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!