Days 7, 8, and 9

Lots of pictures!

Saturday: Taco Party at Rojo Mexican Grill.  I had the Carne Asada tacos.  That steak was SO good.  Their taco plates come with 3 little tiny tacos.  Derek ordered the fish tacos.  We swapped one.  I liked my steak ones best of all. 

Their side dishes are pretty rad, too

It wasn't just Derek and I taco partying.  We went out with the whole gang! 

Lookit how much those guys love tacos!

Sunday was a pretty fun day for us all as well.  In the morning, Josh made us breakfast at Damons house and we watched the Paris Roubaix on TV (Go, Tom Boonen!)

Then, for dinner, it was over to Josh and Aleisha's for Easter dinner.  They sure do keep us fed over there at Josh and Aleisha's house!  Grilled ham (who knew!?), loaded mashed potatoes,  green bean casserole, salad, and apple filled dessert tacos.

Acutally, the tacos ended up being sort of a group effort.  All of our moms would have been proud of the sharing and teamwork.  I like to think all of our moms would also be proud of the amount of butter that went into these bad boys.

We had a great time with our little friends.  I was sad to see the weekend end.

Tonight, Monday, April 9th, I made us Chicken Goat Cheese tacos.  They are one of my favorites from last year (although apparently Facebook hates them, because it refused to post pictures of them twice.)  The link to the recipe is here.  We had them on flour tortillas because homemade corn tortillas are way more work than premade flour ones.  They're a little spicy, a little creamy, super easy to make, and are full of flavor.  Go make some.

Chicken goat cheese on flour tortillas,
jicama slaw on the side (Thanks, Martha!)

Ok, so now something has been bothering me, and I was hoping to talk to you guys about it.

There's this guy on Twitter that is using the 30 Days of Tacos name.
That doesn't really bother me.  He's doing a good job tweeting about tacos.
What bothers me is that I feel like he's misrepresenting his involvement in it's inception, by which I mean he called himself a "Co-inventor" because he joined in last year.

Here's the thing:
I understand that in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal.  I do.  But we're not just talking about tacos.
We're talking about ideas.
Ideas that Derek had.  Ideas that I had. 
Ideas that we had that this guy is trying to claim as his own.

Not cool, bro.

Look, I don't want this to be a whole thing.  I'd love it if we could all just post some pictures of some tacos on the internet, give each other cyber-high-fives about all our great taco experiences, and share information about taco joints in the 'hood.  I can't, however, love seeing someone else claim my project as his own. 

He's into 30DOT, and that's great.  Really great.  Like, super extra great.  I just wish he'd stop pretending he thought of it.





Ok, team, let's get out there and TACO!

Days 5 and 6

Let's jump right into it, shall we?

According to the calendar, Day 5 should have been "turkey" day.  Then, Thursday morning, I was trying to figure out what to do with the turkey in the fridge and feeling very annoyed about it when it occured to me that if I made the choice to go to a restaurant for dinner, I could stop figuring it out and start watching a rerun of Doctor Who.

So we went to Los Ocampo on Lake Street in Minneapolis.  Derek goes there all the time.  He just recently started taking me.  It's pretty fantastic.  My tacos looked like this:

1 Chipotle Chicken, 1 Carnitas, and 2 Chorizo tacos, please!

SO good!  They come with a few different kinds of salsa, but everything is so full of flavor that the salsas are completely optional.

Like, you know how when you go out for breakfast and you get pancakes but the pancakes are so delicious and moist that you don't even need any syrup at all (I'm talking to you, Hell's Kitchen Lemon Ricotta Hotcakes and Common Roots Strawberry Pancakes!)?!!?!?  These tacos are like that...but with cilantro on top.

Then, on Day 6, we made a personal favorite: Sloppy Joe Tacos.  These were on the calendar for next Monday, but I didn't really want to wait.  Since I had a pound of ground turkey in the meat drawer, I used that instead of beef.  I also substituted orange pepper for green, and used red onion.  It was so pretty while I was cooking it that I felt compelled to take a picture. 

How did we survive before phones had cameras?

Then, when it's all finished cooking, bang it in a warmed tortilla with spinach and mustard (and pickles, which I wish I'd've thought of at the time, because that would've been extra tasty.

