CSA 2: Imminent Herb Murder

I love our CSA.
I know it's a little early to say that. We've only just gotten our second box, after all. I'm just so enjoying having all these fresh vegetables that I've never cooked with/eaten/liked/heard of before. I even used all the asparagus from the last box, even though I didn't like asparagus.

Asparagus

Actually, I'm not really ready to officially "like" asparagus yet, but it's maybe growing on me. I cooked with it twice. Once I hid it in a stir fry, and once it was it's own side dish, roasted in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with parmesan shavings. 

Just before roasting, all swimming in olive oil.

 As an aside, I should really look more closely at pictures I take with my phone before I eat the subject matter, just to make sure the pictures aren't as blurry as these. I wonder if the rest of the pictures will be this bad. Lets find out together!

A little balsamic vinegar goes a long way.
I also sprinkled some chives on them because
we got a lot.

Parsnips

Asparagus I'd never cooked because I knew ahead of time that I didn't like it. Parsnips, on the other hand, I'd never cooked with because I didn't grow up eating them, so I had no idea what to do with them.  Turns out they make a pretty rockin' soup. The recipe came from the Harmony Valley Farm website. It's called Spicy English Parsnip Soup. It's parsnips, potato, onion, ginger, curry powder, and a few other ingredients, cooked until soft and then pureed in a blender. It was spicy and creamy and filling. It did not, however, look very exciting. See?

Garnished with chives (lots of chives in the fridge) with
a side of rosemary roasted potatoes.

Sunchokes

I was excited to use sunchokes because our friends love them but we'd never even heard of them. They look kind of like enormous ginger roots. It was suggested that we make fries out of them in the oven, but since I sort of just did that with the potatoes in the last picture, I chose to make a salad with them. The salad (also a HVF recipe) used a bunch of the veggies from our box, which was a fun way to sample them. Garlicky Sunchoke Salad with Dill and Feta used the sunchokes, green garlic, chives, and french breakfast radishes (which are just weird-shaped regular radishes, as it turns out) along with dill, vinegar, oil, and feta.

Look, I started using Instagram!

 It was totally tasty, like a dilled potato salad. We let it marinade for a day, if I recall. It was crunchy and flavorful, and felt very adventurous since it was so full of things I'd never eaten before. Also, I hadn't worked with fresh dill for a long time, and I'd forgotten how tiny and delicate and so full of intense flavor and aroma it was. My hands smelled dilly for forever afterwards!

All The Things

Wednesday night, the night before we got the next box, was taco night. Now don't get too excited, I'm not going to get into it about the tacos. I will say that I used the Trader Joe's brand taco seasoning, which it turns out is hotter than the surface of the sun. If you ever buy a packet of it, take its advice and only use half. Why do they give you twice as much as you need in a non-resealable container of powder when they know that you'll either use too much or throw away the extra, you ask? No idea. Seems crazy to me, too. It had a nice flavor, but seriously, only use half.

Anyways, I decided a side dish that used up a much leftover produce as possible was in order, since there was a whole box of new produce imminent.

Today's recipe: Let's-Use-This-Shit-Up Salad


Ingredients:
4 oz uncooked orzo (or whatever's leftover in the bag from last time you made orzo)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 green garlic, sliced thin
1 Egyptian walking onion, sliced thin
1 handful chives, chopped (seriously, though? There's STILL chives in the fridge!)
1-2 tbsp taco seasoning (left over from 30 Days Of Tacos, currently in a jar on the back of the stove)
2 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
Salt
Pepper
Feta cheese for garnish

1. Cook orzo according to package directions. Drain.
2. Meanwhile; chop, dice, slice, drain, and cut all of the other ingredients. Put them all in a big bowl. 
3. Add the orzo to the bowl. Toss together.
4. Add taco seasoning, olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper. Toss again.
5. Serve, sprinkle each serving with feta cheese.
6. NOM.

It was suprisingly good. I think that I still sort of live under the assumption that any food that I invent rather than find a recipe for is going to automatically be bad. Apparently, that is not the case. In fact, I'll probably get some more orzo so we can make something like this again. Yum!

CHAPTER 2: THE NEW BOX

We have a flourescent light under the cabinets in the kitchen that seems to make greens POP.
Also, Derek is clearly better at taking not-blurry pictures with his phone than I.

