Layer 1:

2 large cans bean dip (preferrably Frito Lay)
drain any water from cans and spread on bottom of a rectangular cake dish
Layer 2:

3 avocados peeled and crushed
2 tbsp. lemon juice
sprinkling of garlic salt
mix 3 ingredients well and spread over bean dip
Layer 3:

16 oz. sour cream
1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
mix well and spread over avocado layer
Layer 4:

1 bunch green onions, chopped fine
spread over sour cream layer
Layer 5:

2 large tomatoes, sliced, seeds removed, patted dry on
paper towels, and diced
spread over onions
Layer 6:

small can sliced black olives, drained, patted dry, and chopped
spread over tomatoes
Layer 7:

4-8 oz. cheddar cheese, grated
spread over black olives

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Mexican Lasagne
From: jagordon@agsm.ucla.edu

Soak, cook and mash 1 pound pinto beans, seasoned with a little garlic,
cumin and chili powder .
1 dozen corn tortillas
1 container non fat ricotta cheese
1 16 ounce container salsa
non fat yogurt – optional
In a casserole, spoon a couple spoonfuls of salsa cover bottom of casserole with tortillas.

Spread a layer of mashed beans
Spoon on some salsa
Layer of tortillas
Layer of ricotta or tofu
Spoon on some salsa
Tortillas
Beans yogurt and salsa
Bake 350 degrees farenheit for about 1/2 hour. Good with mexican rice and/or a big salad.

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Flour Tortillas (Makes 12)
From: MWORKMAN@vm.cc.purdue.edu

Here is a recipe for tortillas that was adapted from Simply Simpatico: A Taste of New Mexico. It was originally posted by Steve H.

4 cups flour, all purpose or 1/2 all purpose and 1/2 whole wheat
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
4 T shortening, margarine and Crisco both work
1 1/2 cup warm water, may vary with the flour used
Combine the dry ingredients, then cut in shortening. Make a small well in the center and gradually add water. Knead the dough until it is soft, smooth and elastic. Set aside 10 minutes, then divide into 12 equally sized balls. Roll balls into 1/8 inch thick circles, and cook on a preheated, ungreased grill for about 2 minutes a side, until the tortilla is lightly speckled. Cover to keep warm.

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Tacos
From: D.Rutherford@appbio.utas.edu.au (Macfudd)

Dry Ingredients
2 tablespoon Cumin powder
1 tablespoon Nutmeg powder
1 tablespoon Pimento (Allspice) powder (NB not pimiento)
1 tablespoon Paprika (hot or sweet)
1 tablespoon cracked peppercorn
salt to taste
Wet Ingredients
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium green capsicum, diced
1 medium red capsicum, diced
1 seeded tomato, roughly chopped
12 hot little fresh red chillies, sliced
6 pickled jalapenos, sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup tomato juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 kilo beans, any kind(s)
To Cook
In a heavy bottomed frying pan (skillet) saute the onion in the oil until golden
Add the mince and fry with stirring until cooked dry. This means all the water has gone and only oils remain.
Add all the dry ingredients to the beans and cook for two minutes with stirring. This cooking without water brings the natural oils out of the spice and gives a better flavour. If too dry then add a little oil, not water.
Add the wet ingredients and stir in well.
Reduce heat to very gentle, cover fry pan and cook for 3/4 hr. Stir occasionally to reduce sticking to pan.
The mixture should not be runny, if so remove lid and reduce.

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Taco Salad
From: kmh2@toto.cc.lehigh.edu (Kathy M. Miller)

1 head lettuce, broken into bite-size pieces
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1-1/2 lb. Nature’s Burger
3/4 cup water
1 (8 oz) bottle Thousand Island dressing
1/2 cup sugar
1 onion, diced
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded
1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
1 pkg. taco flavored corn chips
Brown the burger. Reserve 1 tablespoon taco seasoning mix. Add the rest to the meat with about 3/4 cup water. Simmer for a few minutes then remove from heat. Let cool. Layer lettuce, tomatoes, onion, burger mix, and cheese. Repeat layers until all is used. Refrigerate.

Sauce: Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 8 ounces Thousand Island dressing, and 1 tablespoon taco seasoning mix. Just before serving, add sauce and broken taco chips to vegetables and toss. Enjoy!

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Taco Salad
From: whitney@magnum.sybase.com (Whitney Martin)

1 lb. beans, any kind(s)
1 taco seasoning packet (I use Shilling)
1/2 head of head lettuce, chopped
1/2 bag tortilla chips, broken into medium size pieces
1 can garbonzo beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1-2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 avocado, diced
1 tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
sour cream and salsa for garnish, if desired
Brown the beans, and season with packet, following directions on package as if you were making for tacos. Set aside and allow to cool slightly while you make the rest of the salad. Mix together the lettuce, garbonzo and kidney beans, cheese, avocado, tomato and onion. Add tortilla chips and beans last, toss, and serve immediately, topped with sour cream and salsa if desired.

