Saturday, September 6, 2014

Mexi what?

When I was 9 or 10 when had a cleaning lady that would come over on Thursdays...Her name was Maria and she came from the Accores. I guess part of the deal was that my mom was to feed her...and I don't really know how this happened but next thing we knew... The MEXICAN was born!!!

Did this concoction come from the Goodhousekeeping magazine that my mother enjoyed so? or McCall's ? I have no idea. What I know for sure is that my mom made it for Maria on Thursdays and then we were stuck with the leftovers....

In my family (really Dad, Dan and me) the word Mexican is a source of jokes and overall eeewww.

The Mexican was a casserole made of green bell pepper, cooked rice, canned tomatoes, ground beef and tomatoes. And it was cooked in a big orange Le Creuset casserole...the leftovers were left in the Le Creuset and shoved in the fridge.

Next day the Le Creuset was taken out of the fridge and soved in the oven and reheated for our eating pleasure (NOT)....the leftovers were re-shoved in the fridge and the next day reheated (in the same goddammed Le Creuset) and so on and so on....until Thursday when the circle started again!

I wished my mother had learned about freezing half of it and not reheating things endless times!!! Then again my mother thought food lasted forever in the fridge and if mold was present you could just cut it off and eat it and be happy!

When I inherited my mom's cookbooks, I don't remember seeing a recipe for THE MEXICAN, but looking back I probably just threw it out. Now 16 years later in the Kraft magazine...What do I see???

A mexican unstuffed pepper casserole! The ingredients were very similar but there was salsa instead of canned tomatoes and cheese!

You know what? It was really tasty and Dan loved it!
 
I added srirracha for some kick, switched white rice for brown rice and mild mexican cheese for habanero schredded cheese.
 
Here is the link just in case...
 
 
It is a great meal to stretch a buck!

2 comments:

Linda @ A La Carte said...

Funny how those childhood casseroles can come back and be pretty darn tasty! Love the Pyrex dish which makes it much better of course!
hugs,
Linda

Cheapchick said...

I make a similar one but add corn tortillas to make it like lasagna. Funny, my Mom is still the same about keeping food in the fridge way too long. Me? A day or two maximum.