Taco Time
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 3:00AM | Seeley deBorn 
ETA:: Did you know that October 4 is "National Taco Day"? Neither did I. How nice of them to make a holiday to celebrate my blog post!
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Taco night was always fun food night. You get to eat with your hands, you get to build your own with as much or as little of each topping as you want, and making them is so fast and easy they're a perfect weeknight dinner.
I know most of us grew up with, and are probably still using, those packets of seasoning mix that come in the yellow box. No more! There's no reason to add thickeners, colours, or msg to your dinner when you can make it yourself with no more work or time than the packet.
Okay, yeah, the taco shells came in a yellow box, but I don't like deep frying, and baking the tortillas in the oven just doesn't work. You could of course have soft tacos instead and do away with the yellow box entirely, but there's just something about the crunch. And the satisfaction of making it to the other end without losing your fillings onto your plate.
Beef Tacos
What you need:
- 1/2 lb ground beef
- 1/2 onion
- 1/2 red pepper
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp cumin
- 1/4 tsp corriander
- 1/4 tsp chili powder
- cayenne, if you want it spicier
- 1 c tomato sauce, or crushed tomatoes
Oh yeah, and taco shells, cheese, lettuce, and whatever salsa you like best.
What you gotta do:
Put the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. (preheating the oven to 350 right now is probably a good idea too)
Dice up your pepper, onion and garlic.
Measure out your spices.
Dump in the ground beef and the stuff that's on your cutting board into the hot pan. Yes, all of it, all at the same time. Go!
I told you this was fast. I'll bet you were even able to do all the chopping and measuring in the time it took to warm the pan.
Sautee everything together, breaking up the meat as you do. Add the tomato.
This step won't add too much of a tomato flavour, but it will add the reddish hue most people are used to thanks to the yellow packets. Veggies for colour, who knew!
Mix in the tomato and let this cook while you grate the cheese and shred the lettuce. If it starts looking a little dry while you're preppign your toppings, add a couple tablespoons of water. This stops it from drying out completely, and can end up being nicely saucy.
If you've got a few extra minutes, you could even do a bit of fresh guacamole, or a pico de gallo (recipe to follow eventually).
Crisp up your taco shells in the oven for a few minutes at 350. (*goes back to top of post to remind you to preheat the oven*)
If your cookie sheet is bigger than the oven, they are not going to stand up nicely.
Now the fun part! Divvy out the shells onto plates, and then put everything into bowls (yes, dishes-intensive, I'm afraid) and start building!
Me, I'm a fan of sour cream with my Tex-Mex, but this is a DIY dinner so have fun! Try something new! I even got The Boy to try a bit of hot sauce!
What's your favourite weeknight fast dinner?
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And this is where Taneasha lets out a sigh of relief that I made it through the whole post without some kind of innuendo about tacos.
Next time I'm in LA, I'm totally going to the Pink Taco. (had to link to the wiki page because the restaurant page auto-plays music and that should be illegal)
Reader Comments (2)
Dude! I must have tacos this week now. Those look so good.
I know right! I'm pretty close to having them this week myself.