Tacos

Tonight was taco night. I was tired of trying a bunch of new things and wanted to fall back on an old favorite. Tacos. I've got a recipe for the mix that I'm sure I found somewhere, but through tweaks and tweaks I can probably call it my own. Works great for Chicken or Beef Tacos, but as I said, we were going for an old favorite. So beef it is. This is the meal that got us on the 93/7 ratio beef. When using a fattier ratio, Aly mentioned it tasting off, and so I switched over. Didn't change the mix and next time she pointed out how it tasted better.

Step 1 is brown the meat. Pretty standard and not a lot going on. While thats going, I mix everything up in a glass bowl, once browned I dump it in with a bit of water. Mix it up, and let it cook till water is mostly boiled off and you are good to go. It takes about 10 min total to make which is really nice.

What I like about the taco mix is that the whole time you are cooking with it, you get that "Taco" smell. Gets you raring to go. Then when you eat it, its got a little kick to it, but not too much that Aly won't eat it. To up the kick add more chili powder. I'm also thinking that next time I might reduce the salt and pepper. I think they get thrown in a lot of recipes simply because "Well you can't cook without them" and I'd rather let people add it themselves if they want.

For this meal in particular, we forgot to start the refried beans which Aly loves. Thats just out of a can though, and took 2 min to cook up in the microwave. We also had some Mexican cheese mix, sour cream, salsa and I found some jalapeños from a previous meal. I thought about chopping onions but didn't feel like it.

-Mix-
1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 Teaspoon Dried Oregano
1/2 Teaspoon Paprika
1 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Pepper

-Jeff