Today I want to introduce you to Faye Brantley.
Faye Brantley was my Mom's Mom's hairdresser and good friend. Faye made a wonderful tex mex inspired casserole which everybody in my family loved and shared. It's a surprisingly easy weeknight meal which everybody will love (which is probably why it got spread to everybody in my family!).
While I was in the middle of working on this recipe book (in the middle of the pandemic), a friend of mine gave birth and a meal train was organized. I wanted to channel my inner home economics teacher and bring them something hearty, that wasn't take out (because, even though it seems unlikely, it is possible to get tired of takeout), and I settled on this! She reported that she and her husband enjoyed it. So lots more votes that this dish is worth your time.
It's honestly super easy. Which is why it's great for a weeknight meal.
I'd start by cutting the tortillas up, the rest of the stuff can probably be done on the fly pretty easily, but the tortillas can be a little irksome. When I made this dish for this blog entry Ryan bought the groceries (though he's bought all the groceries throughout the pandemic, he's been the designated grocery store purchaser). He bought bougie tortillas, fancy ones made at HEB with little paper separating each tortilla. Don't do that. Don't be bougie, it will make your life harder. Just buy a pack of tortillas from the bread aisle and you're good to go. Promise.
The reason you should not be bougie is this: the first couple of times we made this dish I stupidly interpreted the recipe as I needed to tear the tortillas into chunks. This took forever to do. Why I interpreted the recipe that way is still a mystery. I was discussing this recipe with my Mom and told her about my tortilla tearing woes and my Mom was like "why don't you just cut them." so anyways, don't be me, cut the tortillas into 1 inch squares. But this is why you shouldn't buy the fancy tortillas. If you buy the fancy ones then they mush together and form one giant tortilla blob when you cut them and then you have to spend time separating them, but if you buy the bread aisle ones, you shouldn't have that problem, or at least not to the same degree.
Before you start on the next step I would go ahead and preheat your oven at 350 degrees. The next few steps are going to end up going pretty quickly.
Once you have mastered the art of the tortilla cutting, brown your meat and onion together. Choose a fairly large pan because you're going to be adding stuff to it, but other than that, there is nothing special that happens here. You have probably done this a thousand times. Drain it afterwards!
Once you've browned your meat combine the soup, the rotel tomatoes and beans and then add it to the pan with the meat.
Then all that's left to do is layer your dish! Give your casserole dish a healthy coating of pam or your non-stick method of choice and follow these steps:
First put a few tablespoons of the meat mixture on the bottom of the dish. This just helps with the nonstick. I usually am a bit more generous than a few tablespoons, but still wanted it to be VERY thin (like see-through thin)
Then add half of your cut-up tortillas
Then add half of your meat mixture
Half of the cheese
The rest of the tortillas
The rest of the meat
The rest of the cheese
Then put it in your preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes.
FAYE BRANTLEY’S CASSEROLE
From Bessie
SERVES: 4 - 6 | PREP TIME: 15 MINUTES | COOK TIME: 30 MINUTES
INGREDIENTS
1 lb. ground meat
1 onion, chopped
14 oz. can ranch style beans
10 oz. can Rotel tomatoes and chiles, diced
10 oz. can cream of mushroom soup
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
10 (6") corn tortillas cut into pieces
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Sautee and drain the ground meat and onion together.
3. Combine the ranch style beans, Rotel tomatoes, and mushroom soup. Add to the meat and onion mixture.
4. Spray an 8x11 casserole dish with pam.
5. Layer ingredients as follows:
· Place 2 or 3 tablespoons of meat mixture in bottom of pan
· ½ of tortillas
· ½ of meat mixture
· ½ of cheese
· ½ of tortillas
· ½ of meat mixture
· ½ of cheese
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve with green salad and corn.