Unplanned tacos night

crispy tacos

Normally, I don’t cook Mexican food - it is not the first thing that comes to my Russian mind, but living here in California I enjoy having it once in a while. Last Sunday we stopped at a grocery store to get some tomato sauce as I was planning on using some ground beef I had left after making pelmeni and making spaghetti bolognese. Dave mentioned tacos though, and I thought why not. Instead of going Italian we decided for a tacos night. 

We left the store with taco shells, small tortillas, chili powder and hot sauce. Beef, pepper, lettuce, tomato, hot peppers we had at home. But I faced a challenge: meat tacos are not Lent-friendly. A lazy cook in me said no to beans so I decided to make 2 types of tacos: crispy ones with meat and soft ones with rice. 

soft tacos (meatless)

I don’t pretend to be authentic (and I might never be) but the whole process was easy, fast and even fun. There is nothing new for my Mexican and American friends here but for people who like me never included tacos in their meal I am sharing what I did.

Simple tacos (beef and meatless)

Ingredients (serves 2-3):

• ½ pound beef 
• 1 cup rice 
• 1 onion bulb 
• 2 teaspoon chili powder 
• 6 taco shells 
• 6 small tortillas 
• 2 tomatoes 
• 4 big lettuce leafs 

Directions:

1. Preheat a skillet with some vegetable oil, add beef and cook over medium-high heat until the beef is well browned, stirring often to separate meat. Add chili powder. 
2. Boil water, add salt and stir in rice. Cook until tender, drain well and return to the skillet and add chili powder. Keep warm over low heat stirring often. 
3. Chop tomatoes, lettuce, onion and pepper. 
4. Warm tacos shells and tortillas. 
5. Spoon the beef into the taco shells, top with onion, tomato, pepper and lettuce. 
6. Spoon the rice into tortillas and top like the tacos. 
7. Top both tacos with hot sauce and enjoy! 

This was my first making tacos experience, and Dave really enjoyed it. Can’t speak about the meat version but the rice one was good too, and I was more than happy to add one more simple dinner idea to my cooking anti-fan’s meals list.