Things you (should) already know about me:

• I LOVE Mexican food
• I LOVE Italian food
• I love to combine things that I love to make one big love fest (in my mouth) (thats what she said).

There are many names for what I’m calling Mex-agna; Mexican casserole, Mexican lasagna, Latin Lasagna, etc. Call it what you want, but I’ll call it delicious.

To get this dish started, preheat your oven to 375 degrees, grab a skillet, some heart healthy oil to sauté with, can-o-black beans, 1 corn on the cob, your favorite salsa, vegan cheese (with melting ability) and some fresh vegetables. I sauteed sweet onion, shredded carrot, green pepper and mushrooms with some cumin, sea salt, fresh ground pepper and cayenne. Do a light sauté to take the tiny bite out of the onion, soften the carrots a tad and to take some of the reserved water out of the mushrooms (the salt with help with this task). Set the sauté aside and sprinkle it with some fresh lime juice. All you need to do to prepare your black beans is open the can and then drain and rinse them. To prepare the corn; cut it free from it’s cob. Spray the sides of your cooking dish lightly (<–seriously) with olive oil, sprinkle a light layer of salsa at the bottom to coat and start building your Mex-agna! I used organic whole wheat big tortillas and ripped them into quarters. My casserole pan was a deep square so I layed out each piece of tortilla so the bottom of the pan was covered. I traded off each layer of the Mex-agna between sautéed veggies with salsa to black beans, corn and cheese. Once you have completed building the Mex-agna, make sure the top layer of tortillas are covered with salsa and then sprinkled with cheese. Cover your baking dish with foil and cook for 35-45 minutes depending on the quality of melty cheese you have. You’re basically warming the dish but also ensuring the tortillas soak up the juices of the veggies and salsa and melting the cheese. I plated mine on top of a bed of spinach with sliced avocado on the side.