This is a tasty and fun recipe. In fact if you have little ones around get them to help build this amazing casserole.

First pre-heat your cooker to 225-230 degrees fehrienhight. Next place 4 lbs. 80/20 ground beef into a aluminum baking pan and using a knife or spoon, break up the meat a bit. Give it a good dusting with chili powder. In this recipe I apply about a tbsp. of chili powder by shaking some on prior to placing it in the cooker and the rest after I turn the meat.

While the meat is slow cooking, prepare your veggies. Slice and coarsely chop 1/2 red onion. De-seed and chop one Anaheim pepper. De-seed and chop 1/2 green bell pepper. Mince 1 tbsp. garlic which is about 2 large cloves.

After one hour of cook time flip and break apart the ground beef. Shake on some more chili powder. Continue to cook until the ground beef has browned.

Once browned, remove the meat from the cooker and place it into a large deep frying pan. Add the following to the meat.

3 Packages of Taco Seasoning
1 Tbsp. Minced Garlic
1/2 Red onion Chopped
1 Anaheim Pepper chopped
1/2 Green Bell Pepper Chopped

Now add water until the meat is just sticking out of the water. Stir thoroughly and cook over medium high heat until the liquid has evaporated leaving moist seasoned beef. Do not over cook and be sure to stir a few times while its cooking.

Once the taco meat is done its time to build the taco casserole. You will need a large casserole dish or in my case I used a large Lasagna pan from my local grocer. Spray some PAM in the bottom and sides of the pan.  Lay yellow corn tortilla chips in the bottom making sure to fully cover the bottom of the pan. Using your hands press down and smash the chips a bit. Spoon on a 1/2 the taco meat over the chips covering them. Spoon on 1/2 the canned diced tomatoes using only the tomatoes not the juice. This is a good time to add some Jalapeno's. I didn't as my family doesn't like the heat. Pour 1/2 can of tomato sauce in stripes over the taco meat. Next add a layer of cheese. I used a Mexican four cheese blend. From this point you will repeat the last steps. Add another layer of chips, taco meat, tomatoes, and sauce. Leave enough sauce to pour three lines of sauce on the top. This time add a layer of chips and then a thick layer of cheese on the top.  Lay some green onion on top and then pour on the leftover sauce in the form of three lines or stripes.

Place the taco casserole into your cooker and cook at 300 degrees for about one hour. You want to cook it long enough to melt all the cheese and soften up the chips. Make sure you don't brown the cheese.

Once the taco casserole is cooked, garnish it with black olives and chives. That's it! 

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did.