Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Taco Casserole (Southern Living 1980)

Lindy assigned me Taco Casserole from Southern Living.  At first glance, this one looked good... nothing too difficult or too "wow", but we like tacos.  Doing my menu plan and looking closer at this one, it looked really plain.  I like spice.  A lot.  Chris tolerates it for me, but I typically add some heat to most dishes I make; and for taco anything this one looked plain jane.


So, I changed this one up quite a bit.  I used turkey since I can't do red meat, and eliminated the kidney beans under the same premise of yuck.  I also substitued HOT Rotel instead of plain tomato sauce, added cheese and increased the spices.  I also left off the lettuce (it was already really dry looking) and Chris added sour cream to his dish.

Taco Casserole
1 lb ground turkey
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tbls chili powder
1 tsp oregano
1 can rotel, un-drained
1/2 cup Mexican Blend Cheese
crushed tortilla chips
Sour Cream (optional)

- Cook turkey, onion, garlic and 1 tbls chili powder until done.  Drain if needed.  Add rotel (with the juice), additional chili powder and oregano.
- Layer meat mixture, cheese, and then crushed tortilla chips.  Repeat layers.
- Cook at 350 for about 20 - 25 minutes



It ended up having a good flavor profile overall, but was a little crumbly.  Chris' comment was something along the lines of "I feel like I'm eating a dip with a fork that is only half done".  There wasn't something that pulled this one together to make a "casserole".  If we were doing it over, I think I would include tomato paste with the rotel - maybe that would bind it together a little more.  
The cheese did help, but I was pretty sparing on the cheese - so maybe it needed more?

The final dish looked pretty good, was really easy to make and turned out much better than expected. We're giving it 2 1/2 stars.  I think we might try it again someday with the tomato paste to see if that helps this one from just being some meat in a casserole dish.



A little wobbly, but you can see the crumbly meat.  (Chris wanted an action shot, I don't think I moved slowly enough for the photo op...)



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