Gringo Lasagna

Initially I was going to call this Mexican Lasagna....however I'm pretty sure Grandma Maria Gonzales would have something to say about that blasphemy. Shelley left me with a challenge today, clean out the fridge! OK, done deal. All I'm missing are some tortillas and I don't feel like going to the store. Tortilla making attempt #1 was really not worth publishing, however even my failed attempt at a perfect tortilla worked fine in this recipe. Funny enough, with all the green ingredients in the recipe I decided that a little red food colouring in the dough would add some colour....ok, so we ended up with tortillas that support breast cancer month, nice and pink. Took on the appearance of ham frankly when moistened in the "lasagna". Fun nonetheless ;) and tasted quite good. There are some really interesting YouTube videos of folks showing you how to make tortillas. Worth a peek. Anyway, onto tonight's recipe:

Ingredients:
Tbsp of cooking oil
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
4 Jalapeño peppers, finely diced (optional)
2 lbs lean ground beef (or 1lb beef, 1lb pork)
3 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sea salt (the course stuff...or reduce if you only have fine salt)
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
3 c salsa, divided
6 tortillas (pink ones even)
2 c of Monterey Jack or Mozerella (gringo) cheese, divided
4 oz can of green chilies
1 c old cheddar cheese

In a large skillet, heat your oil until shimmering. Add the onion and green pepper and sauté until the onions are opaque. Add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add your ground beef, or beef and pork, along with the chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and the Jalapeño if you chose to add. Cook until the meat mixture is cooked through.

Ok, so I did this in the morning and poured this into a bowl, covered and put in the fridge while I made the tortillas. You can proceed with the recipe at this point or cover and refrigerate the mixture until you're ready to assemble the "lasagna".

Assembly:

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Using a 9x13 casserole dish, cover the bottom with a thin layer of salsa. Cut two tortillas in half and assemble over the salsa to create a tortilla layer. Spoon in 1/3 of the meat mixture and spread out evenly over the tortilla layer. Do the same for the chilies and 1/2 of the Monterey Jack or Mozzerella.

Using 1/2 of the remaining salsa, make your next layer, cover with 2 tortillas as in the previous step and repeat as you did in the previous
layer. For the final layer you will finish with the Old Cheddar instead of the Jack or Mozzarella, all else remains the same as layer two.

Put the lasagna in the oven for 45 minutes and enjoy!

Hey, throw me a comment if you tried this. Let me know how it turned out. Personally, I made a cerdo of myself.