This week's box includes:

• Overwintered Parsnips
• French Breakfast Radishes
• Asparagus
• Rhubarb
• Potato Onions
• Garlic Scapes
• Pea Vine
• Hon Tsai Tai
• Baby White Turnips
• Baby Bok Choi
• Spinach
• Garden Herb Packs (in the planter over there in the top right corner)

I still haven't used the rhubarb from last time, although I think it's still okay. Now I surely have enough for a pie or something....although I'm also thinking about trying rhubarb-cream cheese baked wontons. Again, since I thought it up, it'll proabably be terrible.
The Hon Tsai Tai and Pea Vine will undoubtedly end up as a salad. I'm going to try sauteing a baby white turnip today (another vegetable I don't cook with  because I didn't grow up eating it).

Can anyone tell me what those curly green things over to the right of the asparagus are? Are they the garlic scapes? I suppose I could go bite one of them to find out.

I should stop blogging with you now so I can go to Target and get some planting supplies for those herbs up there. I'm sort of excited about trying to plant and then not kill something. The "not kill" part will definitely be the challenge. It's not that I enjoy murdering plants, its just that they don't tell me when they're thirsty, and so I tend to let them...just...die.

Sad.


...Oooookay. So I guess I'll just go ahead and end with that bummer. Bye bye!

Days 29 and 30: Better Late Than Never

So, I realize that it's May 12th right now, and that I haven't told all ya'll about days 29 and 30 of 30 Days Of Tacos yet, but just hear me out.

Short version: I was really busy, and then I was really lazy. 

Long version: Turns out I'm still pretty lazy, so I'd rather not talk about it.

Instead, let's talk tacos, and then I'll tell you guys about what I'm gonna blog about next!

So day 29 was a Sunday.  We had a friend in town. She was working with Derek. Some of the folks over at the shop wanted to go out for dinner. We went to Brasa Rotisserie. That place roolz (provided you like meat). Unfortunately, that meant that we had a huge dinner and then still needed to eat a taco for the day.

So sad.

So we had to go to Chipotle after dinner, all super duper full from the great meal, and have an emergency taco.

It was an uncomfortable pain in the ass, however it was also our first Emergency Taco, so I was fully willing to have the experience, even though I felt like barfing afterwards.  We each just ordered one hard shell taco. Mine had steak. It looked like this.

And I ate the whole thing.

For the final day of the month, we had a little palaver and decided that traditional, original recipe tacos were the way to go. It was a whole taco-bar situation, with homemade guacamole (I didn't realize that I didn't know how to make guacamole until I started making it and realized that I had very little idea what was supposed to be in it. So i mashed up a avocado or two and then threw in tomatoes, onions, lime juice, and some other stuff and then mixed it all around until it looked legit.)

What goes better with hard shelled, Ortega
seasoned tacos than tater tots?
 Nothing, I say!

On the side are tots (side note: we had a gluten free friend with us for the glorious conclusion of the month, so I got to learn that tater tots and hard taco shells are both gluten free foods. So that's something) and spanish rice from one of those bags of premade rice that you microwave for 90 seconds. I wish I could remember what brand it was so I could tell you to not EVER buy it.

So these tacos had Ortega seasoned ground beef, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, guacamole, pickled jalapeno, and green onion. Traditional. Delicious. A fitting way to wrap up 30 Days Of Tacos.



Ok, so now that we're past Taco Month (or the "Most Magical Time of the Year" depending on who you ask) I was thinking that I'd like to try blogging about something else.  Last year, I didn't have a plan, and even though I had the best of intentions (or at least some mediocre ones) I coudn't manage to do much actual writing to you guys. This year, however, Derek and I are trying a new food thing, and I was thinking I could tell you about it as we go.

In an effort to be more like our friends Aleisha and Josh, we joined the Harmony Valley Farm CSA. It's a thing where you pay them some money, and then every week or 2 (we're on an every-other-week plan) you (in this case "Derek") go to a site in your neighborhood to pick up a box of produce. They send whatever's in season. Along with the box is a newsletter that lists all of the stuff you're getting and has a few recipe ideas. We just got our first box on Thursday, and the newsletter is already very helpful, as I was unfamiliar with many of the varietals we recieved.  They also have meat, fruit, cheese, and coffee shares. Part of me regrets not getting a cheese share, but I don't think I could have eaten all that cheese. I would have had fun trying, though.

I stole this picture from Derek's
facebook page because I'm a
picture thief and bad planner.

