Beef n' Bean Tacos

Forget the Bell, the ones you can make at home taste better and are much healthier than factory fast food.Tacos make a great meal-in-one, or you can serve along with chips and salsa, Spanish rice, or other Mexican and Latino favorites.

The heart of this taco is obviously the beef n' beans. Now you could just fry up some ground beef and fold in some canned beans. Small red or black beans would work best. However, I go to a bit more trouble on taco night, and whip up a big batch of my Southwest Beef to use as my primary taco filling, with enough leftovers to use other ways in the next few days. This stuff makes a slammin' taco filling. Just click on the link there to get that recipe.

Now we have to decide the taco shell. You could just go with the standard corn tortilla shell, store bought. You could go with soft tacos, made with flour tortilla wraps. Or you could do what I do, and step it up a notch by lightly frying some tortillas. There are usually 3 sizes to choose from. I go with the medium, makes a pretty big taco, but you could go gargantuan too if you prefer, or use the small ones for a standard size taco. The medium ones are usually the lowest cost per unit I have found.

Actually frying the tortilla is a bit of an art, and I don't have it down to a science yet. On one occasion I got some cheap tortillas at Walmart that really turned out bad for this and just fell apart. So start with a good tortilla. In a frying pan, pour in some canola oil and bring up the temp. Proper frying is supposed to be done at specific temperatures, but I don't have a temp setting on my burner, and since we are not actually deep frying, sticking in a cooking thermometer probably won't be much help. I just wait, and go by the shimmer of the oil, the smell coming up in the air, and then flick a few droplets of water in the pan to make sure is crackles real good. (Be very careful, water in hot oil explodes, and you will have hot oil all over the place if you aren't careful.)

Lay the tortilla in the pan, and fry until golden brown. The tortilla may puff up, not to worry. You can stick a fork in it if you really find that unnerving, or you are getting an uneven fry. Keeping an eye on the edges will help you gauge how done it is on the first side, but peeking will do no harm either. Be careful not to overcook. We are looking for it to be a little crispy, but not actually crunchy. Don't forget, we still have to fold this thing when it is done. Some people choose to only fry one side for this reason, but I go ahead and fry both sides, using a regular metal (not plastic) pancake turner to flip them. Now fold the tortilla over in half and lay it on a paper towel to cool and drain.

Repeat this process for the number of tacos you intend to make. You will likely need to add a bit more oil to the pan for every two or three tortillas. I also find that the tortillas tend to fry quicker as I get going along, but don't let the oil get too hot, or they will start to flashburn.

Now it's time to address the fixins. You can have them all ready ahead of time. I use the standard taco fixins, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese and a schmear of sour cream. Since I am using my Southwest Beef mix, I won't need any salsa, but you might want to keep a bottle of hotsauce on hand for taco night.

Shredded or chopped lettuce, but don't do this too far ahead of time because it causes bruising. Some people have different tricks to stop lettuce from starting to brown on the edges, I just don't bother to shred too far ahead of time.

All different sort of tomatoes out there to choose from, but I usually go with some little cherry tomats. I slice them into little wheels to hold in all the juices and seeds. Of course, you can use a bigger tomato and chop it up nicely into little cubes, but I always hated wasting all the juices left on the cutting board, and it makes for a taco that is a little sloppy.

Even more than tomats, there are all sorts of cheeses out there. Of course we will want shredded cheese, but what kind? Cheddar would do fine, Monterey Jack, and there are all sorts of authentic Mexican cheeses too. I usually wind up getting a bag of the Mexican blend at the supermarket, or shredding my own Jack n Cheddar blend. I stay away from the taco blend in the bag though. It's just shredded cheese doused with salt nitrites and a factory season blend. Too much seasoning tends to clash and creates a muddled flavor profile. We want to keep the flavors fresh, and I like the cheese to taste like cheese.

