Turkey Taco Mac

Have you ever watched Semi Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee on the Food Network? I really love the concept of the show. Using basic things in your pantry for short cuts to a quick meal is right up my alley. Most of the time Ms. Lee seems more focused on making the cocktails and creating "tablescapes" than the actual meal. If you can look past those things, you can pick up some good ideas to base a meal off of. I say "base a meal" because her recipes usually need a bit of tinkering. The recipe for Turkey taco mac was no exception.
For some reason I thought it would be. Shame on me for not going with my gut. It is dinner after all. If you're gonna listen to your gut, dinner would be the optimum time to do so. Alas. This dish was just ok. Baking the pasta really dried it out, and the dish was on the bland side.

Next time I am going to follow two suggestions made in the comment section of the recipe page. Adding taco seasoning while cooking the meat would certainly add some more flavor. Sour cream would make the noodles creamier, and hopefully solve the problem of the noodles drying out in the oven. If adding the sour cream doesn't help, I'll cut the cooking time by 5-10 minutes.

All issues aside, the dish wasn't a total bomb. Both Mrblocko and Blockette both requested that I make this dish again. Oh, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record...Mrblocko thought the dish needed hot sauce.

Turkey taco Mac from Semi-Homemade Cooking
1 pound ground turkey
1 (14oz) package macaroni and cheese dinner with 4-cheese sauce
1 (4-ounce) jar pimentos
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
1 cup tortilla chips
1/4 cup preshredded Mexican style Cheddar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Brown ground turkey in a large skillet over medium-high heat; set aside. Cook macaroni and cheese according to directions on package. In a large bowl, stir to combine macaroni and cheese, cooked ground turkey, pimentos and corn and transfer to 3-quart casserole dish. Crumble tortilla chips over top and sprinkle with Cheddar cheese. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes before serving.