taco tuesday

Each day I discover these fabulous emails in my inbox from Bon Appétit, Martha Stewart, and the New York Times, all alerting me to what I should be cooking that day. It’s great marketing, because I click on every one of them. Last week there was one from a continuing series on how to recreate comfort foods. The recipe was for homemade taco seasoning.

Come on who doesn’t want a taco? So I opened the recipe and my spice drawer and got to work.

The recipe said I should crush the red pepper flakes into a powder with a pestle and mortar. 

For some miraculous reason my pestle and mortar survived my February kitchen drawer purge. So I got to work and started to pulverize. Ok- it is almost impossible to crush red pepper flakes into a powder by hand. So I pulled out another device that didn’t make it to the donation bin- my mini food processor.

I put in the pepper flakes, put on the lid, and gave it a whirl. All seemed fine until I took off the lid.

Willie and I almost passed out from the fumes. DO NOT try this at home! (Though I will say I think it finally cleared out my sinuses for the first time all winter.) Much safer to use cayenne pepper instead.

Place the cayenne pepper, chili powder, sweet paprika, ancho chili powder, dried oregano, ground cumin, garlic powder, onion powder and freshly-ground black pepper in a clean dry glass jar with tight fitting lid.

Now shake, shake, shake the spices for a good 30 seconds.

Your taco seasoning can be kept for up to three months in a cool dark place.

To make the tacos heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Scatter one pound of ground beef or turkey into the hot pan.

Cook until browned and just cooked through. While cooking, continue to break the meat apart with a wooden spoon. 

Add two heaping tablespoons of taco seasoning and half a teaspoon of kosher salt to the meat.

Stir well and cook for about three minutes more. 

Add 1 cup chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat.

Simmer for seven to ten minutes until the mixture becomes saucy. Taste for seasoning.

 Serve using warm taco shells.

Or on top of tostados.

Start with a heaping spoonful of warm meat.

Then top with any of the following: shredded lettuce, chopped onion, diced tomato, shredded cheese, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, chopped cilantro, sliced pickled jalapeño.

This will put a definite kick into your next Tuesday.

Olé!