Beefy Tex-Mex (taco salad)

For a super busy Sunday (and fast Sunday at that) we sure managed to do more than our share of cooking yesterday.  3.5 desserts a meal and a fruit salad (the .5 dessert.)  Tavio did make the cookies for the court of honor.  Brandon made the 2 desserts - one for us, one for someone who helped him out with his brakes on Saturday.  I made the meal and fruit salad.  So at least it wasn't one person in the kitchen all day - definitely still too hot for that unfortunately.  Everything turned out pretty well.  I'm starting with dinner because I actually made some changes there.  (Plus of course I actually made it.)  Everyone really liked it -whose to say if it is because they had been fasting all day and were hungry, or if it was super good.  I guess I'd have to go by the fact that the 5 year old ate it with no complaints.  (Of course the 2 year old just dipped some chips in sour cream and left the rest on the plate - didn't even eat his cheese.  The boy kills me.  He wouldn't even try the grapes or the sauce on the grapes...  But that is another story.)
This recipe is originally from Rachael Ray, but I found it on dealstomeals.com.  Here is my adaptation to make it speedier and less spicy.

Ingredients

• 1-2 Tablespoons butter
• 2 cans mild diced green chilies
• 1 onion diced (I used about 1/2 but I had a very large onion - probably 1.25 cups)
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons chili powder (this was perfectly mild for kids.  If you like spice, you can double this.)
• 1-1.5 lbs lean ground beef (I used pre-cooked, DH had packaged this batch and filled them a bit fuller than I do - hence the 1-1.5 lbs.  We probably had about 1.25 lbs.)
• 1 15 oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• chopped lettuce (I just grabbed a jar from the fridge)
• tortilla chips, slightly crushed
• shredded cheddar cheese
• sour cream
• any other optional toppings like cilantro, salsa, olives, avocado or guacamole, I even put some red and yellow pepper on the left overs at lunch today.

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large skillet.  Add onions and saute until fragrant.  Add green chilies and chili powder and cook and stir until well combined and heated.  Add defrosted meat, beans, and tomato sauce and cook until heated through.  (If not using pre-cooked beef, add it first and cook it until done, then add the beans and tomato sauce.)  I then let this simmer while I got the rest of the meal together (finished dicing tomatoes, set the table, and made a grape salad.)  I just kept an eye on it and turned it to very low when I got worried it might get dry.
2. To serve, place tortillas on a plate, top with meat/bean mixture followed by cheese lettuce tomatoes and any other optional toppings.