Mmm...Cinco de Mayo Dinner

So, I had a "cooking bug" today. I can't remember the last time I made a WHOLE meal--complete with dessert. And, since today was Cinco de Mayo, it was a good excuse for some Mexican food. Although, let's face it, I don't need an excuse for that! :)

I wanted to try something new that would be fairly easy, so I looked up some different casserole-type ideas and found numerous recipes for Mexican lasagna. So, I decided to concoct my own version of that.

I took about 2 pounds of ground beef &browned that with some garlic (would have also browned it with onion, but we didn't have one). When it was close to done, I added a can of green chiles, a can of black beans, and about a cup of salsa.

Then, I cut up 3 medium whole wheat tortillas into strips (to resemble lasagna noodles) and mixed up a cheese mixture. I had a bit of cottage cheese that needed to be eaten & combined that with about 3/4 cup of sour cream and some shredded cheese.

Once the meat was done, I took about 1/3 of the meat mixture and put that on the bottom of my casserole dish, layered with tortilla strips on top, and spread about 1/2 the cheese mixture on top.

I repeated that again and on the very top added some more shredded cheese with some olives. Baked on 350 until everything looked golden & bubbly.

Served it up with some homemade guacamole and chips. Mmm...

It was quite yummy & I even have meat-mixture left over that we can freeze for tacos or burritos sometime. The only problem is that Andrew found it to be too spicy. So, in our house, it's not really a kid-approved dish!

Now onto the best part....dessert! I stumbled upon this chocolate-chip cookie brownie recipe. The recipe is actually on the back of the Betty Crocker cookie mix bags, but I will definitely be referring back to bakerella's blog as she has super cute ideas! It sounded so good and looked so easy, that I thought I would give it a shot. And, it was great! I was able to just use one mixing bowl--yay for easy clean up.

I opted to leave off the frosting, which turned out to be just fine as these treats are SUPER rich & chocolatey enough for our tastes. They did get just a little too done (especially around the edges), but that's the only problem with them (if you don't count their temptation & caloric level as problems). I will definitely be making these again!