Clearly I took this picture under
 different lighting conditions.

You can't see them in the picture, but my brother and sister in law got us these taco stands for Christmas.  They hold tacos upright.  Obviously they work. 


Here's the recipe for Sloppy Joe Tacos, originally given to us by Jacqie and Dan:

 ingredients:
 * 1 pound lean ground beef
 * 1/4 cup chopped onion
 * 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
 * 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
 * 1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
 * 1/2 cup ketchup
 * 1/4 cup BBQ sauce
 * salt to taste
 * ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
 1) In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion, and green pepper; drain off liquids.
 2) Stir in the garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, and BBQ sauce; mix thoroughly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
3) Stuff soft shells with spinach, meat mixture, drizzle with mustard if you want...you get the idea.

We had tater tots on the side. 

Pro Tip: Put this:

On top of these:

For a doubly delicious treat. 

Thank you's can be added directly to the "comment" section below. :)


Last night, the legitimacy of Sloppy Joe Tacos was called into question via Facebook.  I just wanted to take a minute to address that here.

30 Days of Tacos is NOT about eating slight variations of the same style of Mexican food for a month.  That would be more of an endurance exercise (with a hatred of tacos being inevitable by the end of the month), and in my opinion, lacking in creativity. 

Rather, this project is about

1. Finding as many delicious foods as possible that can be made successfully into a taco and then eating the hell out of them,
2. Getting to find some great places to go and get tacos throughout the rest of the year, and;
3. Making a commitment to the mighty taco.

In conclusion;

Be excellent to each other, and...
Taco on, Dudes!

Day 4

This'll be a short entry, mostly because it's, like, 10 at night and I had 2 beers with dinner.

Sooooooooo...it's almost bedtime.

Today's tacos:

Mushroom Black Bean Breakfast Tacos,
roasted rosemary potatoes on the side

This is another Pinterest recipe, found here.  I changed the recipe a little by using cremini mushrooms and doubling most of it.  Basically, sautee mushrooms, add butter, add black beans, add garlic, put in bowl.  Then scramble eggs.  Shred cheese and chop cilantro.  Put all of these things in a shell.  BOOM.  Tasty-ass taco. 

Seriously, though?  There is something very wonderfully simple and delicious about mushrooms sauteed with garlic.  I loved the hell out of them.  I think the dudes I fed them to also approved. 

The rosemary roasted potatoes recipe came from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook.  They've become a staple at our house.  Easy to make, super flavorful.  Acutally, Harry Potter love aside, it's a pretty darn good cookbook.  Lots of British recipes, not as much boiled meat as you'd think (although a surprising number of steamed casseroles). 

Wait, can you guys even believe that I put Harry Potter love aside for anything, even just to compliment some HP themed stuff? 

Personal growth. 

Not really.   I just said I was putting aside HP love, but I didn't acutally.  I can tell because I'm still wearing my Slytherin Quidditch Team Captain t-shirt. 

It's not the first HP shirt I've worn this week.

Am I rambling?  I'd better go.  See you tomorrow.  The calendar says "turkey."  I should probably spend a little time figuring out what I mean by that before it gets too late.  Probably in means I'm going to have to stop at the store tomorrow night.  

Damn.

Day 3

Um, hi.

So I'm going to talk tacos, but then I want to tell you about my trip to the gym today (it's probably a good idea to exercise if you're going to do something like eat tacos every single day).  The gym thing is on the front of my mind, so I'm maybe going to breeze through the taco thing.

Ready?  Ok.

Today was Avocado Chicken Salad Tacos for lunch day.  I used flour tortillas, spinach, and salsa with my chicken salad.  On the side, leftover apple/asian pear salad and a piece of birthday cake.

Side note about birthday cake: I love it when coworkers have birthdays.  Turns out, I also kinda love it when the sticker on the outside of a cake box says something like, "white cake filled with 2 lbs of vanilla creme."  2 POUNDS OF VANILLA CREME.

Here's the tacos:

That orange in the picture is still in the fridge at work. Instead, I had cake.  Obviously.