This week the box included:

• Overwintered Parsnips
• Sunchokes
• Baby Arugula
• Salad Mix
• Nettles
• Green Garlic
• Chives
• Egyptian Walking Onions
• French Breakfast Radishes
• Rhubarb
• Asparagus

I had to have Josh explain the difference between the green garlic and Egyptian walking onions to me since they look almost identical. Also, we're glad they told us about sunchokes and stinging nettles. We look forward to eating those sunchokes, and the nettles went straight into the trash.

Every 2 weeks we'll get a new box with some different stuff in it. I was thinking I'd try cooking some of this crazy stuff and then tell you guys about it. I'll probably use a lot of the farms recipes (the website I linked to up there has lots of great looking recipes for it's produce) until my confidence grows.
So far, I've only used the chives from the box (good lord, we have a lot of chives), adding them to everything I've cooked since Thursday (so...one meal). Tonight I was thinking of trying some Spicy English Parsnip Soup and Garlicky Sunchoke Salad with Dill and Feta.


Ok, so I'm pretty excited about this new culinary adventure, and I'm pretty excited about sharing it with the internets. Sadly, I don't have anything else to share right now, and the tire on my car currently leaking air isn't going to patch itself, so I should split. See you cats later!

Day 26-28

Busy, busy, busy.

We have a friend in town, and she's down for whatever, culinarily speaking (or too nice to tell us she's not), so she's been letting me feed her tacos! 

But the night before she got here, we had these Turkey Tacos (I finally figured out what I meant by "Turkey" earlier in the month!)

It's a Rachel Ray recipe (I think?) for turkey taco salad that I changed a little.  It was really tasty (like, one of those recipes that you eat one time, and then forever have a copy of but never make again. But then, like a hundred years later, when you do make it again, you wonder why the hell you haven't had it in your rotation!)

Anyways, I'm not going to post the recipe right now, because I don't feel like it to leave room for a couple of other recipes, but it'll post it at some point, because it certainly is tasty as hell.


Day 27 was BBQ Chicken Tacos with Jicama/Carrot/Radish Slaw and Joshed-Up Mashed Cauliflower on the side.

Am I finally getting the hang of extreme-close-
up photography of food with a phone?

This was pretty simple to put together, and I finally got to try putting diced pickle on my tacos, which I've been thinking about since we ate at Pepitos. It was worth it. I put diced pickle on tacos now. It's my new thing.

It's zingy.

It goes like this:

1. Poach and shred chicken breast (or OMG, rotisserie chicken would have been amazeballs)
2. Dice pickles
3. Shred cheese
4. Shred lettuce (or spinach)
5. Make tortillas
6. Crack open a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
7. BOOM

The slaw was basically julienned jicama, carrots, and radish mixed with lime juice, lemon zest, salt, and cilantro. It was fine, nothing outstanding.

Mashed cauliflower tastes almost the same as mashed potatoes, but I'm pretty sure it's better for you (although I added 4 chopped slices of bacon and some cheese to mine, so it may be better for you, but probably wasn't especially healthy).  I Joshed up this recipe with thyme and bacon, and removed the cream cheese (mistake).

Day 28

ZOMG this was one of my best-ever ideas to date.

Maybe even better than that time I said, "hey, I'mma have a beer now." (20 minutes ago)

So, we've done a few dessert tacos this month. Mostly they've had fruit in them and the shell has been a doctored version of a traditional shell. This one is a little different. The only fruit was a few slices of banana (just enough to add banana-split flavor and to be able to call it a health food), and the shell is like a traditional hard shell... other than that it's made out of cookie dough.

As good as it looks.

So I took a package of gluten free chocolate chunk cookie dough (it comes separated into 12 dough balls), smashed together 2 dough balls for each shell, flattened them out, baked as directed, and then right when they came out of the oven I draped them over something triangular (in this case fashioned out of tin foil) to harden. When they were cool they kept their shape but never hardened completely (bless them). 

In them I put sliced banana, small scoops of vanilla ice cream, and then drizzles of caramel and chocolate sauces on top. Since the cookies stayed a little soft (bless them) they didn't break quite as easily as a regular hard shell, and so they were a little easier to eat.

You guys? Go get some cookie dough.  Bake it, shape it, fill it with terrible/delicious things and eat the everloving hell out of it. You're welcome.

We're very near the end of 30 Days Of Tacos. Have you all enjoyed eating with your hands every day this month? I know I have!

