean Casserole

I have been looking for a good casserole dish to make because I never really make casseroles, and I thought it'd be something good to make one night and have for lunch or leftovers another night.  While browsing allrecipes.com I came across this casserole dish that sounded just up my alley.  I looked at the ingredients and was drawn to it because it is Mexican inspired, and I love almost anything with black beans.  I also found the list of ingredients easy to come by and not lengthy.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup brown rice
1 cup vegetable broth
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup diced onion
1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
2 cooked skinless boneless chicken breast halves, chopped
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 tsp. cumin
salt to taste
ground cayenne pepper to taste
1 (15 oz) can of black beans, drained
1 (4 oz.) can of diced green chile peppers, drained
1/3 cup shredded carrots
2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

1.  Mix the rice and vegetable broth in a pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes or until rice is tender.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a large casserole dish.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the onion until tender.  Mix in the zucchini, chicken, and mushrooms.  Season with cumin, salt, and ground cayenne pepper.  Cook and stir until zucchini is lightly browned and chicken is heated through.

4. In a large bowl, mix the cooked rice, onion, zucchini, chicken, mushrooms, beans, chiles, carrots, and 1/2 the Swiss cheese. Transfer to the prepared casserole dish, and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

5. Cover casserole loosely with foil, bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and continue baking for another 10 minutes.

So, this sounds somewhat complicated and timely, which I will say it was not complicated at all, but it was a bit timely.  However, I think it was worth it! This turned out even better than I had expected.  All these ingredients went very well together, but I have to share some of my changes that I had made:

For one, I couldn't find zucchini at the grocery store! Seriously, I looked everyone, so I substituted red pepper instead.  I actually think this may have been a good choice.  Secondly, I prefer shredded chicken that I boil opposed to sauteeing the chicken with the veggies. I also didn't have enough Swiss, but I had some cheddar on hand, so I just tossed some of that on with the Swiss.  I used extra cayenne because I love spicy food and I also tossed a little bit of salsa I had on hand with the mixture, it appeared a bit dry to me...but I think it would have been just as good without it.  Lastly, this really does make quite a bit, so use a BIG bowl to mix everything together.  I underestimated and had to switch bowls, which is a pain to clean up.
This really came out very flavorful and yummy.  I had a couple tortilla chips with it, but I didn't need those.  I also had a little side of sour cream, but I didn't really need that either!  Of course,  I did toss a bit of hot sauce in though to spice it up even more!

Word of caution, this takes about an hour and 15 minutes or so with cook time.  I think it would be faster my second time making it, but I think it's worth a try and it would serve at least 6 people.
~Kate