Quesadilla Casserole

Well, it was time for Project Casserole to continue, so I decided to try out a Quesadilla Casserole I found on Chef Jeff's website. This turned out really well. Our meal finished with an exclamation of, "Wow! We have to make this like, every week!" Oh, the appreciation adds such motivation to my culinary experiments.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 t. chili powder
1 t. cumin
1 t. garlic, minced
1/2 t. oregano
1 1/2 c. tomato sauce
3 spicy green peppers, chopped
2 c. black beans
1 c. corn
1/2 t. red pepper
cheese (about 2 cups is what the original recipe called for; I used about 14 cheese singles b/c that's all we've got)
6- 8" tortillas

Brown the beef and onion, then add the next 8 ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for about 5 minutes.

I added a layer of the saucy-meat mixture on the bottom of my 13 x 9ish pan, then added a layer of 3 tortillas. (I made the tortillas, & you can see the recipe under the bread category on the right side.) Then I added half of the remaining meat mixture, a layer of cheese, another layer of tortillas, the rest of the sauce, and the rest of the cheese.

At this point, everything was cooked, but I covered it with tinfoil, popped it into the oven for about 20 minutes and baked it at 350 degrees. Then I removed the foil and allowed the cheese to brown a little.

This was a big hit on the home-front as well as with some Chinese friends we served it to tonight as leftovers!