Diary of an Inconsistent Cook #4: American Potluck Tacos

Today was that day. The day when you’ve been out and about all day, you come home not in the mood to cook much, you open the refrigerator and discover that the leftovers have taken over. An item gets grabbed, opened, and sniffed. The rules are simple: Gag it; toss it. Sniff and live; keep it. Unfortunately today only a few pickings even made it to the sniff stage. Sometimes a visual is all you need. Was that last week’s lunch or a Chia Pet? Oh, is that a little block of cheddar? Bonus!

On the counter was a left-over corn salad (nothing fancy; canned corn, cheese, iceberg lettuce, and ranch dressing)) and an almost empty jar of mild Tostitos salsa. In the freezer some hamburger presented itself, and an onion grabbed from the basket completed the fare for taco night. What about the tortillas? I grabbed a bag of Masa from the back of the refrigerator and we made them using a tortilla press powered with child labor (but that’s for another post).

The pot was showered us with luck this time.

The pot showered us with luck this time.

I’m one of those maddening cooks that will often just dump things in a pan and see what happens without measuring. I didn’t make the taco meat authentic this time. It has a very distinct Sloppy Joe influence. I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, but if you want to try your luck in duplicating here is what I mixed together:

1 medium onion chopped
1/2 lb of hamburger
ground Aleppo/Anaheim pepper to taste
sweet Hungarian paprika (because I like it)
dried cilantro to taste (sorry cilantro-tastes-like-soap-people…just leave it out)
sea salt / fresh black pepper to taste
a bit of ketchup (I know…somewhere a little old Mexican woman had heart palpitations)
a smidge of molasses
homemade corn tortillas (to make up for the ketchup)

Cook that up then assemble! Corn tortilla, ground beef mix, fine grated cheddar cheese, leftover corn salad, dollop of salsa. Consume.

My daughter who can be a very grumpy critic, had these words to say, “Mmmm Mrrf nom nom.” I assume that was good news since she ate four.