So, every now and then Fred and I visit what we call “the cheap store.” It’s a store – of mostly groceries, though they do have shampoo and over the counter medicine, and I think they even have carpet in the back of the store (where we never go). A lot of the stuff they carry is close to its expiration date or the box is dented or the product is discontinued. We like to wander around the store and pick up a few boxes of cereal. I’ve found boxes of Panko bread crumbs there, and I usually buy all the boxes they have, because I like the Panko bread crumbs, and it’s a lot cheaper there than in the grocery store. (I know, I know, even cheaper would be making them myself, but I cannot be bothered.)

A couple of weekends ago we were in the store and Fred was looking at the cereal (he ended up buying cereal that had some incredible amount of fiber in it. The man loves his fiber.) and I was looking at the spices and such, and I spotted a rack of McCormick Recipe Inspirations packs. If you’ve never seen or heard of those, they’re these little packs with premeasured amounts of certain spices and the recipe on the back. Basically you buy it for the recipe and so that you won’t have to measure out spices, they’re already there for you in the premeasured pack.

It’s for the lazy among us. Though I guess for the TRULY lazy among us, it would have come with someone who’d throw the meal together for you. This was 99 cents. I pointed out the Quesadilla Casserole set to Fred and since he’s a big fan of anything Mexican, he told me I should get it.

The good part was that if we liked the meal, the spice measurements were on the back of the package, so I wouldn’t have to buy a whole new package or anything.

Ingredients:

Ground beef, onion, tomato sauce, black beans, corn, chopped green chilies, flour tortillas, and cheddar. For spices: chili powder, ground cumin (which I dislike, so I tossed it in the trash), mince garlic, oregano leaves, and crushed red pepper.

Chop your onion and add it to your preheated skillet along with the ground beef. Stir it around, chop up the ground beef with your spatula, stare down at the browning meat and get annoyed at how long it’s taking. God, browning meat is BO-RING. Thank god for podcasts, otherwise I’d die from the boredom.

Once the ground beef is browned, drain it, and throw it back in the pan. Add tomato sauce, beans, corn and green chilies, mix well. Add all the spices except the red pepper.

Bring it a boil, then turn it on low and simmer for five minutes (for god’s sake, set the timer. You know how you like to go wandering off and forget about this stuff.) Add the red pepper if you want; if you’re not a red pepper kinda person, toss that in the trash, I won’t tell.

Spread 1/2 cup of the beef mixture on the bottom of a 13x9x2 baking dish which you have already sprayed with Pam or discount Pam or whatever cooking spray makes you happy.

Top the beef stuff with 3 of the tortillas, overlapping as needed, is what the recipe says. I prefer to cut my tortillas into smaller pieces so that I can just kind of sprinkle them across the baking pan. That’s just the kind of party gal I am.

Layer with 1/2 of the remaining beef mixture and 1/2 of the cheese. Repeat with remaining tortillas, beef mixture, and cheese.

(Ignore that jar of peanut butter. It lives on the counter for emergency situations and likes to supervise when I’m cooking something that’s not peanut butter-based.)

Bake in a 350F oven for 15 minutes, or until heated through. Let it stand for five minutes before serving. Take a horrific picture of it that will never convince anyone that they want to eat it. Post about it on the internet.

I swear to god, I’m going to just start posting kitten pictures instead of pictures of the final product. Doesn’t this look disgusting? It was good, though, I swear it was. Anything with ground beef, corn, tortillas and beans in it can’t be bad. It’s the law.

Fred liked it, I liked it, it was easy enough to make, it’s going into regular rotation!