HELOISE: If you're planning a holiday dinner ...

... with your family and friends, my Taco Casserole recipe is a delicious addition to your menu. It is made without measuring the ingredients so that you can basically use whatever you have on hand or any of the leftovers you might have in your refrigerator. Here it is:Hard taco shells, tortilla chips or corn chips broken into small piecesSalsaCooked taco meat, ground beef or shredded boneless chickenBeansCheeseGreen peppersSour creamBlack olivesChopped lettuceHeat oven to 350 F. Grease or spray nonstick spray onto a casserole dish (the size depends on how much you want to make).Put a bit of salsa on the bottom, then add taco or corn chips. Layer with leftover taco meat, beans, cheese, peppers and more salsa.Bake until hot then cover with sour cream, olives and chopped lettuce before serving. Enjoy!This recipe and over a dozen more of my most popular recipes are in my "Heloise's All-Time Favorite Recipes" pamphlet. For a limited time when you order this pamphlet by visiting www.Heloise.com, you'll also receive the "Heloise's Main Dishes" pamphlet for free!This pamphlet has many more original recipes, including Holiday Ham, Mother's Cornbread Dressing and others you can serve with your holiday meals. HeloiseDear Heloise: I always thought nuts and seeds were bad for people because that's what my mother always told me. Turns out, that isn't true. They're actually good for us. Nuts are a wonderful source of proteins, vitamins, minerals and those healthy fats. Cashews (which are actually legumes, as are peanuts) are rich in copper, which is good for your immune system and your brain.Eating almonds with their skins on may even provide greater health benefits because they encourage the growth of friendly bacteria in the gut and have protective compounds known as "flavonoids."To list the seven most beneficial nuts in order of importance to our health, it would be as follows:1. Almonds2. Brazil nuts3. Cashews4. Chestnuts5. Hazelnuts6. Macadamia nuts7. PecansSo, enjoy a handful of nuts and reap all the benefits they provide. Caroline S. Manchester, New Hampshire Dear Heloise: I am writing to see if you can help me. When I make coffee, I get an oily film at the top, and I don't know what causes it. It tastes OK, but still has that oily top. Pam B. Rochester, Minnesota Pam, it's rather common, so don't be alarmed. It's usually called "coffee scum," but despite its rather ugly name, it's just the natural oils found in coffee beans, which contain antioxidants and unsaturated fats.A drip brewed coffee usually has less oil than French press coffee or Turkish coffee. The higher the temperature, the more oil that's produced. Hard water, which contains minerals, also produces more oil. Heloise