With a blizzard blanketing the East Coast, snow shovelers will welcome a warm and hearty dinner. Here’s one of my family’s favorite winter meals: Enchilada Casserole (one of 70 sports recipes in my Sports Nutrition Guidebook). If you keep the ingredients stocked (keep meat in the freezer), you can easily create the casserole with little effort.

This particular recipe is made with hamburger, but you could just as easily make it with ground turkey, diced tofu, or kidney beans. For color and crunch, top the casserole with diced peppers.

1 pound extra-lean ground beef

28-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained (or fresh tomatoes, chopped)

10-ounce can enchilada sauce

16-ounce can refried beans, preferably low fat

6 ounces baked corn chips

4 ounces cheddar cheese, preferably reduced fat

Optional: 1 medium onion, chopped; 1 teaspoon chili powder; 1/2 teaspoon dried basil; 1 green pepper, diced

1. Brown the ground beef (and onion) in a large nonstick skillet.

2. Drain any fat, then add the diced tomatoes, enchilada sauce, and refried beans (and chili and basil, as desired). Heat until bubbly.

3. Preheat the oven to 350F. Crumble the corn chips and spread all but 1 cup in the bottom of a 9” x  13” baking pan.

4. Pour the enchilada-beef sauce over the chips.

5. Grate the cheese and sprinkle it over the enchilada-beef sauce. Sprinkle with 1 cup corn chips (and diced green pepper, if desired).

6. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Yield: 6 servings

Total calories: 2,800

Calories per serving: 470

12 g Carbohydrate

10 g Protein

16 Fat

Reprinted with permission from Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook, 4th Edition