Now finally, the assembly. First, lay in a heaping spoonful or two of your beef n' bean mix. Next give the inside of the shell a schmear of sour cream. As you are making the assembly, be gentle with the shell, so that it does not crack and split. Lay in some of the shredded cheese over the meat. It will get a little melty action too if the meat is hot enough. Top with shredded lettuce and your tomato wheels. Line up two or three on a plate, and you are all set to chow down.

At the grocery store you will need: All of the ingredients to make Southwest Beef, round flour tortillas, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, cheese (shredded blend perhaps), and canola oil if you have none in your pantry.

No frills rice and beans

There are probably a million and one ways to make rice and beans. Some dishes are loaded with seasoning, a variety of meats and beans and so forth. This recipe on the other hand, is very simple and super cheap. Which really is the point with rice and beans, being a staple of poorer households throughout Latin American and the Caribbean.

Chop one small onion, or about half of a larger onion. A regular sweet onion is fine, but if you get really teary-eyed chopping onions, you might opt for a white onion instead. They are a little more expensive, but more delicate in flavor and won't burn your eyes out while chopping. (Chopping an onion that is very cold also helps cut down on the eye-burn.)

Bring measured water to boil along with a good splash of canola oil. A few tablespoonfuls I suppose. You will probably need a little more water than is called for on your package instructions. I use Carolina jasmine rice. It is flavorful but not overpowering, and is quite versatile for recipes from East to West. The instructions call for 3 cups of water to 2 cups of rice, but I boil 4 cups of water.

Once you have it up to a rolling boil, add your onion, and cover again for another minute or so to get the temperature back up. Now add your rice, along with a packet chicken bouillon and any other seasonings you might enjoy. I rip out the flavor packet from a pack of ramen. Cheap, and I usually have at least a few packages laying around. (If you are a real pinch penny and trying to cut down on your sodium intake, you can even make your ramen with only on flavor packet for every two packets of ramen noodle, which will leave you with these leftover packets to use in other applications such as this.) Alternately, you might try boiling your rice in canned chicken broth, but it's going to up the cost of your meal. I don't add any salt as the flavor packet is already high in sodium. I often make this without any other seasoning at all, but today I added a few good shakes of dried parsley and some dried oregano and it came out quite savory.

Give it a quick stir, cover and leave the heat on high. Be patient, don't keep taking the top off to check or you will wind up with crunchy rice. I can usually tell when it's just about boiled down by listening to the bubbling under the lid. Of course, you don't want to burn it either, so timing is important. Making perfect rice is not quite as simple as some people might think. Even after you have cut the heat off, you are going to want to let the rice sit a little while longer and absorb the last of the moisture.

Now go ahead and toss in a half can of beans. Of course, you can use the whole can if you like, but I find half a can gives the best bean to rice ratio. Small red beans are my preference, but you might like other varieties. This time actually, I used Dominican red beans. The hot rice should help warm the beans after you have stirred them in being careful not to break them.

For some added flavor and to make a real meal out of it, you might also like to add some meat at this point. Today I used pork trimmings that I had fried up earlier and put aside. This is the stuff that butchers trim off all sorts of different cuts of pork when packaging. These leftover bits you can usually find a package of for about a dollar or so. I chopped about a pound of the meat up into bite size bits and pan fried in a little canola oil. Simple as that. You might also try cooking the meat in a variety of sauces or spice blends, but I kept it really basic today. I also cooked the rice in the juices leftover from cooking the pork. I deglazed the pan with the water for boiling the rice, and used a spoon to get the little bits at the bottom loose from the pan before bringing to a boil.

And so, that's that, very simple, very flavorful, very affordable rice and beans.
Here is your shopping list:

Rice (Carolina Jasmine), can of beans (small red), onion, package of ramen (to pirate the flavor packet), pork trimmings, canola oil, parsley, oregano.

Karmelized Kielbasa on Stuffing with Fresh Apple

Kielbasa is a Polish smoked sausage, found pre-cooked and vacuum wrapped at the supermarket. Most folks have it grilled in the summertime, or with sauerkraut in the winter, but can't really think of much else to do with it. I've gotten a little more creative with it, since it is an easy meat to keep on hand, It keeps well in the freezer and even refrigerated has a long shelf-life. So it's a really good back-up to keep on hand for those nights when the groceries in the house have gotten low, or a winter storm is keeping you in. It's on sale just about every other week, usually as a buy one get one, or last week as a buy one get two free. Yay! So it's great for a cheap, easy meal.

