I feel like I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Rachael Ray. She's so perky and most of the time, I think her food looks pretty good. But then I make her recipes, and I just don't agree. Part of it is that her recipes are rarely very frugal and include long lists of fairly expensive ingredients. I had scheduled this recipe for Dinner Divas the week that my oven broke, and several weeks later, I still had all of the ingredients, so I went ahead and made it. I changed a lot of the amounts of things, so I'll try to remember what I did. The recipe doesn't specify what kind of pan to use, and I made the mistake of erring on the smaller end. I would recommend going with a 13x9. It did come together rather quickly, so that was nice. Chances are that I probably won't make this again though.Rachel Ray's Mexican Lasagna
(source: Food Network)
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (There's no need to use this much oil.)
- 2 pounds ground chicken breast, available in the packaged meats case (I used 1 lb ground chicken and 1 lb ground pork. To me, that's a lot of meat. I would increase the beans/corn and only use 1 lb of meat.)
- 2 tablespoons chili powder (My chili powder is ridiculous, so I used 2 tsp, and it was the right amount of heat.)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
- 1 cup medium heat taco sauce or 1 (14-oz) can stewed or fire roasted tomatoes (I used the tomatoes. I am against taco sauce on principal.)
- 1 cup frozen corn kernels (I forgot this.)
- Salt
- 8 (8 inch) spinach flour tortillas, available on dairy aisle of market (Um, I used half this number of tortillas, and I used whole wheat. Not as pretty, but definitely cheaper.)
- 2 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar or shredded pepper jack (I maybe used 1 cup of cheese. I would recommend a Mexican three-cheese blend.)
- 2 scallions, finely chopped (My scallions were bad, so I omitted.)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil - twice around the pan. Add chicken and season with chili powder, cumin, and red onion. Brown the meat, 5 minutes. Add taco sauce or stewed or fire roasted tomatoes. Add black beans and corn. Heat the mixture through, 2 to 3 minutes then season with salt, to your taste.
Coat a shallow baking dish with remaining extra-virgin olive oil, about 1 tablespoon oil. Cut the tortillas in half or quarters to make them easy to layer with. Build lasagna in layers of meat and beans, then tortillas, then cheese. Repeat: meat, tortilla, cheese again. Bake lasagna 12 to 15 minutes until cheese is brown and bubbly. Top with the scallions and serve.