Days 22-25

You know, I used to think of this blog as something that I had to either do every day, or feel guilty about not doing every day. I feel so much better about it now that I've given myself permission to write every 3 or so days. Way easier. Ahhhh.


Day 22: Breakfast Tacos

I've been looking forward to these things since some time in March.  Something about scrambed eggs, bacon, cheese, salsa, and jalapeno is so satisfying.  Instead of failing at hashbrowns (I've been known to throw tater tots in the oven and call them "hashbrown bites," which I totally agree is cheating), I decided to try making strawberry pancakes. 
There's a cafe around the corner called Common Roots with great food and super coffee.  It's menu changes monthly.  This month, strawberry pancakes with lemon curd has been on the breakfast menu.  I've had them a few times. They are quite tasty.  I wanted to recreate them so that I could eat them whenever I wanted, including after this month when the menu changes again.  Mine weren't nearly as good, but they were still pancakes with strawberries in them and lemon curd on top, which is still pretty darn good.

I got a little fancy with the eggs (we call it "Joshing them up," because it's what Josh would do.)  I'm glad I did.


Joshed-Up Eggs:

ingredients:
6 eggs
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
dash of milk
shredded cheese (I used monterey jack, but whatever you want. Also, I didn't measure, so I'm just going to guess that it was 1/2 cup)
sprinkle of taco seasoning
salt and pepper to taste


Heat a pan over medium heat. Add a little oil.  Sautee the shit out of the vegetables. Like, they should be really soft and much smaller than they started and it should smell awesome.  In the middle of sauteeing, sprinkle a little taco seasoning over them.  Continue to sautee for even longer.  Take your time.  Enjoy the sautee.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, season with salt and pepper. 

When they vegetables have been thoroughly sauteed, pour the eggs over the top. Let it sit, undisturbed, until you can see the edges starting to cook.  Then, using a wooden spoon (or whatever utensil you were using to sautee, I don't care), start pulling the edges of the egg mixture towards the center, allowing the uncooked egg to run to the outside. Keep stirring like that.  While you stir those bad boys, and there is still some liquid egg in the pan, add the cheese to the mix.  Keep stirring until it looks like cooked scrambled egg.

Remove from heat.  Put in taco with bacon, jalapeno, salsa, whatever else you want.

OMG, that reminds me! I should give you another recipe. One that has changed my life (admittedly very slightly) since I learned it.

Baked Bacon

or;

Bakedon

Preaheat oven to 400 degrees
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Put raw bacon on the parchment, make sure its not touching, but fit as much on there as you can.
Bake bacon for 15-18 minutes, turning once during cooking.  Take it out. If it's not crispy enough yet, put it back in there for a couple minutes until it's just how you like it.

I prefer this method of bacon cooking because it's tidier, requires less of my attention, and the bacon smell clears out of the house quite a bit faster (Look, I love bacon smell as much as the next guy, but it's a little old by dinner time).


Day 23: Thai Beef Tacos

This is another Pinterest recipe. It was good.  There were a lot of ingredients, and you have to marinade the beef for a really long time, so it takes a little planning, but it was worth the hassle.

That's fried rice on the side.  Turns out I
don't know how to make fried rice, so I
had to improvise. It went better than I
expected.

That said, I'm not convinced that mangos are worth the hassle. I like them (if they're ripe) well enough, they're just such a pain in the ass to cut up.  Maybe I'm missing something? Well, anyways, there was a mango salsa on the beef, along with cilantro, crushed peanuts, and sweet chili sauce.

Day 24: Fish Tacos

I don't really want to talk about these. I don't really like cooking with fish because I don't like living in a home that smells like a rancid garbage can. On the other hand, I sure do enjoy fish tacos occasionally. So I tried this recipe from the Feed Zone Cookbook.  It was a simple recipe, mostly just fish chunks covered in flour, taco seasoning, and pepper, then fried for a few minutes.  The result wasn't especially flavorful.  The tacos were filled with fish, rice, black beans, and cilantro.  On the side, marinated mozarella, grape tomatoes, and fresh basil salad on baby spinach.

I am REALLY sorry about how blurry this
picture is. I only took the one picture, and I
didn't notice until I uploaded it how totally
 out of focus it is.

I thought they were totally underwhelming. Derek liked them better than I did, which I think is unusual.