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Chile Rellenos (4 rellenos, serves two)
From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)

4 Anaheim chiles, roasted and peeled (canned Ortegas work OK)
3-4 oz. monterey jack cheese
8 oz. mild green chile salsa (canned salsa works OK)
2 eggs, separated
Stuff the chilis with the cheese. Whip the whites of the eggs until extremely fluffy; then add the yolks and stir once or twice (overstirring will deflate them).

In a large frying pan, heat 6 oz. of salsa to boiling. Reduce heat. Place 2/3 of the egg mixture in the pan in four relleno-sized lumps. Place one stuffed chile on top of each lump, and the remaining egg mixture on top of the chiles. Use up the remaining salsa by carefully spooning a dollop of salsa on top of each relleno. Cover and cook over low heat for a few minutes — until the egg is firm and the cheese melted; do not overcook. You will need a large pancake turner to dish the rellenos from the frying pan onto serving plates — they have a tendency to fall apart, so do this carefully.

To make these extra wonderful, start with fresh Anaheim peppers, two green and two red, roasting and peeling them right before preparation.

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Chile Relleno
From: sfisher@megatest.com (Scott Fisher)

The classic Mexican-restaurant chile relleno uses what’s called a Long Green Chile, of a number of cultivars. Easiest to come by is the Ortega brand of canned green chiles, which are known as the Anaheim chile when fresh. They’re almost completely fire-free but very flavorful, especially the ones we picked last night for chile verde (recipe later, this one’s a winner). You can stuff any pepper you like; I’ve stuffed habaneros, poblanos, Fresnos, Hungarian hot wax peppers, Spanish Spice, etc. They’re all good, but the one that is most often used in restaurants is the Anaheim, mainly due to Col. Ortega’s trek in 1906 from New Mexico to Oxnard, California, and later to Anaheim, where he developed a technique for roasting and peeling chiles mechanically.

If you’re using fresh chiles, that’s the trick: roasting and peeling. Batter won’t stick to the shiny outer skin of fresh peppers, so you have to remove it. Besides, the taste changes drastically when you fire-roast a pepper, and it’s worth doing at least once — except you’ll probably get hooked. (I covered roasting peppers not long ago, but basically, you hold them in an open fire till they turn black, then let them cool and peel off the black skin. The flesh of the peppers stays green, or red, or orange, and takes on a smoky flavor.)

Once roasted, make a slit about 1/3 to 1/2 the length of the pepper, just below the calyx (the base of the flower around the stem). CUt out the core and seeds. Stuff the chiles with cheese — the classic is to use Monterey jack, but I’ve become addicted to the salty-sour taste of feta or goat cheese (and goat cheese is more likely what the Indians of New Mexico would have used anyway, it turns out).

For the Mexican restaurant flavor, beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then fold in beaten yolks with a little salt. Dip the stuffed peppers in this batter and then fry immediately in hot oil, removing to drain on paper towels when the coating turns golden brown.

What I’ve come to like, however, is dipping the peppers in beaten egg, then in corn meal, then in egg and in corn meal again. Then deep-fry them and drain when golden. This gives a crispier crust with a great corn-meal snap to it; blue corn meal gives it a deeper flavor and looks really cool besides.

In a restaurant, they’ll serve these with a basic salsa ranchera, which I don’t like well enough to know how to make it. I usually serve the ones I describe with sour cream and a fresh pico de gallo (chopped tomatoes, fresh chiles, onions, cilantro, cumin, salt, and lime juice). They would be Homeric with a green chile-tomatillo sauce.

I’ve also stuffed them with cheese, topped them with a grated cheese and popped them under the broiler for a low-fat/low-mess variation. In some ways I prefer that: there’s more roasted-chile flavor than there is with the battered-and-fried variety, but you do miss the nifty crunch and the corn-meal flavor.

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Baked Chili Rellenos
From: jsmith@cyote.dasd.honeywell.com

Stuff 6-8 fresh roasted and pelled chilies (remove seeds, but keep stems) with monterey jack or longhorn cheese. Lay in greased casserole and pour batter over. Bake 325 until batter is done and lightly browned on top, 25 – 30 minutes. Serve with cheese sauce.

Batter:

Beat 4 or 5 egg whites very stiff and add 1/4 tsp salt, add the yolks and continue beating while adding 2 Tbls flour.

