A fast fiesta

Making ends meet means keeping a pretty tight grocery budget. And when you live with Mr. Meat and Potatoes, you obviously spend a good portion of your grocery budget on, well, meat.

I am the queen of the Dillon’s meat sale bin. Usually, I can pick up a little roast or some pork chops in there to keep my freezer stocked, and lately, it seems, there is always ground beef lingering in the “Manager’s Special” area. When I see it, I pick it up, however much is there. Which means I opened our garage freezer the other night to plan some meals for the week, and saw mountains of ground beef. Oodles of ground beef. I had to use some up.

Ground beef usually means one of three things. Meatloaf, sloppy joes, tacos. Once in awhile I go really high-class and do a beefy mac and cheese dish fit for a school lunch tray.

None of these are meals that really get my heart rate up. I mean, they’re hot, brown, and plenty of it, which is always a good thing in my husband’s book, and they’re cheap to make and produce leftovers, which is also a plus. Still, I just don’t feel very whippy about serving up a sloppy joe or your basic taco.

So when I make tacos, I kinda go all out. I like to have all the fixin’s, and find ways to make an old standard new.

First, for taco meat, let me just impress upon you that you need to STOP buying the packets. You can make a much better taco seasoning from your own spice rack and cut down the sodium and other ick that is in that McCormick’s packet.

Good, Simple Taco Meat

2 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 C diced onion
1 diced fresh jalapeno
1/2 C chili powder (or more, depending)
2 T cumin
1 tsp red pepper
1 T salt (kosher, preferably) or less if that freaks you out. But ground beef NEEDS salt.
couple of dashes of black pepper
1 C yellow yard beer

Step 1) Brown the ground beef, drain off the grease.

Step 2) Dump in the spices, onion, garlic, and beer. Cook and stir over medium low heat until the beer is gone. Serve hot, with GOOD tortillas. (See this article on where to get them.)

That’s your basic taco filling, but what makes it special is dressing it up with some really good fixin’s, like pico de gallo or a sliced avocado or good restaurant style salsa.

I had a hankering for some black beans and also wanted to introduce some new flavors to my tacos, so I whipped up these babies. Couldn’t be easier.

Chili-Lime Black Beans

1 can black beans (unseasoned)
1 T olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 T diced serrano pepper
juice of one lime
pinch of kosher salt

Step 1) Rinse and drain the black beans well. Toss them into a saucepan or microwave safe bowl.

Step 2) Add seasonings to the bowl or saucepan. Go easy on the salt. Your taco meat is salty enough. Heat through. To be honest, I heated mine in the microwave because I am lazy, and it worked just fine.

Of course, a fiesta dinner always means that a blended margarita is a key component, and lately, with my passion forpink lemonade, I’ve been making this recipe:

1 6 oz can frozen pink lemonade
Juice of one lime
1 C diet Sprite
1 C lite yard beer
1 C tequila

Pour over ice, blend. It’s smooooth, folks.

Mr. Meat and Potatoes had to work late on Tuesday, and was so happy to walk in the door after 7:00 and find a perfectly pink margarita and this spicy little number waiting for him. And I’m not talking about the taco.

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