Beef Taco Casserole

This December will be 27 years since I met my hubby. Pretty much since the beginning of our relationship, I have cooked and/or baked for him. That probably adds up to a lot of meals!!! One day last week, he came home from work and said something along the lines of, "what kind of concoction are you making?"  I sometimes get in a "rut," so when he saw different ingredients laid out on the kitchen counter, he was intrigued. When we sat down to eat, the hubby had two VERY large helpings. Guess he liked my "concoction!" LOL. I like to say the hubby and I are like a fine wine, we get better with age!!!!!

 

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes,  undrained
15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup sour cream
1 ounce taco seasoning mix packet
2 cups tortilla chips, crushed
2 cups mild cheddar cheese, shredded


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium saucepan, brown meat until no longer pink and it is cooked through. Remove from heat and drain off grease. Stir in tomatoes, black beans, sour cream and the taco seasoning mix packet and stir well with large spoon.  Set aside. In a 9 x 13 inch ungreased pan, spread the crushed tortilla chips in an even layer. Spread half of the meat mixture, then half of the cheese, then the other half of the beef mixture, ending with the other half of the cheese. Bake for about 25 minutes or until heated through. Makes eight servings.

"Healthier" Breakfast Cookies

You would think that these breakfast cookies would be completely devoid of flavor considering there is no flour, white sugar, butter, margarine, shortening, canola oil or chocolate in them. Well, back about four years ago, I put a recipe for breakfast cookies on this blog. While they were yummy, they also had a lot of extra ingredients that I knew I could eliminate, to make them "healthier." Up until a few months ago, I would regularly buy Oreos when I would go to the Kroger. I was putting them in Dominic's lunch, but I also would eat way too many of them. They are very addicting!!! I finally came to the conclusion, that if I didn't buy them, then I wouldn't eat them!! In the past couple of weeks, I have had more than one person tell me that Dominic looks thinner. I  personally think it is because he stopped eating all those Oreos! I decided to come up with a "healthier," version of my original breakfast cookies from four years ago! These taste pretty darn good, if I do say so myself!! By the way, Dominic LOVES these cookies!!!!!


Ingredients

1/2 cup + two tablespoons old fashioned oats
1/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
2 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cereal, crushed
  (your choice)
*I used the Kroger version of Rice Krispies 😉

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking/cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. In a large bowl, put all the ingredients in the order given and stir with a large spoon. To make these cookies all the same size, I used a 1/4 cup of batter for each, rolled into a ball and flattened slightly with the palms of my hands. I was able to make nine cookies. Bake for about 13-15 minutes, then remove from oven and let them sit on the sheet for five minutes before removing them to a wire rack to continue cooling.