Day 25: RUSTY TACO

GO TO THE RUSTY TACO. It has excellent tacos. There's one in Saint Paul, and (according to the website) a few in Texas. It's one of my favorite places to get tacos. There are, like, 15 or so different tacos to choose from. We had chips and salsa on the side. We sat at the taco bar. We lined our tacos up for the picture.

They cater. I wonder if they will cater our
hypothetical wedding.

I had a roasted pork taco, black bean taco, bbq brisket taco (on the completely correct recommendation of the guy behind the counter) and a fried chicken taco (a personal favorite).  The bbq sauce on the brisket one was suprisingly good.




Seriously, though? Go to Rusty Taco.

Days 18-21

Hi!

It's been a few days, so there's a few tacos to share, so let's get to it!

First, I was just looking at my last post, and I noticed that I referenced 3 days in it, but only told you about 2 of them. I am barely profoundly sorry.

Tuesday I got my ass handed to me by my kickboxing class. Like, a "red faced, stinky, sweaty, hard to walk up a flight of stairs afterwards" workout. Consequently, I didn't much feel like cooking when I got out of the shower, so we went to French Meadow to try their fish tacos.

they like putting sauce on things

They tasted okay.  There were so many ingredients that it was kind of hard to taste the fish, and the tacos themselves were stuffed a little full to make tidy-eating possible, but French Meadow always has great, fresh ingredients.  There were 2 girls sitting at the next table who were too loud and didn't know very much about The Hunger Games, so I didn't care for them particularly.

On Wednesday, I took a chance on an idea I'd had for a Mexico/Philadelphia fusion food with Philly Cheese Steak Tacos. They were, in my opinon, a triumph.

...Triumphant enough to deserve their own recipe.

ingredients:
2 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
1 lb sirloin steak, partially frozen
1 small onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
6 mushrooms, sliced
Your Favorite Seasoning (I like Lawry's)
4+ slices provolone cheese
sliced tomato
shredded lettuce (or spinach)
taco shells

1. In a large pan, sautee onion, green pepper, and mushroom over medium high heat with 1 tbsp olive oil until soft.  During sautee, season with seasoning salt (I assumed we had some at home but was wrong, so I ended up using the taco seasoning I'd made for the beef and sweet potato tacos a few days before.)
2. Meanwhile, slice the partially frozen beef into thin strips
3. After the vegetables are soft, remove from pan and set aside. Heat remaining oil over medium-high heat and brown beef until cooked through.  During cooking, season with more Lawry's.
4. Add the vegetables back to the pan with meat, taste and adjust seasoning.
5. Lay slices of cheese over beef mixture and wait for the cheese to melt (if your pan has a lid, covering it will help the cheese melt faster)
6. Once cheese is melted, stir everything together.
7. Serve meat mixture in taco shells with shredded lettuce and sliced tomato.

Philly Cheese Steaks are one of my specialties, as I spent about 3 years working for Steak Express, a restaurant in Valley West Mall. Seriously, if you ever meet anyone who worked there (I bet there's under 20 of us worldwide) beg them to make you a Philly Cheese Steak.  We're awesome at it.


Thursday:
Back out to a restaurant.  This time, Taqueria La Hacienda.  It's on Lake Street.  It's kind of like Los Ocompo, but slightly closer to our house.  The chorizo was great (turns out I love chorizo).

Mine are the nearest tacos.  If memory serves,
2 carne asada, 1 bbq pork, and 1 chorizo.

It's one of those places that I would never have gone on my own (I fear change), but I'm happy we went.  Everything was flavorful, all the salsa was spicy, and it was very reasonably priced.  Added bonus: Coke in glass bottles.

Friday:
I went out on a culinary limb again.  This time, Martha Stewart provided me with a recipe for turkey meatballs in marinara that I adapted slightly for taco-eating.

I just took this recipe here, added some red pepper to both the meat mixture and the sauce, substituted taco shells for spaghetti (the decision to not have spaghetti on the side was a wrenching one), and put some mozarella on top.  They were tremendously satisfying. Like, even if you want to put these things on spaghetti or in a sub or directly from the pan into your face, I strongly suggest making them at some point.

And finally, today.

Derek, Damon and I went to Pineda in Plymouth.  They don't seem to have a website, so the link is to it's Urbanspoon page. I had 4 hardshell tacos.  In ascending order of deliciousness: Grilled chicken, steak, barbacoa, and pork in green sauce.

Downside: it was hard to tell which was which just by looking at them. Upside, surprise is half the fun!

