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!