Mexican Salad

While looking for a recipe to revive my blog, this one caught my eye. Who wouldn't love a Mexican Salad? So I looked over the ingredients and was surprised to see "rat cheese" listed. Sounds yummy, right? What the heck is "rat cheese"?!? I turned to Google, and my wonderfully intelligent friends on Facebook, and came to the conclusion that "rat cheese" was what they used to call cheddar cheese. It was used for rat traps and cut off of a big wheel of cheese. Okay. We happen to love cheddar cheese so this quickly became a must try recipe. 

I used a head of iceberg lettuce and chose medium cheddar cheese. We actually like the extra sharp, but I figured that would have been used for something like this back in the day. I got the good old black label ranch style beans, sweet yellow onion (because it's what I had on hand), a 16oz bottle of Kraft Classic Catalina (didn't think they had the family size option back then either) and a regular sized bag of original Fritos, not the family size or scoop kind. 

This was a super easy and quick salad to make. After tasting it, Anthony and I agreed that it screams Church potluck to celebrate the pastors anniversary, or some occasion like that. It was good. Cheesy for sure! The iceberg lettuce seems to wilt a little after being mixed with the dressing, but adding the Fritos before serving brought some crunch back to the dish. 

A few changes I would make next time would be to possibly try romaine lettuce, purple onion, another can of beans and Anthony said cilantro as a garnish once served. 

Here's my interpretation of the recipe:

Mexican Salad

1 head lettuce

1 lb rat cheese

1 can ranch style beans chilled and rinsed

1 sm chopped onion

3/4 bottle of Krafts Catalina dressing

1 pkg Fritos - mashed

Cut lettuce, grate cheese, add beans, onions, add dressing, refrigerate 30 minutes before serving. Add Fritos. 

This was found in a small recipe binder. Behind each divider is an envelope to put clippings in. The recipes are handwritten on loose leaf type of paper. A lot of them are just tucked in because the holes are torn. The very back cover of the binder has the name Janelle Parker written on it. It's the same handwriting as this recipe shows. I'm going to assume the owner of this collection was Ms. Parker :)

I hope you enjoy and give this recipe a second chance in your kitchen too.