Ok, I better go, or I won't have time to drink a beer before bed.

Goodnight, Tacoistas!

Days 15, 16, and 17

Hi, Gang! Let's talk tacos.


On Sunday, we I made crockpot chicken tacos.  The recipe is from a blog pinned on my 30 Days Of Tacos Pinterest board.  It was the easiest crockpot recipe I've ever made.  Like, you know how people who are obsessed with their crockpots are always all, "you just throw stuff in there in the morning, and then when you get home dinner is ready! So easy!"
But then you try a recipe and find yourself chopping vegetables and browning a 4 lb cut of meat in your pajamas at 7 am and you're thinking, "How is this easier? I'm still cooking an entire meal, and I had to get up early to do it."

Well, this recipe isn't like that.  It is what the crockpot fuss is all about. Here goes:

Ingredients:
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 packet taco seasoning
1-16 oz jar of your favorite salsa.

Add all ingredients to crockpot, directly from their packages. Stir. Set on low for 8 hours.

Then, when it's dinner time, stick a big spoon in there and stir, and all the meat will shred itself. You don't even have to use forks to pull it apart.  Then alls you have to do is stuff shells with this chicken and whatever other toppings you want and BAZINGA: dinner.

I put cilantro, avocado, and sour cream on mine, since I used hot salsa and they were kind of spicy.  And seriously, really good.  On the side is an orzo basil salad I got out of the Feed Zone Cookbook.  I think I've mentioned it on this blog before.  It's a great cookbook, and just about everything I've tried out of it has been pretty darn tasty.  Here's a closeup of the salad:

I won't post the recipe since it's directly out of a cookbook and also I'm too lazy, but it's orzo, basil, spinach, kidney beans, cashews, and diced apple.  Suprisingly good.


Then, on Monday, we tried another recipe from the Feed Zone Cookbook. These were meant to be Bison and Sweet Potato Tacos, but I had trouble finding a pound of ground bison, so I used ground beef.  They looked like this:

They tasted okay, although I overcooked the beef a little.  Also, the recipe involved sauteeing already-cooked sweet potato "until it begins to brown and become crispy." You know what happens when you sautee cooked potato?

It becomes mashed potato.

Still, it had nice flavor.  As you can see, we had 'em on homemade corn tortillas.  Acutally, this night, we learned that there is such a thing as a too-thick tortilla.  Turns out they sorta break in half during the eating process if they're too thick.
So this one was a little disappointing, but still ok. 

I just looked at the picture again, and found that the salad in the background is part Feed Zone recipe topped with Martha Stewart recipe. 

That salad embodies my current style of cooking (erm, style of cookbook reading).


Ok, I'd love to stick around and chat, I really would, but it's about time to get ready for work.

You guys have a nice day!

OMG So Many Days

I am really sorry it's been so long since my last post.  I'd blame being extra busy, but really I'm just extra lazy.  I discovered the SyFy original series Eureka on Netflix, so my days have included a lot of guilty television watching.

Why do I love tv shows with terrible special effects so much?

On the up side, since it's been so long, I have a couple of recipes for you guys.

Day 10:  I think that was a Tuesday.
Derek had dinner plans, I had a kickass kickboxing class.  When I got home (after a quick run through the shower) I threw some Trader Joes Mini Beef Tacos in the oven.  Next time you're at TJ's, buy some.

A solid reason to shop at Trader Joes

So, I should really be supervised in the kitchen after a workout.  Left to my own devices, I will end up eating something like this for dinner (and snacking on stuff while I put this meal together)

It's not blurry, it's just that the human
eye isn't designed to focus on so much
deliciousness, lest our brains explode.

So, TJ's Mini Beef Tacos (dipped in salsa), carrots with TJ's Cilantro and Jalapeno Hummus (another awesome TJ's product), cheese, pickles, leftover jicama slaw, and some turkey dried cherry pasta salad from D'Amico and Sons.  Is it any wonder I work out and then don't lose weight?

Don't answer that.

Day 11, we made an extra easy meal out of Chorizo Tacos.  Basically, brown up some chorizo (I browned it a little too much, which was unfortunate), top with onion, spinach, cilantro, cheese, and maybe a little lime juice.  Shove in your taco-hole.

I'm trying a (boring) thing where I take
a simple picture of 1 taco.

I can't remember what we had on the side since it was so long ago.  Couldn't have been that great, I guess, since I really have no idea.  Chorizo is pretty darn great, though.