The avocado chicken salad was pretty darn good.  The idea is to use mashed avocado instead of mayo.  I'm no food scientist, but seems like a pretty safe bet that 1 avocado is better for you than an equal amount of mayo.  I made ours with 2 poached chicken breasts (I am thankful that chicken breast poaching is a part of my life now.), 1 ripe avocado, 1 handful chopped cilantro, 2 sliced green onions, salt, pepper, and the juice of 1 lime.  The blog from whence the recipe originally came is here.  You know what?  If you don't have a Pinterest account, get with the program, sign up, and start following me...or at least my 30 Days Of Tacos board.  Pinterest will change your life (or at least fill it with pretty pictures).

Now, for my much anticipated 

Story About The Gym,

or

Why I Don't Like Zumba.   

I went to my first hour-long kickboxing class 2 weeks ago.  I felt tired, and sweaty, and amazing afterwards, and was looking forward to making this class a weekly thing.  Last week, circumstances kept me from kickboxing, but I'd been excited to get back to it this week.  After work, I did a little grocery shopping (for tomorrows tacos), tried to take a nap (I love naps, but usually suck at actually sleeping during them), and changed into some ass-kicking gear.  When I arrived at the gym, I checked in, filled my waterbottle, and headed into Studio A to await class.  A few minutes before class started, a stranger informed us that she would be substitute teaching for the normal instructor, but that she would be teaching Zumba instead of Kickboxing. 

I was not impressed. 

I tried very hard, however, to keep an open mind.  I'd heard that Zumba is an excellent workout, and the muscular looking people in the Zumba infomercials sure seem to like it. 

It wasn't the workout that kickboxing seems to be.  Please don't misunderstand me.  I did sweat.  Just not with the intensity with which I expected.  Also, Zumba seems to be almost exactly the opposite of kickboxing on the cardio-class spectrum.  I like kickboxing because there are punches, kicks, knees, elbows, and jumps.  Everyone is doing the same thing.  I get to pretend to punch the back of the head of the girl in front of me, and then pretend to kick the knee of the girl next to me.  It's refreshingly violent.  Also, there are a finite number of Tuesdays for me to practice kickboxing before the inevitable zombie apolcalypse, and I'd really like to be as skilled at ass-kicking as possible when that happens.

Zumba, on the other hand, is much more about feeling awkward and clumsy and self concious.  It's all loose hips, flaily arms, and the only thing you get to strike is a pose at the end of the song.  It will help in the zombie apocalypse only if it's the kind of zombies from Thriller.

So, that was my gym experience.  I was thinking during class that finding a Zumba class and continuing to go to it would probably make me a better person (the kind who can have fun doing Zumba, dance in public, dance in the privacy of my own home, sing in the shower, etc...), but I'd rather not feel uncomfortable so I probably won't do that.  Ew.

THE END

Ok, see you guys tomorrow!

Days 1 and 2

Howdy, folks!  I hope everyone's had a good couple of days of tacos!  We certainly have.  I've even stuck to my cooking plan for 2 (and tomorrow's already taken care of, so 3) days in a row!  It doesn't seem like much, but I assure you I've usually deviated far from my cooking plan by Monday.

Ok, so pictures.  Here's day 1:

Slow Cooker Beef Barbacoa Tacos

This Barbacoa Recipe was super duper delish.  I cut the recipe on that blog in half, since 30 tacos sounded like a few too many for just the two of us.  I also used skirt steak instead of brisket because they didn't have any brisket at Kowalskis and the butcher told me skirt steak would work well, too.  (I'm only 80% sure about the whole "skirt steak" thing, it could have been something else like that).  The lesson here is to buy meat from a store with a butcher, 'cause those guys know how to make good meat.
Next time I'd probably use more chipotles in adobo, but DAMNIT it was good.  Derek made the soft shells (he sure is good at that) and we topped them with cilantro, shredded cheese, and green onions.  On the side was a spinach salad with green apple/asian pear slaw and goat cheese crumbles.  I figured out a quick recipe, but it was all Derek's idea (other than the goat cheese crumbles...goat cheese is always my idea).  I suppose I'll share it with you, since this is sort of a food blog, and I went to all the trouble of taking a picture of it.