Another item I keep on hand is stuffing, or “dressing” as some folks call it. It keeps forever in the pantry cabinet and makes a quick, tasty, filling side dish for just about any meal. Today though, it will play a more central role. I used pork stuffing for this recipe, but if you only have on hand a box or two of herb stuffing, maybe cornbread stuffing, I would still give it a whirl. Heck, even chicken stuffing might work. I'm a stuffing junkie, as most people are, so I made two boxes. Prepare according to package instructions, which are simple as can be. Stick of butter, measure of water, bring to a boil, fold in the stuffing mix, remove from heat, and cover.

Let's do a little box redux here though. When you add in the stuffing mix, we are also going to add in a big handful or two of raisins, and crushed nuts. The only nuts I had on hand were almonds, but I would really like to try this again with pecans, or walnuts. I busted up the almonds myself, but not too small, you don't really want them crushed too fine at all. You want nice big broken pieces. Sliced almonds would work too. Standard raisins were great, but if you have some golden raisins or dried cranberries to throw in, that could be tasty too.

Now we come to the kielbasa. It is pre-cooked, but we're still going to go ahead and toss it in a pan, with just a little bit of butter to keep it from sticking as we brown the skin. You should have it cut into segments, maybe about three inches or so. Once it is browned, deglaze the pan with some water, then add a nice big squirt of barbecue sauce. A hickory or mesquite perhaps, I used some Jack Daniels barbecue sauce. Cover and allow to simmer for a minute or two, so that the steam can finish heating the sausage all the way through and really get all the juices going. It will be smelling nice and smokey, perfect for a chilly Autumn evening. Continue cooking, reducing the sauce until finally it has turned into a sticky, caramelized glaze, smothering the skin of the kielbasa.

Serve on a bed of stuffing, alongside fresh sliced apple. Dig in with a spoon in one hand to shovel in the stuffing, and a fork in the other to stab a hunk of meat or apple, and alternate the bites. Quick and easy with a real medieval feasting appeal. As with most meals, I usually serve a green-leafy salad beforehand, and did the same here.

At the store you should pick up: Kielbasa, boxed stuffing (pork flavor), raisins, nuts, barbecue sauce, butter

REVISION:

I made this again the other night and had only enough butter for the stuffing. So, rather than browning the sausage at the start, I put some water in the pan, covered, brought the meat up to temp, then let the water steam off uncovered. I let the meat keep cooking in the pan and browned without any butter to keep it from sticking, but some fats from the sausage had already come out into the pan. Again though, I deglazed with a little water, and added the BBQ sauce. Cooked until the sauce became a glaze over the meat.

Spanish Rice

This dish is real easy to make and doesn't take a whole lot of time, but it is far superior to the Spanish rice you find in a box or pouch. Taking a nod from a few TV cooking shows, I was inspired by their talk of paella. Now I don't have a paella pan, I cook just about everything in a flat-bottomed wok, but I liked the idea of adding a whole bunch of ingredients to a rice dish to make it a complete meal in a single dish, just like a real paella.  

We'll start by chopping up a white onion. White onions have a more subtle flavor, but regular onions would be fine I'm sure, vidalia, or even red onions might be interesting. Throw the chopped onion in the pan to fry with some pork lard on high heat. Don't be scared of lard, it is actually healthier than many cooking oils out there.

Cube a pound or more of ham, add to pan for some sizzle action. I had some leftover from a small store-bought ham of fair quality, and used up what I had here. Now ham is the traditional meat in a Spanish rice dish, but I've made this dish before using non-cured pork, chicken, ground beef, spam, and even Nathan's hotdogs. I prefer the ham, and the hotdogs really work good too, but go with what you have, or even a combo of meats if you have little bits of this and that hanging out in the fridge. Turkey ham would work too.

