Week 4 Part Deux - Tacos for Everyone

Wes's second favorite food is tacos (yes he ranks his favorites habitually like a character from a Nick Hornby novel; one night he rattled off his hierarchy of best friends).  So with enough pasta dishes behind us, it was time to move on to tacos.

More specifically, Wes loves what we have always called White-Boy Tacos.  White-Boy Tacos is a term coined by my good friend Brandon's mother.  Abby used to have all the kids over to her house and she would stand and fry tortillas for the tacos for easily an hour.  We would have contests to see who could eat the most tacos in one sitting (our friend Jake still holds the record I believe with 14).  My mom made the same and she used to try to fry the tortillas to order at the table which never worked because she couldn't possibly keep up with my brother Rob and me. 

So what make a taco a White-Boy Taco?  It starts with a corn tortilla fried golden brown in hot oil. In goes ground beef, cheese, tomato, onion, sour cream optionally, and absolutely nothing that in any way resembles something you'd actually see in Mexico.  No spicy, no hot, and definitely no mystery meat.  Hot sauce can be added; our preferred is Duck Sauce (El Pato).

Problem is though, tacos are not exactly kid friendly preparation.  Frying the shells was definitely out.  I struggle with cutting tomatoes on my own.  And Wes and hot onions don't go well (he hides his eyes so they won't burn).  That did leave grating cheese which went okay.

The big "cooking" came at the table in the form of taco assembly.  And Wes definitely excelled in the table prep.  4 tacos later Wes was a happy camper.

I didn't really feel like same-old tacos tonight though.  A few months back I got a new Rick Bayless cookbook and I had been dying to try out some of the recipes.  I'm a huge Rick Bayless fan and since we had a 3rd adult for dinner (a definite rarity) I figured I would bust out tacos two-ways.  So on top of White-Boy style, we made chorizo and potato filling.

First we roasted a poblano pepper on the gas cook top.  First time for me and it was fun burning the living heck out of it.  Then we cooked a couple of peeled and diced red potatoes in the microwave on high for 4 minutes.  Chorizo went into the skillet to cook, then replaced with onion (both Spanish and a red).  Then the poblano and a diced roasted red pepper.  The whole mess went back in for 5 minutes and a crusty chorizo hash came together (it's actually substantially the same as the chicken hash recipe I stole from Truman Capote's book and which will show up in a future week).

This came together with a simple guacamole that Parker and Mom knocked out (2 avocados, juice of a lime, 1 minced garlic clove, pinch of salt, a handful of cilantro and absolutely no sour cream).  For these tacos we actually steamed the corn tortillas for 4 minutes on medium in the microwave wrapped in a damp tea towel and inside an open plastic bag; they came out tasting freshly made.  Just tortilla, hash, and a dollop of guacamole.  The filling was smokey and contrasted perfectly against the cold avocado.  Heaven.

Not to be out done, Parker also requested something different so she got a cheese quesadilla.  Thank goodness that Grammie was still here to help with dishes because I was pooped.  Dinner was a success and everyone laid around completely stuffed after, though Jake's record was definitely safe tonight.

One month down!