Green Apple and Asian Pear Slaw

1 green apple, julienned
1 asian pear, julienned
1 small handful cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Dash of salt and pepper
Several handfuls of baby spinach
Goat cheese crumbles

1. Be very careful while julienning the apple and pear.  Round fruit is awkward to cut, and sharp knives WILL remove finger...and finger nail...and then you'll have to look like this, and you'll have to answer a lot of questions:

ok, so this happened a month ago, not while
I was julienning apples yesterday, but I sure was nervous
about doing this to myself again.

2. In a large bowl, toss together apple, pear, cilantro, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
3. Add a few handfuls of the spinach and toss them all together to incorporate.
4. Sprinkle goat cheese on when serving.


Aaaaaand, here's Day 2:

Cilantro Lime Pesto Chicken Tacos

That recipe is here.  I loved how bright-green the pesto turned out, and there's plenty left over for use at a later date.  We topped these with shredded cheese, diced tomato, and a little extra drizzle of the pesto.  In the background, my sweet potato and carrot fries lay, quietly waiting to be so much spicier than I thought.  I've made these things a few times before, but I made 'em without the recipe this time, and it turns out that dumping cayenne, chili powder, and cumin onto them with wreckless abandon is a questionable decision. 

Questionable indeed.

But the chicken was really good, and Derek killed it with the tortillas again.



Can I just tell you guys that here, on day 2, we've almost made it through 2 bunches of cilantro already?  That's a lot of cilantro.  Plus, like, 3 limes.  In 2 days!  Also, there seems to be a lot of cheese-shredding involved. 

But I knew that would happen. 

I'd like to keep talking to you guys, but this blog entry is getting a little long and I don't want to set a precedent (no, I didn't have to look up how to spell precedent...shut up).

OK, so you guys keep on tacoin', and I'll be back with some more pictures and words soon!

Happy 30 Days Of Tacos!

So glad you all could join us for another round of 30 Days of Tacos!  I've been working on a little calendar to provide some ideas for the month.  I almost certainly won't follow it exactly (come on, there's only, like, 4 restaurant days in the whole month which is, erm...not likely) but I'll do my best. 

For each day, there is a recipe, or a link to the blog or website or whatever where the recipe came from, or a note about how you should go out and buy the cookbook that the recipe came out of. 

Actually, just go out and buy The Feed Zone Cookbook right now, and then you won't have to worry about it.

Anyways, here's the calendar (it's also available in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, aptly titled "Taco Calendar")

So today is Barbacoa Beef tacos, which you guys can't make since it's a crockpot meal and I started mine already like 2 hours ago.  You could probably do it another day, though.  It already smells good, but I will, as always, fill you in on how tasty (or not) it was later on. 

I also thought we should talk today a little about 30DOT preparedness.  So, a few tips:

• Have a Plan
• Use the calendar, or make your own.  You certainly don't need the whole month planned out, but it helps to at least know where you're going to get the days taco when you leave the house in the morning.
• Have Tortillas
• Hard to make tacos without shells.  Even if you plan on making most of your shells from scratch, it never hurts to have a few store bought tortillas (or hard shells, if that's how you roll) at home, just in case you get home from work and are way too lazy tired to go to the trouble.  30DOT is about enjoying tacos, not about being super duper inconvenienced.
• Have a Shopping List
• Put cilantro on it.  It's amazing how many taco recipes (and not just Mexican ones) use cilantro.  Just make sure you wash it well.  I think I read part of an article (or maybe just the headline) about it being dirty or having pesticides on it or something....I dont really remember....but washing stuff is probably a good idea anyways.
• Be Creative
• If it's diced, shredded, long and thin, saucy, ground, or contains cilantro, it will probably fit beautifully into a taco shell.  If it's one of your favorite recipes, there's probably a way to change it so that it fits into a taco shell.  Get nuts!

A few of you (erm, all 4 of my readers) probably participated in the First Annual 30 Days Of Tacos, so I bet you have some tips, too.  Do tell!

I made it just for you

Hey there, everybody!  Taco season is closing in fast, and I know that we're all busy with our hectic taco-related schedules, so I took some time to do something just for you.  I wanted us all to be able to take a moment to pause and remember what this glorious Season of Tacos is all about.

So I drew you a picture. 

Feel free to post it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, your desktop background, the lock screen on your phone, printed on photo-quality paper and framed in your home.

Wherever it will bring you the most joy.

You're welcome.