Mexican Style Taco Casserole

Mexican Taco Casserole

Cook's Notes: The best thing about this Mexican Taco Casserole it’s such a versatile dish. You can add more ingredients or less, depending on your family’s taste preferences. You can add a can of black beans, black olives or corn whatever you like. If you don’t have a jalapeño, try adding a can of chopped green chiles, drained. Corn tortillas really make the dish shine.

But don’t add in all your favorite taco ingredients in the casserole. Some are better added on top, after it’s cooked. Sliced avocados, chopped fresh tomatoes, perhaps some green onions…all good choices. Add a couple shakes of your favorite hot sauce if you like things spicer. Any way you make it, this Mexican Taco Casserole is comfort food at it’s best.

Recipe adapted from imbored-letsgo.com

Directions:

• 8 corn tortillas (6 inch)
• 1 lb. ground turkey, ground beef or Italian sausage
• 3/4 cup sweet onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño, diced
• 1 cup mini sweet peppers, red and yellow
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chicken broth 
• 1/2 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1-1/2 cups frozen corn or canned Mexicorn
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chile powder
• ¼ c. chopped cilantro
• 3 cups Shredded Mexican Cheese Blend-low fat, divided    
• Assorted toppings: diced tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, green onions, sour cream

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 9 baking dish.
• In large skillet, brown meat with diced onions, garlic, peppers and jalapeño. Season with cumin and chile powder and add in tomatoes and broth. Simmer about 10 minutes for flavors to combine.  Add cilantro, beans and corn. Stir to combine.
• In a baking dish alternate layers of tortillas, meat mixture and cheeses. You will have two layers ending with a meat layer. Tear tortillas to fill in spaces in baking dish. 
• Bake in oven about 25 minutes uncovered, until hot and bubbly. Let rest 5 minutes before cutting.
  
• Top each serving with desired toppings.

It was on this day in 1855 that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published his poem The Song of Hiawatha. When it was published, The Song of Hiawatha was an immediate bestseller, selling 30,000 copies in its first six months.

Back in his college days, Longfellow had read a book about Native Americans and written to his mother: "It appears [...] that they are a race possessing magnanimity, generosity, benevolence, and pure religion without hypocrisy. They have been most barbarously treated by the whites both in word and deed."

And so Henry Wadsworth Longfellow declared his intention to record the deeds of Hiawatha, a legendary Native American hero. Along with many of his readers, Longfellow was passionately interested in Native Americans and was well versed in their folklore. He had studied the works of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an expert on the Ojibwa and other Native American tribes. One of Schoolcraft's stories was about a chief named Hiawatha who was famous for forming the Iroquois nation.

In Longfellow's words, " I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indians, It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole…"

Click here to view the entire poem https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=62