We’re still in prime casserole weather so that’s what I’m making this week. This Tex-Mex dish is more Tex than Mex, but non-purists will enjoy its bubbly warmth.

The recipe comes from my dear friend Sara Stone in Waco, Texas, possibly the nicest person in the whole world.

Sara may be nice, but she isn’t a pushover. After a decade and a half teaching in the journalism department at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, she realized that the chair of the department was discriminating against her because she was female.

Her students gave her high marks for teaching, and she did all the extra work professors are supposed to. Nevertheless, preferential treatment was extended to all the other faculty members in the department, none of whom were women.

Some of the slights were petty, things like never getting her classes scheduled when she wanted them. Nevertheless, petty things add up.

Being the kind person that she is, Sara tried asking nicely for better treatment. When that failed to work, however, she sued the department.

I was indignant on her behalf. She wasn’t. She just did the right thing, politely and calmly. And she succeeded. I cheered from afar.

The creepy (well, I found him creepy; Sara was too tactful to say that she did, even in confidence) department head took early retirement, and Sara took his place as chair. She gave her colleagues and the curriculum new life. And her students adored her for her smarts and her heart.

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When she retired in 2018, one of those students wrote:

“A true … treasure, leaving a legacy for women in journalism that I’m so proud to be part of continuing. Her influence has shaped Baylor journalism and the profession as a whole. Dr. Stone is who I think of when people ask me what Baylor is about: mentorship, joy, courage, wit, kindness, curiosity, hard work, and love.”

Sara never had to sue me, of course. She couldn’t have been dearer. Here’s just one of her kind deeds: when I was trying to finish my doctoral dissertation, she invited me to stay in her house for the month-or-so we thought it would take to do the final rewrites.

She knew I had no income (I had given up my job to concentrate on the thesis) and said she was happy to share her home.

The month of rewrites stretched into a year, all of which I spent living in her guestroom.

Sara never once complained about the messy culinary experiments or the show tunes or the diet coke cans or the vintage TV programs or the piles of paper or the general Tinky-ness of her apparently permanent houseguest.

That’s not just being a nice person. That’s being a saint.

This casserole is a little like her — colorful and comforting. I think it might have a sense of humor, too.

I made Sara’s casserole recently because I get a kick out of being reminded of her — and because my family loves it. Her recipe appears below. It serves a crowd.

I know not everyone likes using canned soup as a base for a recipe, but I’m recording it the way Sara made it. Feel free to make your own cream sauce and add some mushrooms and other veggies to it. And if you have a few cups of leftover chicken in the house, use that instead of a whole chicken.

Ingredients:

1 2-to-3 pound chicken

vegetables as needed for making broth

salt and pepper to taste

1 medium onion, chopped

2 to 3 tablespoons butter

1 can (about 10 ounces) cream of chicken soup

1 can (about 10 ounces) cream of mushroom soup

1 small (4 ounces) can green chiles, chopped

about 8 corn or flour tortillas, ripped into pieces (about 3 to 4 per tortilla); corn tortillas have a little more personality

1 pound store cheese (Cheddar or similar), grated

Instructions:

First, cook the chicken. Bring it to a boil in a pan of water with vegetables appropriate for making a rich broth (onion, garlic, celery, perhaps a carrot or two — and some parsley if you have it in the house), plus salt and pepper; then turn it down and simmer it until it is tender and the broth is flavorful, about 2 hours.

Stir occasionally during this process, and don’t forget to add more water if you need it.

Drain the chicken, saving the broth, and set it aside to cool briefly. Strain out 1 cup of the broth. The remainder of the broth may be used for cooking or sipping at your leisure. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, strip the meat from the bones and shred it.

When you are ready to proceed with the casserole, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brown the onion in the butter. Combine the soups, broth, onion pieces, and green chiles in a saucepan. Add the pieces of chicken and heat well.

In a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, place a layer of broken tortillas, a layer of chicken sauce, and a layer of cheese. Repeat until the casserole is filled. Repeat this layering process. Bake the casserole until it is bubbly around the edges, about 30 minutes.

Let the casserole cool for a little while before slicing off bits. Or don’t wait — but the results will be goopy. Serves 10 to 12.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.