Easy Mexican Lasagne

This week I was excited to receive four bottles of hot sauce in the mail, which I'd ordered from a Mexican food importer in Sydney. I discovered this 'gem' called 'Cholula' hot sauce on recent travels to Warrnambool. We paid $6.95 for a 150ml bottle & it was gone within 3 weeks. I've not seen this sauce for sale locally, hence why I jumped online and found it interstate for $4.95 a bottle +postage. How did I come to know about Cholula? Pastor Greg Laurie from Harvest ministries in the USA actually has a couple of cooking video's, which are quite amusing (complete with sound-effects & annotations)! In chronological order of production, his scrambled eggs video can be seen here & his (Mexican-influenced!) Quesedilla video, with his assistant/cutey grandaughter Stella can be found here. In both video's Pastor Greg uses 'Cholula' sauce as a condiment of choice. But I digress! Stick with me.. because I have a lasagne to show you!

Last week hubby & I went out for coffee and you know how some cafe's offer a variety of magazines for your reading pleasure? I was flicking through a foodie-magazine and saw there was a Mexican-theme going on -which included a Mexican lasagne using a store-bought Quesedilla kit! Mexican hot sauce delivery, Mexican magazine theme.. ok.. let's do something from Meh-hee-cor! Con gusto! (.. ie. with pleasure)!

What's a Quesadilla? (Pronounced: kay-seh-dee-ya) It's basically a tortilla with melted cheese in the middle. The quesedilla's I've seen TV chef's make are like a cooked tortilla sandwich, being two tortilla's filled like a sandwich with cheese and maybe other things too like shredded beef, seasonings, jalapeno's & tomatoes? The tortilla's are usually carefully flipped over in a hot pan, and cooked until the cheese is melted in the middle. Then the whole thing is cut into wedges and served. More recently I learned quesadilla's can be made by simply folding over a single tortilla that's filled with cheese (refer to Pastor Greg's 2nd video). The OldElPaso quesadilla kit's in Australia promote a "cheesy chicken foldover" (recipe is on the box). For something different, try this Mexican lasagne. To be honest, you don't even need a quesadilla kit. Buy a pack of 8 corn tortilla's & some Taco seasoning.. and all should be ok. The one advantage of buying the kit is that the enclosed 'quesadilla seasoning' has a smokey flavour which compliments the taco seasoning beautifully. One special 'positive' about this dish is that it produces minimal dishes! No bechamel sauce to make & less baking time than traditional lasagne. If you're a vegetarian, don't be discouraged. I include a tip for you at the end of the recipe!

Easy Mexican Lasagne

- 1 Store-bought Quesedilla Kit (must have 8 corn tortilla's in it. Alternatively buy 8 corn tortilla's & a quesadilla seasoning sachet if you can find one (only half is needed). If not, try fajita or burrito. Taco seasoning is also used in this recipe... but a mixture of two different seasonings is the best way to go. The quesadilla kit comes with a nice, smokey quesadilla seasoning).

- 1/2 sachet of Taco seasoning (I used reduced salt)

-500 grams of beef mince. (I used 250g of 'heart smart' beef and 250g of turkey mince as a 'fat reducing' experiment and it worked out well).

-1 can of red kidney beans (drained & rinsed - I didn't have any, so I used cannelini beans and that's perfectly ok - but kidney beans are more 'authentically Tex-Mex')

• -1 cup of corn kernels (canned or fresh)
• -1 tin of chopped tomatoes (I used tinned cherry tomatoes)
• -4 spring onions, chopped (some states call them green onions or shallots)
• - 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
• -1 heaped tablespoon plain flour
• - 2 cups of water
• -250grams of grated cheese (I used a 'Pizza Plus' mixture of mozarella & tasty)
• -Optional: 2 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeno's
• -Light sour cream, guacamole & lime wedges to serve (simple guacamole recipe to follow)

-Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius or for fan forced ovens, 170 degrees

-In a large pan, brown mince.

-Add kidney beans, corn and half of the spring onions, then stir well.

-Add the half-packet of quesadilla seasoning and half-packet of taco seasoning, stir well.

-Add tin of tomatoes and mix/squash them all in.. heat through (2 or 3 minutes)

-Sprinkle over the flour, stir through and then add the water, stirring more. Sauce should thicken.

-Add chopped parsley and cook for 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring a couple of times.

-p.s. the quesadilla kit comes with a salsa-type sachet. I completely forgot to use it so it wasn't in my lasagne & it wasn't missed. If you want to use it, feel free to add it to your meat mixture!

-Take meat mixture off heat and set aside.

-In a deep baking dish (preferably not too much bigger than the tortilla's) spray lightly with oil.

-Place your first tortilla on the base (cut the tortilla with kitchen scissors if it will fit better)

-Ladle-over some mince mixture, being aware you will need 4 meat layers & 4 cheese layers. Make sure the tortilla is evenly covered and the meat is neatly within the confines of the tortilla edges (keeps it looking neater)!

-Cover meat layer with another tortilla and top with grated cheese and some spring onions.

-Cover cheese layer with another tortilla and add some more meat mixture. Keep alternating layers with meat/cheese until you finish with the top tortilla being cheese.

-Note! Place optional jalapeno's in one of the layers. I put them directly under the top layer, but this is a personal preference of course and it's up to you what you do. Put jalapeno's on more than one layer if your chilli-tolerance is higher!

-When you're finished layering, cover loosely with foil and place baking dish on a flat oven tray (like a cookie sheet) into oven and bake for 20 minutes.

-After 20 minutes, remove foil and bake another 10 to 15 minutes to brown cheese.

-Remove Mexican lasagne and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing into wedges, sprinkling over more chopped spring onions and serving.

-Serve with a side salad & dollops of guacamole, sour cream and a lime wedge.

VEGETARIAN OPTION: Instead of a meat mixture, try a vegetable mixture with the same seasonings. Be sure that your vegie mixture isn't too 'wet' (ie. too many high-water content vegies) otherwise your lasagne will be sloppy. I'd suggest keep the recipe's kidney beans, corn and tinned tomatoes - just add some grated potatoes & carrots and 1 extra cup of water & cover with foil and cook a bit longer so the vegies are not raw when assembling the lasagne).

MARIA'S QUICK GUACAMOLE

-1 large, ripe avocado

- 2 tablespoons of spring onions (green part) chopped

-1 tablespoon of light sour cream

-2 squeezes of lemon juice

-Salt to taste

-SPICE: I used some splashes of Cholula hot sauce, or you could use tabasco or just some pepper, being cayenne or freshly cracked black pepper.

-Mash avocado with a fork, mix in spring onions, sour cream, salt, lemon juice & your spice of choice. Stir well/quickly with a fork and let sit for 10 minutes before serving (preferably covered and refrigerated).

Cherry tomatoes have been put in, ready to squash/mix through. You can see my kidney bean substitute -- cannelini beans!

The yellow disc in the background was something my girl made for me in kinder. I should move it otherwise it'll be ruined by cooking fluids! ie. steam and splashes!

All the layers are assembled, it's now ready for the oven.

Some of the tortilla's folded themselves upwards a bit... no matter. No need to cut to perfect size.

Out of the oven, ready to 'rest'.

Birdseye chilli - just photographic garnish. Unless you don't mind chomping into them?