Taco Salad Casserole

This sounds like it could have been taken from some outdated cookbook featuring a woman on the cover wearing a fifties-style dress and a spotless apron while holding up a casserole dish and smiling at the reader. 

Or perhaps it would come from a fabulously retro food delivery pair here in Austin like the Casserole Queens. (They've been featured on the Food Network a couple times.  How snazzy is that?  Or sizzly )

But no.  It came from my brain.  (Please, try to control your awe.)  and...IT'S HEALTHY.  (Now you can applaud.)

I've always loved the idea of 7-layer dip (despite the fact that there is rarely a chip that has the heft required for dipping into such a thing).  So, I figured, how can I make a healthier version and maybe even a full-meal version? 

Answer:

• Browned ground turkey (in place of ground beef)
• This is an instance when you can actually go for a lower fat content since it's going to be with a bunch of other items that will give it some moisture.  When using it in other applications, I typically use 93/7 (7% fat), but for this one, you can use 97/3 or 99/1.  
• Black beans
• Black beans are the best ingredient, ever.  I typically like to use Kuner's beans with lime and jalapenos in this recipe, but I actually strain out the jalapenos - just using the black beans without rinsing them includes enough heat for most people.
• Fat-free Greek yogurt instead of sour cream
• Use this instead of sour cream.  Seriously.  I promise in this application, you really won't taste any difference.  If you're unsure, don't put it as the top layer.  When it's mixed in there you definitely won't be aware of it. Fage is the best out there.  I buy a big tub of the stuff for all sorts of uses just about every week.
• Guacamole
• The fat in this one is good fat...leave it as is.  If the avocados look good to me and area  reasonable price (oddly infrequent even here in TX), I'll make my own with lime juice, garlic, and jalapenos.  However, in the other cases, I use Wholly Guacamole.  It's great in a pinch.  I'd also suggest not putting this one as the top layer as it will brown as it oxidizes.
• Brown rice
• I know that rice isn't necessarily a typical addition in the 7-layer dips that are out there.  I suppose this is what makes this a casserole (more of a full meal) rather than just a dip.  Brown rice adds some fiber to the dish (along with what the beans bring to the table).  I often use Uncle Ben's Ready Rice, but can't find the exact flavor here.
• Salsa
• Salsa is a great way to add flavor with very few calories.  There are so many good salsas out there.  Texas Texas, Kinky Friedman's Politically Correct (from which money goes to animal rescue), and Green Mountain Gringo are some of my favorites.  You could, of course, make your own too. 
• Low-fat cheese
• This is certainly a nice-to-have not a must-have.  It used to be that low-fat or fat-free cheeses weren't worth the packaging they came in, but the past few years have seen advances in the taste of low-fat cheeses, so this can be a decent addition without adding too much fat.

Some other potential additions are corn, roasted chicken, or chili.  Also, add some cumin in there.  It's potentially the best spice out there.

So there you have it.   I like to compile it in a glass Pyrex dish so the people eating it can see each layer they're about to taste.

dinner party

I am unabashedly overjoyed to be out of the stay out until 4am crowd (well, at least not as a regular weekend occurrence) because it means that I have moved into the dinner party set. Yes, some of us had dinner parties a decade ago, but a decade ago I don't think I really saw cooking for what it is - a therapeutic way to let my creativity flow....not to mention some tasty vittles as a result.

So you can imagine how pleased I was to receive an invitation to a friend's house for a dinner party a few weeks ago. And let me say, this was a proper dinner party. The cocktail of the evening was a basil gimlet (OUTSTANDING drink, I might add, and one that I need to try at home sooner rather than later). The appetizers were figs drizzled in honey, olives, baguette slices with some sort of sun-dried tomato tapenade (maybe I'm not remember that part right, but it was good whatever it was).

Then came the entree. A perfectly cooked beef roast (red and bloody in the middle, but out to just ever so slightly pink towards the ends....something for everyone). Since we were in absolutely no rush and have a wonderful time making conversations in between nibbles of sticky figs, the hostess put the roast in while we were there. The hour flew by (no doubt helped along its way by the gimlets) also because the rest of the meal was a sort of dinner theatre. The way this apartment is set up allows some people to sit at the island's counter, watching what the cook is doing, and someone else could stand over to the side and participate in the island's conversation while talking to the cook. While all of this conversation was taking place, our hostess was deftly grilling bias-cut yellow squash and zucchini, large slices of avocado, and onions. The cheesy polenta that she had made earlier in the day and let set in a baking dish didn't fare quite as well on the grill as the vegetables, but taste-wise it was certainly a star (I'm willing to make that trade off any day - cheesier polenta that doesn't grill well...no problem here).

I feel as if I'm leaving something out, but the red wine we had with the dishes was the perfect accompaniment. It was all perfect. We then retired to the sectional to look over some magazines and continue our wine and conversation when the hostess exclaimed that she had completely forgotten to serve us her chilled melon soup as a starter. Oh well - we'll have it for dessert...and that we did. It was delicious. There was a dollop of what I surmised was greek yogurt on the top and she had added some dried herbs to the soup that I would have never considered - perfection.

The piece de resistance was that she insisted some of us take home leftovers. I've never been one to shy away from the leftover, so I gladly accepted. The first dinner companion said she would only take leftovers if it were in a tin foil swan. The gauntlet was thrown. Ask, and ye shall receive. A tin foil water fowl was created (one can't say for 100% sure if it was a swan, but the point was easily made). So how would our hostess follow up that masterpiece? With a tin foil fish, of course.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but I got to bring home a fish whose shape I can only describe as being shared with that of Flounder from Finding Nemo. It was perfect. However, it could not have been more perfect than the leftovers found inside. My dog, of course, got a tiny nibble of the meat (I'm a sucker for the pooch. What can I say). But the vast majority was left to me. I think I got two meals out of that beef roast and it was even more flavorful each time I bit into it. I'm thinking I'm going to have to try my magic at some point with a beef roast. Yum