I spent some summers during university years as a live-in cook/keeper for a family with a “cabin” in a country club on Bainbridge Island where they spent that part of the year. As with any family, they had a rotating menu of favorites for which the recipes were available for whatever cook was in the kitchen preparing meals. Sometimes the recipe or a memory of a recipe will flash into a cook’s mind years later, like this one.
What I could remember about making this casserole is likely just a partial list of ingredients. They are: chopped, cooked tamales plus corn, sauteed onion, sliced black olives, cheddar cheese and a jar of chili sauce. There were no added spices but I added cumin, coriander, chipotle powder and red pepper flakes plus several squirts of sriracha chili sauce. After mushing all the ingredients together with half the cheese in the casserole and the other half on the casserole, I dotted the top with sriracha.
I liked it. The family I’d cooked for would definitely not have liked it. Then. Maybe now there would be a bottle of sriracha on their table since it’s gained fairly wide acceptance.
And some more brilliant autumn foliage:
Contemplating whether I took pictures of a relatively boring and ordinary casserole just to publish the pretty leaf photos.
Ms Chef in Seattle 