Taco Bueno Bake

I love, love, love the cookbook clearance section at Borders. Ok let's be honest, I just love cookbooks. That's where I found 365 Easy One-Dish Recipes: Easy One Dish Recipes for Everyday Family Meals. This recipe is the first one I've tried out of this cookbook. I'll definitely be using it more often. I have a feeling that it will be well worth the $4 I spent on it. We had this for dinner tonight, and the kids thought it was great. Richie and I liked it, too.

This isn't the original recipe, because I off course changed it, but it's pretty close.

You will need:

2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 small onion
1 1/2 cups taco sauce
I box of Spanish rice- prepared. So add on the ingredients needed for the rice.
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Mexican 4-cheese blend, divided in half.
1 can (15.25 oz) black beans (This is one of the things I added, so I suppose you could leave them out if you dislike them)

This dish can be eaten as is, which is what the cookbook says to do, but we thought it should be topped with the usual suspects: shredded lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, sour cream, etc. Richie and I both thought it would make a great meat mix for nachos, taco or burrito filling. So tack on extra ingredients if you want to take it in that direction.

*Preheat oven to 350

*Chop up the onion and add it to the ground beef, brown and drain if needed.

*Add taco sauce, rice, half the cheese, and black beans.

*Spoon mixture into sprayed 3-quart baking dish.

*Cover and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle remaining cheese on top and return to oven for 5 minutes. Serves 8.

Richie and I couldn't understand why it needed to be heated in the oven. All of the ingredients were fully cooked. It helped it to set up a little bit, but if you are in a hurry you could skip baking it and just melt the cheese on top. Enjoy!