Cooking Delicious Dishes: June 2014

Two Tacos(Burritos) with Spanish Rice and re-fried beans

I love Mexican food we eat it quite often. Sometimes we have enchiladas or nachos; which is more like a taco salad. Today however we had Tacoritos, which are tacos made into mini burritos to save the mess.

What You Will Need:

Taco

1 lb Ground Meat - I used Turkey Meat
1 package of Flour Tortilla's Soft Taco Size or Hard Taco Shells
1 taco seasoning - I use Old El Paso Low Sodium Taco Seasoning
1 head or 1 bag shredded lettuce
Taco Sauce - I use either Taco Bell Mild Sauce or La Victoria Mild Sauce
1 container Sour Cream
1 bag Cheddar Cheese - I use Mild Cheddar because my wife does not like sharp cheddar cheese
1 - 2 tomatoes
1 large onion - I prefer sweet onions but I used a yellow onion in this because it has a better flavor when sauteed.
1 can Black Olives (optional)

Re-fried Beans

2 Cans of Refried Beans - We use vegetarian re-fried beans
1 can of shredded cheddar cheese
a butt ton of sauce

Spanish Rice

1 Frying pan
1 pan with a lid
1 spoon

1 cup - White Rice or Brown Rice
1/2 large onion - it is best to use yellow onions for saute in my opinion
1 bell pepper
Chili Powder - to taste - I recommend a small amount of powder and minced peppers
2 table spoon of Cooking Oil - I use vegetable oil because it does not make my food taste weird

Tools

1 Frying Pan
1 Cooking Pan with Lid
1 Sauce Pan
several spoons
plates
bowls
containers to store extras

Now that I look at this I should have taken a few more pictures of the ingredients needed and separated them out by what they were going to make. Next Time!

Directions:

First prepare all your ingredients - cut what needs to be cut, measure what needs to be measured. (Bag onions that you are not using right away - were not watching a drama this is no time for tears.)

Start with the Spanish Rice first between sauteing the onions and bell peppers and cooking the rice it easily takes the longest, but keep in mind the number of good burners you have available.

The recipe I used for my Spanish rice is: Spanish Rice II

I made it exactly as described on allrecipes.com but I recommend a few changes:

Use brown rice
DO NOT - use instant or minute rice.
Use minced fresh peppers - a good pepper will pop when squeezed
DO NOT - cook your rice to long... my rice never browned and it ended up getting soggy because I sauteed it to long before simmering.
Dice your own tomatoes - if possible

Preheat pan over medium-high heat (heated when water droplets sizzle across surface)

I use the same pan to saute and simmer (my pan with a lid)

When pan is dry add

cooking oil

wait about a minute then lift pan and rotate to spread oil over surface.

There is a specific cooking order you want to observe when sauteing. You want to add the ingredient that takes the longest to cook to the oil first:

I am not 100% sure if rice is a long, medium, or short saute time but I believe you should add it first

Rice
Onion
Bell pepper

You can add the minced peppers here to cook off some of the heat or wait till the simmer stage if you want the full heat. This also will effect the crispness of the pepper. This order is also dependent on how soft you want your ingredients.

Once the rice is brown, onions are translucent, and the bell peppers are soft add:

water
tomatoes
chili powder
salt
anything else you are adding

reduce heat to low (does not work on my stove - *shrug* I use as low medium as I can get), cover and let simmer until water is absorbed and rice is tender.

Assuming an available burner start browning the meat once you start simmering the Spanish Rice.

All you have to do is add your THAWED meat to a COLD pan.

it is very important that your meat is thawed completely and that your pan is cold when you add your meat to it - especially if it is turkey.
If you use frozen meat you are going to burn half of it before the other half thaws
If you add your thawed meat to a preheated pan what ever part touches the pan first is going to cook before you have time to spread the meat out evenly and is going to burn. (My wife likes burnt so in her case its okay.)

Once your meat is completely browned - it is actually a kind of gray - but as long as it is not pink:

Follow the instructions on your taco seasoning packet to season the meat.

While your meat is simmering in the taco seasoning and getting all delicious you can start your beans

Empty all your beans into a pan (I use a sauce pan - for the high walls) add sauce and cheese to your liking and cook over medium heat till beans are warmed and cheese is melted.

Assembly:

There is one more thing to cook if you want:

heat your tortillas according to the package instructions, not at all, or till they are a little crisp ( i like them crisp)

Once all of your cooking is completed it is time to start putting the tacoritos together. How you organize your ingredients in your tortilla is completely up to you