Fajita: Some sort of grilled meat (or veggies if you're a vegetarian) served on a flour tortilla, usually with grilled onions and/or peppers and sometimes served with sour cream, salsa, and/or guacamole.
Taco: Either a corn or flour tortilla folded around cooked meat (or veggies if you're a vegetarian) and can be topped with lettuce, salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole or almost any desired topping. Tacos can be crunchy with a deep fried tortilla, or soft with a warmed tortilla.
Your welcome for my very formal gastronomy lesson. My point is to show there really isn't a big difference between the two (except price at a restaurant) and the fact that one usually comes built for you (tacos) while you have to build the others yourself (fajitas). My other point is that I love both, grew up eating both, and they're both easy to make (because they're pretty much the same thing - hence Fajtacos.)
Today was the kind of day where things just weren't going right. When it came time for dinner I really wanted something fun and comforting. I grew up with Mexican food served almost nightly so, to me, that's comfort food. Since I don't eat a lot of red meat I decided on shrimp Fajtacos. Mike came up with the name when we couldn't figure out which one they were most like. They have all the flavor of fajitas (even though I didn't grill them) in the neat, ready-to-eat package of a taco. Minus the olive oil, jar of chopped garlic and garlic powder this is all I needed. The steps are really easy. The simplicity is one of the best things about this recipe.
1/2 pound of shrimp (clean)
1-2 avocados
1/2 of one large onion
6 flour tortillas
sour cream
1 T of mayonnaise
1 T chopped garlic (not pictured)
Make sure your shrimp, are clean and peeled. If, like me, you like simplicity then just make sure your shrimp is defrosted :)
Next cut one whole onion in half. Cut this half into slices (I'm not sure of the technical term).
In a hot pan drizzle some olive oil and saute the onions. For me this wasn't good enough. I added a splash of white wine and chopped garlic (the kind that comes in a jar), and some garlic powder.
There's lots of things to do in the mean time. First get a pan, griddle or whatever you use to heat tortillas, on the heat so it starts getting hot. Next cut your avocado(s) open, and empty the contents into a bowl. I used two avocados because we're that kind of couple. I used a fork to mash the pieces and decided to add mayo and a little bit of garlic powder, then I used the fork to mix it all up a little more.
By now the onions should be pretty much done. Take them out and place them in a bowl to set aside. Cover that with foil so the onions stay warm. To the same hot pan add a little more olive oil and the shrimp. My shrimp was already cooked so all I really had to do was heat them through. Still, this was not good enough. I added a little wine, pepper and garlic powder. I love the taste of shrimp so I didn't want to add too much. Heat until warm.
*This picture shows the tails on - I did not serve them like that! My shrimp was still cold so I took them off the heat and just took the tails off. Four minutes later they were back on.
Moving on.
While those are heating up (or cooking if they're fresh) get your tortillas heated. I did 3 tacos...sorry, fajtacos... for each of us. Make sure to store them after you heat them.
When everything is heated your ready to assemble the fajtacos! Usually I get a tortilla, spread a little avocado (I don't know if you can call this guacamole - you can if you want though) on the tortilla first then pile shrimp on top of that. I didn't do that this time. I put shrimp to tortilla then piled the onions on top of that. I then added a couple spoon fulls of avocado and sour cream on top. I served the fajtacos with a small salad but it was hardly necessary. We were both totally full after.
