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Dear Readers: If you're planning a holiday dinner with your family and friends, my Taco Casserole recipe is a delicious addition to your menu. It is made without measuring the ingredients so that you can basically use whatever you have on hand or any of the leftovers you might have in your refrigerator. Here it is:
Hard taco shells, tortilla chips or corn chips broken into small pieces
Salsa
Cooked taco meat, ground beef or shredded boneless chicken
Beans
Cheese
Green peppers
Sour cream
Black olives
Chopped lettuce
Heat oven to 350 F. Grease or spray nonstick spray onto a casserole dish (the size depends on how much you want to make).
Put a bit of salsa on the bottom, then add taco or corn chips. Layer with leftover taco meat, beans, cheese, peppers and more salsa.
Bake until hot then cover with sour cream, olives and chopped lettuce before serving. Enjoy!
This recipe and over a dozen more of my most popular recipes are in my "Heloise's All-Time Favorite Recipes" pamphlet. For a limited time when you order this pamphlet by visiting www.Heloise.com, you'll also receive the "Heloise's Main Dishes" pamphlet for free!
This pamphlet has many more original recipes, including Holiday Ham, Mother's Cornbread Dressing and others you can serve with your holiday meals. -- Heloise
NAUGHTY NUTS
Dear Heloise: I always thought nuts and seeds were bad for people because that's what my mother always told me. Turns out, that isn't true. They're actually good for us. Nuts are a wonderful source of proteins, vitamins, minerals and those healthy fats. Cashews (which are actually legumes, as are peanuts) are rich in copper, which is good for your immune system and your brain.
Eating almonds with their skins on may even provide greater health benefits because they encourage the growth of friendly bacteria in the gut and have protective compounds known as "flavonoids."
To list the seven most beneficial nuts in order of importance to our health, it would be as follows:
1. Almonds
2. Brazil nuts
3. Cashews
4. Chestnuts
5. Hazelnuts
6. Macadamia nuts
7. Pecans
So, enjoy a handful of nuts and reap all the benefits they provide. -- Caroline S., Manchester, New Hampshire
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Hints from Heloise run occasionally in Lifestyles. Readers may send a hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Texas 78279-5000, fax it to 210-HELOISE, or email: Heloise@Heloise.com. Letters won't be answered personally.