Ground Beef Tortilla Casserole Verde: Cooking on the Fly

I am always so impressed by blogs that are devoted to one thing.  Baking, bread, curries, sandwiches, etc.  It is my understanding from speaking to a publicist that this kind of blog is more likely to be chosen to write a cookbook, as it has a niche, but I am boggled by these writers’ ability to devote themselves to one topic so completely–in the preparing, eating and recipe-writing aspects of blogging.  As I remember I had this problem when contemplating graduate school (as opposed to law school) also.  The idea of committing my research to one era and place in history just seemed so… limiting.

Anyway, I guess I was just thinking about this because I was contemplating the ways in which my blog has evolved over the years. For example, as many of you are aware, now that I am home alone with Sammy baking with children has become a much larger focus of my writing.  Another way in which I am going to try evolving is by not always including a recipe.  Now bear with me, because I know recipes are a huge part of food blogs, but I have been neglecting too many fantastic dishes because I made them freestyle and do not have an exact recipe to provide for you.  To quote my tagline, you might see more “musings” and just a tad less recipes (don’t worry I am not leaving recipes behind completely or anything).  To be honest, if you cook like me–and I know a lot of you do–I suspect you’ll still come away with dinner ideas from my recipe-less posts.  And if you have any questions, just ask.

So about this recipe-less recipe.  I wanted a tortilla casserole, much in the style of this casserole (and if you search under tortilla casserole on this site you’ll find more), but I wanted to use ground beef, much like in a Mexican restaurant’s enchiladas, for ease and just for the sake of trying something different.  So I browned onions, peppers and garlic with ground beef, and added several teaspoons of cumin–any deglazing was done with cider vinegar although in retrospect beer would be nice too.  I did not add any chile powder because I had decided I was going to use tomatillo-based green salsa in this casserole.  I added the salsa to the ground beef along with enough stock to make sure the casserole would not dry out-and tasted, tasted, tasted.  Then, in a large casserole dish, I layered it with corn tortillas, some sour cream, generous handfuls of shredded monterey jack and chopped green onions.  I served the casserole with lime wedges, Tapatio sauce and my mom and sister’s pickled jalapenos (this time they were red), which I looooooove.  It was a big hit with everyone.