Next we will  slice 3 or 4 carrots into thin rounds. The rounds are a good bite size, but we don't want them too thick or they won't cook fast enough and be too crunchy in the final product. Not too much of a big deal, but my teeth are a little sensitive. Don't go paper thin either though, don't want them turning to mush. Maybe as thick as a few nickels stuck together, quarter inch I guess, but don't worry too much about precision. Just want to get more than a few pieces out of each stick so it distributes nicely in the final dish.

Chop up two stalks of celery and add them to the pan with along with the carrots to play with the ham and onion that should be starting to brown a little now.

Chop a half pepper each of red and green. Add to pan last since they cook the quickest. If your peppers are small, go ahead and use the whole peppers. I kept the remaining halves of two large peppers aside for another dish I'm planning tomorrow.  The peppers are really the only "traditional" veggie in a basic Spanish rice, but again, work with what you have. You can add just about anything really, though I do recommend you add at least some green and red peppers. On other occasions I have added fresh chopped green beans, corn could lend itself to a more Mexican version, go with what you like.

Add some olive oil and get it all up to temperature, stirring occasionally while the smells start blending together nicely. The mix should begin to soften a bit, but you don't want it fully cooked yet. 

Add a heaping tablespoon of chopped or minced garlic then season generously with sazon completa, or your own favorite Spanish-inspired spice blend. Your own spice blend should be well salted. Black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, and dried citrus are some ingredients of the sazon completa.  Some nice smoked paprika might work too, I might have to try that next time. Some traditional paella use saffron.

Add water to your mixture, at a ratio of 3 to 1 for most rice. My white rice called for 2 to 1, but I increased the ratio because of all the other ingredients in the pan. You will need more water than is called for in the package directions because of that. In this recipe I used 3 cups of rice and 9 cups of water. At this point I also added some frozen green peas as well when the water came up to a boil. Once you have a rolling boil, add your rice, cover, and lower heat. Give it a stir after a half minute or a minute to keep the rice loose from the bottom of the pan. 

Try not to keep peeking too much, it should stay covered as much as possible but after the rice is about half cooked, add a few real big squirts of ketchup. Probably about a cup and a half, maybe two cups. Most recipes just call for tomato sauce or tomato paste, but I find that ketchup really gives it a bit more flavor in the end.

Add a can of beans. Stir. I use pink beans for their mild flavor, and because they are not as chalky as some others. Kidney beans are popular, but go ahead and use your favorite sort of bean. If you added corn to make it a more Mexican rice, perhaps black beans would keep in with that theme.

Put the cover back on and kill the heat, or at least bring it down to very low. Allow to sit for a while as the rice absorbs all the rest of the water. Once the water has all simmered away and been absorbed by the rice, your dish is ready to be served.

Now if you're real daring, you could try to get a bit of that traditional paella crust in the bottom of the pan. It does give a subtle smoky flavor to the dish, but you have to be very careful not to burn it. In fact, this was how I came to discover the flavor quality, I almost burned a batch of it, but gave it a quick stir as it was sticking to the bottom of the pan and just about to burn, saving the dish, and learning something new. If you do happen to burn it, see if you can dump the whole pan out upside-down into another dish and pick off the burnt crust. You could also practice the intentional "scorching" with smaller portions in the pan, rather than risking the whole batch.

Although meat does add a lot of flavor to the dish, a strictly veggie version would probably be enjoyable to vegetarian friends, or as a hearty side dish to a meat entree, such as roast or fried chicken, BBQ ribs perhaps, or even alongside an authentic Texas chili made with steak rather than ground beef.

For a very basic version to be served as a side dish, omit meats and extra veggies. A standard Spanish rice recipe calls for oregano rather than a full seasoning blend, but you should still be sure to use at least a little bit of garlic, onion, and diced peppers along with either the ketchup or some tomato paste.

Here is your shopping list:

Rice, ham, onion, green and red pepper, garlic, peas, carrots, celery, ketchup, olive oil, seasoning,