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I’m still trying to only visit the grocery store once a week, thereby forcing me to meal plan and save money. Most of you can testify I’m not the best at coming up with recipes on the fly, but tonight when I searched my kitchen, I came up with the idea of using some frozen ground beef and making tacos. But we’d already finished our tortillas earlier in the week and didn’t have any taco seasoning, so I made use of the remainder of homemade salsa, the end of a bag of tortilla chips, a can of kidney beans and some leftover Taco Bell sauce and VOILA! Mexican Lasagna! Actually, it was more like layered nachos but it was delicious!
I browned the ground beef, added about 2T of chopped onions and let that combine and cook down. To that mixture I added 2T of chili powder and a shake of cumin, with some salt and pepper. Then I poured in the salsa (about a 1/2 cup) and the four Mild Taco Bell sauce packets I found in the fridge. To that I added one can (15oz) of drained, Dark Red Kidney Beans and let it all combine.
I coated a 9×13 oven safe dish with about 1T of olive oil, then placed a layer of tortilla chips. On top of that I put a layer of the beef/bean mixture (about 1/2 of it) and then a layer of freshly grated sharp white cheddar cheese (all I had on hand, but it was great!). Then repeat the chip, beef, cheese layers and put in a 425 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes just to melt the cheese. It was much tastier than those taco seasoning packets you buy and very filling.
