Mexican Lasagna

Earlier today I planned meals for everyday this week. I then typed up the recipes and created a shopping list. http://mealsforreal.blogspot.com/2010/01/weekly-meal-plan-1.html


I headed out to Shop-N-Save this afternoon and bought all of the items that I would need for the whole week even though I did forget hamburger buns.

Anyway, today we decided to start off with Mexican Lasagna. Here is what I started with:





Recipe:
1-1 1/2lbs lean hamburger meat
1 container cottage cheese
1 jar salsa
1 package Mexican style cheese
1 can refried beans
1 package lasagna

Modifications:
Taco seasoning for meat
Onion for meat and to layer
Lettuce to layer
Tomatoes to layer
Sour cream to dip
Extra salsa to dip

How I did it:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


#1 I browned the ground beef and added some onions to it.




#2 While the hamburger meat was cooking, I let the lasagna noodles sit in hot water. (Got this idea from Nickie at http://newleafnickie.blogspot.com/




#3 After the onions and ground beef were cooked, I then added 1 can of refried beans and 1 jar of salsa and let them simmer together.




#4 After the meat, salsa and beans simmered for 2-3 minutes I pulled it off of the burner and added a container of cottage cheese.









#5 After pulling the meat mixture off the oven, I drained the lasagna noodles and started layering everything in a 9x13 baking dish.





Noodles




Meat mixture (beef, salsa, beans, onions and cottage cheese)

Layered with cheese

After all of the layering, I topped everything with tomatoes, onions and lettuce.

#6 Finally, cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Take the foil off and bake another 5 minutes or so.



I served the Mexican Lasagna with a side of Mexican rice.


And now, time for the Review:




Overall, the family gave this meal a thumbs up. Everyone ate it and Scott and I had extra servings. If I were to make this meal again, though, I think I would add the taco seasoning to the meat. It seemed that there may have been a touch of flavor missing. Or, I might add a can of rotel to give the meat a little zing. I followed Nickie's advice in not cooking the lasagna noodles and I think I should have at least blanched them a bit or let the dish bake for a few minutes longer. There were areas of the dish in which the lasagna noodles were a little chewy and hard; however, I have made a similar dish before where the recipe called for tortillas and the tortillas were so soggy after baking that the texture was really off-putting so I would definitly use the lasagna noodles over tortillas.

All in all, I think this was a successful meal. My children ate it and it was something different.