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I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! As I'm sure most everyone did, we also set some goals for our family in 2022! One of our goals is to cook more homemade meals, as well as make less trips to the store than we do now. This may seem like a strange goal since we typically don't eat out much, and I do my best to meal plan each week, but... the last few months of 2021 involved quite a few store runs, pizza nights, and Wendy's trips because I just did not want to cook. I have nothing against any of those things, but we did them more often than I prefer.
That said, we have meal planned and done weekly store trips before, and I know we can do it again. It also will involve getting creative with pantry and freezer shopping. That's one thing I do really enjoy. I love rummaging through the pantry, fridge, and freezer to see what meals can be created. They can be meals we've had before such as spaghetti or tacos, or new meals that I come up with on the fly. That's what brings you today's post and the recipe I'm going to share. It was a hit with Riley and myself, and had I left out the corn, Jesse would have loved it, too. Instead, he liked it but I learned (after 9+ years married, yes I'm still learning!) that he does not particularly like corn in his casseroles. I still make no promises to leave the corn out next time I make this, but if you're not a corn fan...feel free to nix it!
We started our resolution for meal planning the last week of December, and this was one of the meals we had. I called it Taco Goulash, because when all tossed together, it reminded me of my mom's goulash. Ground beef and elbow macaroni noodles make up the main part of this dish, same as goulash, but from there it takes a taco twist! You season your beef to taste with taco seasoning, add in your cooked pasta, a can of drained whole kernel corn, and a small can of red enchilada sauce. Mix it all together, if you have a cast iron skillet, I recommend using it! I mixed mine all in the same pan I cooked my beef in, then topped it with shredded cheese and baked it in the cast iron for 20 minutes at 350° for 20 minutes. I also have a this microwave pasta cooker which made cooking the pasta super easy, too!
