If you don't "know how it goes," please go buy Portal 2 immediately and play it. It's one of my all time favorite games so far. I mean, we're not that far into it yet (Derek and I are playing co-op mode), but I loved the first Portal very much, and this is turning out to be just as neat.
But lets get into tacos.
Thursday, Derek went to Ignite Minneapolis so I, once again, found myself eating alone. Although I didn't especially feel like it, I went ahead and made the meal I'd planned for the both of us.
OMG wait a second...I was just looking at the Portal 2 website, and they have this personality test. If you've played the game, you should totally go take it. If you haven't played, you won't understand the result, but you will get an idea of how funny the game is.
So anyways,
When I got home from work on Thursday, I made myself Beef and Mushroom Tacos with Avocado Salad. It's a Rachel Ray recipe. Usually, Rachel Ray recipes take (me, at least) about 45 minutes to make and have as many ingredients. This one, however, was very simple with few ingredients. Basically gound beef, onion, mushroom, garlic, and avocados. It was simple to make and tasty. Not super amazing or anything, but I'll make it again for sure.
Both of these tacos have the beef-mushroom mixture and the avacado salad in them, i just alternated which was on top for the picture. As you can see, I also chose hard shells for this meal rather than the soft shells the recipe calls for. Come to think of it, I've been on something of a hard shell kick this week.
"Come to think of it" is a phrase that I say out loud from time to time, but typing it out just now, it occured to me that I don't really write it. It doesn't seem to make as much sense as a written phrase as it does a spoken one. Oh, language, you vex me so.
Friday was my day off this week, so I chose it as slow-cooker day since I would be home at the right time to get things started.
Here's the thing about slow cookers: I really like the idea of "set it and forget it" or whatever, but there are an awful lot of recipes that are supposed to cook for 7-8 hours. The problem with that is that on work days, there are far more than 8 hours between when I'd get it started in the morning before work and dinner time. I suppose I could ask Derek to start dinner cooking before he leaves for the day, but again, it feels like longer than 8 hours before dinner. Harumph.
So we return to Friday and the slow cooker. I went to the gym in the morning, and did an hour of step class followed by an hour of yoga. It's the longest workout I've done, but I skipped yoga on Tuesday and really missed it. Plus, the gym is closed today for Easter, so doubling up on Friday seemed wise.
It was totally great, by the way. I'm going to do that every time I have Friday off. I'll have to take a different shirt or something to change into, though. Going from a very sweaty step class to a much clamer yoga class (in a much cooler studio) made me rather chilly by the end.
Anyways, I got everything into the crock pot right when I got home from the gym. It only took a few minutes. The result was FANTASTIC!
It's so hard to tell with these darn pictures, but theres pulled pork in there. It's basically salsa, oregano, chili powder, cocoa powder, and pork shoulder in a crock pot for 8 hours. It was so simple to make, but really tasted killer. We'll be making this again for sure, probably for more people than just the two of us. The hard shells turned out to be a questionable choice since the pork was so juicy, but really, if that's the biggest complaint...
Joining Friday's tacos in this picture are Spanish Rice (90 seconds in the microwave-DONE!) and Jicama Slaw. The slaw was surpising. There was an awful lot of raw red onion in there, but I rinsed it under cold water first to mellow it out.
This plate reminds me of something that I've been meaning to tell you guys for quite a while: this month, I've gone through more limes and bunches of cilantro than probably in all the rest of my cooking-years combined. I've finished at least 3 or 4 cilantro bunches and, I-don't-know-how-many limes. Several. Lots. A good many.
Last night, I was thinking we'd either have meatball tacos or chicken finger tacos. When it got to be dinner time, however, I felt like I'd eaten a number of lazy tacos and didn't really want to make anything. Luckily, Damon texted just as we were trying to decide what to eat. Damon to the rescue! The three of us ended up at Pancho Villa on Eat Street. I feel like Damon said he'd never eaten there before, but Derek and I are big fans. They serve good food, do so quickly, and have a huge menu. I'll warn you, though, that one time I ordered a fish dish and got a whole fish-head included. I know that some people think that's great or whatever, but I like to think that my meat never had eyes. That, and deboning an entire fish is a little more work than I like to have to do in a meal that I didn't prepare myself.
But none of that is Pancho Villa's fault. We all got some tacos. Mine are chicken tacos in a combo meal with a chalupa, rice, and beans. Had a sangria cocktail and margarita as well. Which reminds me, something else nice about Pancho Villa is their drink prices.
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| This picture is sideways, but I care just enough to mention it, not nearly enough to fix it |
This morning, I learned a valuable lesson as I blogged. I can listen to music while I do a great many things; drive, exercise, clean, nap...but not while I write. I find that I use most of my concentration trying to ignore the music, making it very difficult to write anything coherent. Like my brain is trying to shout at the page over the music. It's a bummer as I enjoy music, but I guess it's nice to know. Even now, just thinking about music is making me tense up a little.
So....ok super. I'm going to go ahead a go now. Plenty to do today. Laundry to wash, walks to be taken, Harry Potter to be thought about.
You crazy kids have a lovely Easter, and I'll talk atcha again soon!
Nice write up, learning some new eatery spots to hit up. Would like to see more talk about Portal. Possibly you could do 30 days of Portal next.
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