Tasty Tamale Pie

Deb's Recipes's Note:

This hearty and delicious meat pie with tamale topping is a long-time family favorite of ours and based upon a versatile recipe from the 1976 Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. You may change things up to suit your tastes by making this with or without olives, with or without beans, with added green chiles and/or chopped tomato. For more spice, include some hot pepper-jack cheese or chopped jalapenos. Easy OAMC instructions are included.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 8

Beef Filling

• 1 ¼ lbs lean ground beef
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 (16 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can corn , drained
• ½ cup sliced ripe olives
• 1 garlic clove , minced
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 -3 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 dash pepper
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans or 1 (15 ounce) can refried beans
• 1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese

Cornmeal Topping

• ¾ cup yellow cornmeal
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups cold water
• 1 tablespoon butter or 1 tablespoon margarine

Directions:

1. Cook meat, onion, and green pepper in a large skillet until meat is browned; drain fat.
2. Stir in tomato sauce, corn, olives, garlic, seasonings, and beans; simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes until thick; stir in cheese then remove from heat.
3. Meanwhile, stir cornmeal, salt, and cold water together in a saucepan; cook over medium-high heat (please be careful as hot cornmeal mixture may spatter) for a minute or two, stirring constantly, until thick; remove from heat and stir in butter.
4. Turn meat filling into a 9x13" baking dish that has been lightly coated with no-stick cooking spray; spoon cornmeal topping evenly over entire top of beef filling.
5. Bake at 375° for about 40 minutes until cornmeal topping is set and beef filling is bubbly; serve topped with salsa and sour cream.
6. NOTE: Family-sized portions of the cooked beef filling freeze excellently in Ziploc freezer bags - To serve: Just thaw, turn meat filling into a prepared baking dish, quickly make and spoon on a proportional amount (for a frozen half-batch to be baked in an 8x8" pan, prepare topping using 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 1/3 cup water) of cornmeal topping, bake and enjoy!

Reviews

[tiger7lady]

Fantastic. My family loved it.

[Annacia]

This so reminded me of home. I made a half recipe, skipped the sugar. added some cumin, upped the chili powder to 1 TBS and loved it. I used fat free refried beans. If you like the Tex-Mex style of eating this will please you. Thank you Deb for an enjoyable dinner.