Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. Featured in The Oregonian

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
DANIELLE CENTONI
The Oregonian Staff

If it's the little things that make life worth living, then saucy, cheesy casseroles should be at the top of the list. There's something about the merging of melted cheese, thick sauce and belly-filling starch that feeds the soul.

Although lasagna and other baked pastas tend to hog all the attention, this delicious Mexican casserole will likely end up making frequent appearances in your casserole lineup. Made with a tomato sauce spiked with canned chipotle chiles en adobo, and layered with roasted poblano peppers, fried strips of corn tortillas and two kinds of Mexican cheese, it has all the ooey-gooey goodness of a good lasagna, but with vibrant flavors that bring a welcome change of pace.

The recipe comes from "Things Cooks Love" (Andrews McMeel, $35, 352 pages), a new cookbook by veteran author Marie Simmons and Sur La Table, the chain of cookware shops. Packed with recipes designed to use specific cookware and gadgets, you might think the book is just a smart marketing ploy by a savvy company, but a trip through the pages assured us it's a great book in its own right. The enticing recipes travel the globe and are organized by cuisine and equipment. But even if you don't have, say, a Moroccan tagine pot, Simmons gives you plenty of alternatives.

In this case, we didn't have a tortilla press, or the time, to make tortillas. And if we did, we'd probably eat them all right away and wouldn't have any day-old leftovers for this recipe. But no worries, we used store-bought corn tortillas and it still turned out great.