Day 12: Buffalo Chicken Taco Day

I love Buffalo Chicken Tacos.  We made them for the first time last year during Magic Month (a nickname for 30DOT that I just came up with.  What do you guys think?)

I don't get home until late on Thursdays, and this past one happened to be even later than usual.  Buffalo chicken tacos are perfect for that kind of night, because the whole meal was ready in under half an hour.  Rachel Ray would be so proud of me.  Also, I love buffalo chicken. 

Here's a picture:

Did I mention that I love
 Buffalo chicken tacos?

And here's how to go from in-your-brain to on-your-plate in under 30:

Ingredients:

Buffalo Chicken Tacos:
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
Part of a bottle of Franks Hot Sauce
2 celery stalks, diced
Baby spinach, torn
Ranch dressing
Store bought hard shells


Glazed Carrots:
1 bag baby carrots (or whats left of a bag after you ate some last night with hummus)
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
black pepper



Instructions:

1. Add the chicken breasts and 1-2 cups water to a pan with a lid.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat.  Cook, covered, 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven for the taco shells according to package instructions, dice celery, wash cutting board.
3. Add the carrots, butter, sugar, salt, and water to another pan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 6 minutes. Then remove cover, increase heat to high, and cook (stirring often) until glaze has reduced, 4-5 minutes.
4. When the timer from the chicken poaching says there's about as much time left as it takes the shells to bake, put the shells in the oven.
5. When the chicken is finished, move them from the pan to a plate.  Dump the water out.  Shred the chicken with 2 forks and return to pan over medium heat.  Add Franks Hot Sauce and stir over heat until the chicken is your favorite shade of orange.
6. Don't forget to take the shells out of the oven!!
7. When the carrots are finished, grind black pepper over them, stir, and transfer to a bowl. 
8. Fill shells with goodies, put tasty carrots on the side.  Pat yourself on the back, because dinner is READY.

Day 13: Dinner with my parents.

They were in town.  They don't participate in 30DOT, but they certainly participated like champs this weekend!  Friday night we went to Pepitos on Chicago and Lake.  They know how to feed their customers.  I had 1 chicken and 1 pork taco with rice and beans on the side.  Something that I really love about Pepitos is that they put diced pickles on their tacos.  As a pickle lover, it's such a great surprise to find little bits of pickle in stuff.  Also, we don't get over there very often (mostly we just forget about it), so in between trips to Pepitos I forget about the pickles.  That means I get to be delighted by them every time!

It's dark in there!

Day 14:  Dessert Tacos, part 2

Saturday I did some stuff with Mom and Dad, went for a run around a lake (like ya do), watched some Eureka (of course), and found myself without dinner plans. Derek had a thing, and so did my parents.  So I had a salad from Kowalski's for dinner (those guys sure know how to make a salad) and invited the 'rents over for dessert tacos.


Ok, so a few days ago, I woke up thinking "I wonder what would happen if I added cocoa powder to the masa when we make tortillas."  Yesterday, I finally got around to finding out.  It took a couple of tries, but I think I got the hang of it.

There are leftovers in the fridge right now.
Maybe I should go make sure they're still good.

So, here's the much anticipated Chocolate Tortilla Recipe:

I only needed 4 tortillas, so I didn't make a very big batch.  This would be simple to multiply (unless you're terrible at fractions).

Ingredients:
1/2 cup masa
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 dash salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup water


Directions:

1. mix together first 4 ingredients.  Then add water and vanilla and stir (I like to stir with my hand) until dough is formed.
2. form dough into 4 equal balls.  One at a time, press them (using a tortilla press and waxed paper) into tortillas.
3. Cook each tortilla in a dry pan over high heat 1-2 minutes per side.  It's a little harder to tell if they're done, since they don't really brown since they're already, you know...brown.
4. After each tortilla is cooked, put in one of those round plastic tortilla warmer things like from restaurants lined with a paper towel.

I filled mine with diced strawberries, diced banana, blackberries, fresh whipped cream, caramel sauce, and chopped walnuts.  They were super delicious.  Whipping cream fresh probably helped.

Aside: I'm happy that I learned how to whip cream. It's easy, tasty, and impressive to others.

Ok, so I think we've reached the end of the Longest Blog Post Ever.  Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me until the end of it.  I'd like to promise that I won't wait this long between posts any more, but I wont, because that would probably be a lie.

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.