chipotle scalloped sweet potatoes with black beans

Dinner originally began as some chicken enchilada casserole.

I cooked and shredded the chicken. I gathered all my ingredients and read over the recipe again. And I had absolutely no desire to make it.

In my opinion, if cooking is your passion and you attempt to make a recipe that your heart just isn't into, that dish is going to taste awful. Well, maybe not awful, but certainly not amazing.

I decided I didn't want meat, and especially not meat covered with bottled salsa and cheese. But I did want spice. And veggies. This dish from Thanksgiving popped into my head, and I attempted to recreate it.

I took away the heavy cream that I remember being used in the recipe and replaced it with sour cream and milk. I also added beans for some protein so it could be a complete meal. (Although my husband still deemed it "more of a side dish." Large eye roll from me there.)

It actually turned out to be really easy, and very satisfying, with just enough heat and creaminess. The pictures, however, are not as pretty as I had imagined because someone wanted to be in all of them and was hamming it up in the background.

Chipotle Scalloped Sweet Potatoes with Black Beans

2 lb sweet potatoes, sliced very thinly (I highly recommend using the slicing blade on your food processor; it only took me about 20 minutes to figure out, and I only cut one finger...)
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2/3 cup milk
3 canned chipotle chilies (I think the ones I used were canned in adobe sauce)
large pinch salt
1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies (get the medium to hot ones, otherwise its almost pointless)
1 (14 oz) can black beans

Place sour cream, milk, chipotle chilies, and salt in a blender or food processor. Process until smooth. Pour the mixture into a bowl and mix in green chilies and black beans.

Cover the bottom of a casserole dish (mine is about 10" by 7") with a single layer of the sliced sweet potatoes. Top evenly with a thin layer of the sour cream mixture. Repeat layers until the dish is full, ending with a top layer of the sour cream mixture. Bake at 425 degrees for 45-60 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are very soft and the liquid is bubbly (I ended up covering the dish in foil for about the last 15 minutes to increase cooking speed). Enjoy.