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!!

Shrimp Fajtacos

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.