Cheese sauce:

Heat and bubble 2 Tbls butter and 2 Tbls flour and 1/4 tsp salt. Add 1 cup milk. Heat and stir until thick. Add 1 cup shredded cheddar or longhorn cheese and melt.

Enchilada Chile Sauce

To begin the Enchiladas we will make the sauce, which is the key to the whole dish.

In a frying pan, add:

1 Tbl lard or vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped

Saute around until garlic a bit golden

Add:

3 Tbl red chile powder
3 tsp oregano
1 tsp crushed whole cumino seed

Stir around until hot and starts to smell good, add:

2 1/2 Tbl cocoa
6 cup water or meat stock
couple bouillon cubes, optional

Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer, and let simmer till needed.

The Meat, Onions and Cheese

While the sauce is simmering, fry up a pound of hamburger gently, or chop up 1 lb. roast pork or roast beef and add to the chile sauce. Let meat simmer gently in chile sauce for 20-30 minutes.

Next, finely chop 1 large onion and grate 1 lb. Monterey Jack or a mild cheddar cheese. Reserve. These will be used between the layers of your enchilada.

Tortillas, and Enchilada Construction

You can obtain corn tortillas about anywhere now. Buy the best you can get, the difference in quality is significant. Tortillas can be made at home using prepared masa, but to do it right is difficult, and the resulting tortillas are usually no better than the store bought ones. The best tortillas are prepared from scratch, but this is a very labor intensive and time consuming process, best left to true afecionados, and the very poor.

To fry the tortillas bring a small, heavy frying pan with about a half inch of lard or oil in it up to a sufficient temperature that a piece of tortilla dropped in it will rise to the surface in a couple seconds and sizzle.

To cook a tortilla, drop it in the oil for a couple seconds, and before it gets hard, pull it out of the oil, let the oil on it drain on a paper towel, then place the tortilla on a plate. Spoon on some of the chile meat sauce. Sprinkle on grated cheese and a bit of chopped onion. Quickly toss another tortilla in the oil. When the next tortilla is done lay it on top of the first tortilla and repeat the proceedure.

A stack of three tortillas is generally about right per person.

Because each enchilada is "custom made", and each takes time place the plates in a warm oven as you finish them so that they stay hot and so that the cheese will melt.

When you are ready to serve, remove the plates from the oven and surround the enchiladas with finely chopped lettuce. Then garnish the Enchiladas with at least a few of these:

a bit of sour cream
a sprinkle of fresh cilantro or parsely
sliced black olives
avacado in any form
thinly sliced tomatoes
References :

INGREDIENTS
3 cups Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw
6 flour tortillas, large, lowfat
3/4 pound lean ground turkey
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 (4 ounce) can jalapenos or green chiles, diced
1 1/2 cups Cheddar cheese, low-fat, shredded
1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce, low sodium
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 tablespoons diced green onions for garnish
1 cooking spray
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
For sauce: In a large saucepan, mix tomato sauce, tomato paste and taco seasoning over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer.
For filling: Coat a large saute pan with nonstick cooking spray. Saute onions and Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw over medium-high heat until onions are translucent. Set aside. Using the same pan, add ground turkey and cook thoroughly, breaking the meat into small pieces -about 10 minutes. Add onions and Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw, diced green chiles/jalapenos and 3/4 cup cheese. Stir until mixed thoroughly and cheese has melted.
Preparation: Spray a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. Pour sauce in the casserole dish, enough to cover the bottom. Dip or coat each tortilla with sauce; fill with 1/6 of enchilada filling and wrap; place in casserole dish with close of tortilla to the bottom. Pour all extra sauce on top of enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Garnish with diced green onions.
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes.

INGREDIENTS
3 cups Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw
6 flour tortillas, large, lowfat
3/4 pound lean ground turkey
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 (4 ounce) can jalapenos or green chiles, diced
1 1/2 cups Cheddar cheese, low-fat, shredded
1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce, low sodium
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 tablespoons diced green onions for garnish
1 cooking spray
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
For sauce: In a large saucepan, mix tomato sauce, tomato paste and taco seasoning over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer.
For filling: Coat a large saute pan with nonstick cooking spray. Saute onions and Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw over medium-high heat until onions are translucent. Set aside. Using the same pan, add ground turkey and cook thoroughly, breaking the meat into small pieces -about 10 minutes. Add onions and Mann’s Broccoli Cole Slaw, diced green chiles/jalapenos and 3/4 cup cheese. Stir until mixed thoroughly and cheese has melted.
Preparation: Spray a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. Pour sauce in the casserole dish, enough to cover the bottom. Dip or coat each tortilla with sauce; fill with 1/6 of enchilada filling and wrap; place in casserole dish with close of tortilla to the bottom. Pour all extra sauce on top of enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Garnish with diced green onions.
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes.
References :