Taco Time

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)

The 32 Hour Day

I need one.

I do promise that eventually I will make Creamsicle cookies for Lyra. But omg math. I spent 9 hours on one day of the long weekend doing homework (more on other days too!) and I'm just managing to keep up. I've also started hiding in empty boardrooms on my lunch break so I can scribble numbers in peace. This is not looking like my funnest summer ever.

And after eating sandwiches and cereal for dinners last week I decided I really needed to make freezable meals again this weekend. Not that I object to cookies for dinner from time to time (you so have and you know it) but I just don't think a full week of it is a good idea.

So instead, I made meaty balls. Froze them. No pics.

And chili.

Or at least, what I call chili.

I'm sure there are purists of all kinds who are going to complain about one thing or another but you know what? Go make your own freaking chili. No beans allowed? Too bad. I love the musical fruit so they're in there. Ground beef? Yup. Deal with it. Tomatoes? Holy freaking crap you'd think the world was gonna end if someone put tomatoes in chili. But you know what? I did. And I still have an assignment due next week so obvioulsy it can't be that catastrophic.

Chili, The Way I Felt Like Making It

What you need:

• about 1 lb of lean ground beef
• 2-3 onions
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp dried crushed chilis
• 1 chipotle in adobo sauce
• 3 poblanos
• 2 anaheims
• 2 sweet red peppers
• 1 jalapeno (at least)
• 1 c dried pinto beans
• 1 c TVP (I'll explain later)
• 2 c crushed tomatoes
• 2-3 c beef broth

What you gotta do:

Chop your onions and garlic and combine them in the biggest pot you have (you know, the one you have to put on top of the cupboards because it doesn't fit inside them) with the ground beef and oregano.

While that's cooking (stir it from time to time to bust up the meat) chop your peppers. A coarse chop is fine. They're going to be in there all day simmering and will break down quite a bit, so save yourself the work.

Speaking of saving work, since you're going to be adding heat and seeds to this, don't worry about picking every single seed out of your peppers. If you just cut around the top:

And then pop the core out:

Good enough.

It's particularly easy to do this with poblanos, but it works on any pepper really.

Do it to them all, chop em, and toss em in the pot.

Give it a stir and then pile in the spices.

May as well stir them in too.

Now, add the dry stuff. Beans and TVP.

Textured Vegetable Protein. Yeah, I see you making that face. But you've probably already eaten it. I first learned of it from a vegetarian roommate. He'd use it to make spaghetti sauce, meatballs, pretty much anything that would normally have meat in it. It's cheap, fat free, veggie sourced protein and when it's reconstituted it has the same texture as ground beef. Even some restaurants use it (yup, you've probably eaten it). You can find it at most bulk stores, any health food store, and even at some supermarkets.

And it makes a pound of beef make a lot of chili.

But it is dry, and needs liquid. That's where the tomatoes and beef broth come in. You could use water, beer, or any other liquid you like. Start with about a cup and a half.

After a while, the beans will be wrinkly.

But then they'll start to puff up. You might need to add more liquid. I did.

I cooked mine on fairly low heat with the lid on (do not need the extra humidity in here). But still, check it from time to time, and add more liquid of choice if it seems too dry. And then eventually, you'll have something that looks like this:

And you'll be able to mash a bean against the side of the pot.

And the peppers will have broken down, and the TVP will look exactly like the beef, and the whole house will smell freaking amazing.

And since there was no way I was turning the oven on (it's finally warm here and I'm really thinking I need to get myself a little window AC unit) to make corn bread, I had it with corn chips. Organic blue ones. Fun!

And then I bagged the rest and froze them for later this week.

And probably for dinner next week as well since I really don't like eating the same thing for dinner every night. Except, apparently, when it's a bowl of cereal.

I really need a couple 32 hour days so I can get all the crap done that needs to be done. Like feeding myself.

What would you do with a 32 hour day?