Double Decker Tacos

I've been on a beef-kick lately. We don't get to eat it often, but I had half a pound of organic ground beef to cook and I decided to make one of Mike's favorites - Double Decker Tacos! Oh my goodness, oh my goodness they're delicious! They're not hard to make and you can get three tacos a person with my recipe. 

What You'll Need:

1/2 pound Ground beef

2 T Taco seasoning

6 Hard taco shells

6 Flour tortillas

1 can Refried beans

1 Tomato (for topping)

Shredded cheese (for topping)

Shredded lettuce (for topping)

Sour cream (for topping)

This is my nifty way of storing taco seasoning. The way this came about was a sale at the grocery store that allowed me to buy like ten packets of seasoning. Well, I didn't feel like storing a bunch of packets of taco seasoning and I had a lot of these jars laying around from a party I went to and decided to put them to good use. I cut out the directions from one of the packages and taped it to one of the jars. I now have only two small jars of taco seasoning in my cupboard - instead of the ten I would have.

I'm very cautious about the handling of meat (I'm not a fan of bacteria and the sickness it can cause) but this is good because all you have to do is put the hamburger meat in a hot pan. But please wash your hands still. I put some oil in the pan to help the meat brown but depending on the meat and the the amount of fat in it, you may not need to add any extra oil.

Let the meat brown over medium-high heat. While this is happening, get your taco seasoning mix ready. Just follow the directions and the back of the package (or jar). I cut the amounts of seasoning in half because I was using half the amount of meat that the package accounted for. I used about 2 T (tablespoons) of seasoning and around 1/3 C of water.

When the meat is brown, drain any fat that may be in the pan. I usually use a splatter screen so that way I drain all of the oil but don't lose any of the meat. Trust me it works. Put the pan back over medium heat and add the seasoning mix.

This is going to take a few minutes so get whatever you use to heat tortillas warmed up, and warm up six flour tortillas. Store them in a tortilla warmer or between two kitchen towels.

You can also get the refried beans heated too. All you need to do is heat them on low heat. Stir them a lot so they don't overheat and splatter everywhere - because that will happen. Take out your hard taco shells too. You can make your own, but that's so much work - pre-made ones will be just fine.

When the meat is done (there's no more water) then you're ready to assemble the tacos. First get a warmed flour tortilla and spread some beans on it. You won't need a whole bunch but get enough on there so it'll stick to the hard taco shell.

Place the pre-made shell in the flour tortilla.

Add the meat.

Add the cheese.

Now you can add any taco toppings you like. We like lettuce, sour cream, and tomatoes. Mmmmm.... They may not be the most sophisticated looking tacos but they're delicious, crunchy, and gooey... and I was really hungry at this point so oh well. Enjoy!!