Summer Taco Salad

This is a super easy and super yummy recipe I got from my wonderful step mother back home in Texas.

She’s shared a lot of really neat recipes with me over the years and while I don’t have her skill when it comes to making the absolute best crispy fried chicken (the secret is self-rising flour, I hear) – I have lovingly prepared and made lovers of a number of her awesome recipes.

I remember the first time I ever had Summer Taco Salad – I was pretty young, we’d been swimming in the pool all day and S came out on the back porch and loaded up the picnic table with plates and bowls full of delicious offerings. I was sun burned. It was hot. She always had lots of soda in the fridge, something I wasn’t real used to.

Summer Taco Salad brings all those memories of summertime in Texas flooding back. The swimming, the lake, the fun. I hope you enjoy it too.

See how hot it is? The dressing is sweating!

Your Grocery list:

• 1 pound of ground meat – I’ve made it with beef (my step mom makes it with beef) and I’ve made it with turkey. I prefer turkey.
• 2 – 15 oz. cans of Ranch Style Beans
• 1 – 16 oz package of grated cheddar or Mexican style cheese
• 1 bag of Corn Chips
• Lettuce – I chop and mix iceberg and hearts of romaine
• 1 – 16 oz. bottle of Catalina Dressing
• 2-4 Roma tomatoes

Because this is a meal that is served cold, you’ll need to do some pre-planning. I like to get all my stuff ‘ready-to-mix’ the day before we plan to eat it, then just pop it in the fridge overnight.

Brown/Cook your ground meat until it’s done. If you use ground beef drain and rinse away the fat with hot water. You’ll want to let the meat sit in your colander for a bit, so that all the water and fat drains away. If you use ground turkey, there shouldn’t be any fat in the skillet, so it shouldn’t require draining and rinsing. Put the browned meat in a bowl with a lid and place it in the refrigerator, until cold.

Brow...uh...Cooked ground turkey

Open your two cans of Ranch Style Beans and pour them into a colander. Rinse away the sauce then let the water drain before putting them in a bowl with a lid and placing in the refrigerator, until cold.

Rinsed and drained Ranch Style Beans

Next you’ll dice your tomatoes, chop your lettuce and prepare any additional ingredients you might want to add.

Diced Roma Tomatoes

Chopped iceberg and romaine lettuce

Now that you’ve had your ingredients in the refrigerator and they’re cold and ready to go – we can now do the easiest step of all, mix it together.

In a bowl combine your meat, beans, cheese and tomatoes then mix them together gently. Once they appear to be mixed up well, you can add the Catalina dressing to your liking. Some prefer a lot of dressing, while others prefer much less. I’m some place in the middle.

I serve the meat/bean mixture over a bead of lettuce, with a small handful of corn chips. I also sprinkle the top with cheese and add black olives, because I love them.

The actual recipe calls for mixing everything together in a bowl and covering it with Catalina, but I don’t do that, because I prefer my corn chips to stay crunchy and it also seems like it wilts the lettuce much faster. There is also way more here than the three of us can eat in one meal, so if I mixed it all together, it wouldn’t save for later.

Summer Taco Salad

It looks pink and kind of funny – but it really is delicious. I hope you’ll give it a try and come back and tell me what you think.

More Summer Taco Salad Photos

Related posts:

1. Rockin The New Camera
2. What Do: Taco Hippo, A Bloody Streetfight & Ice Cream Truck Have in Common?
3. This Post is All Over The Place

End Result From My Pizza Cooking

I recently (in the last 18 months) developed quite an obsession for Pesto Pizza from Pita Jungle. So much so, that I had started going a few times a month to pick up a Pesto Pizza and Hummus. Then, I started wondering, could I make this at home and make it taste good? Finally, the stars all aligned and my local store had all the ingredients I needed (namely, pesto and pitas, which they always seemed to be out of).

So I tried it last night and I am delighted to report, my Pesto Pizza tasted almost exactly like the Pita Jungle offering. It is most assuredly something we’re going to be cooking around here for years to come.

Want the recipe? Alright, you asked for it. Keep in mind, I am no chef, so I purchased my Pesto ready-made. If you can make a Pesto yourself, by all means, go for it!

Your shopping list will need to include:

• 1 Package of Pita
• 1 Package (or tub) of Crumbled Feta Cheese
• 1 Package of Italian Cheese (Mozzarella + Parmesan works fine too)
• 3 Roma Tomatoes
• 1 Bag of Baby Spinich
• 1 Package of Mushrooms
• 1 Tub of Pesto (I used Buitoni)

You’ll also need some olive oil, but most everyone has that hanging out in the kitchen these days.

You’ll prep your veggies for their job:

• Slice the mushrooms and tomatoes as thin as you’d like – I like mine thin, but not to thin.
• De-stem your baby spinach after a good wash

After preping your veggies, you’ll heat a skillet pretty hot, brush both sides of your Pita with OO and heat each side for about a minute – we’re not trying to ‘brown’ them – just heat them up, so that when you put them in the oven, they’re crisp up better.

I used a Toaster Oven to cook my prepared pizzas, for more control, if you’ve got one – give it a try. Heat up your toaster oven while you put your pizzas together. I put mine on “DARK” and just kept turning the dial to keep it there so that both heating elements stayed red hot.

I then prepared my pizzas as follows – Keep in mind, the amount of toppings you add is totally personal and based on your own tastes:

• Spread the pesto on the pita with a butter knife. It doesn’t take a whole lot, but this is something you’ll adjust by taste.
• Layer the veggies as follows: Spinach, Tomatoes, Mushrooms
• Sprinkle Feta Crumbles over the top
• Sprinkle grated Italian cheese over the top of that

You’re done! Well…almost. The final step is fairly easy. Slide one of the pizzas into toaster oven and let it cook – the top will start to get some brown spots and that means you’re done. Cook it for a little longer if you prefer a more ‘cruchy’ crust and browner cheeses.

Take out, slice into fourths and serve.

It really is quite delicious. I was shocked at how well my ‘knock off’ worked out. They don’t typically and it usually makes me sad – but this time, it was a total winner!

Feel free to share this recipe (or link, or both) with friends and family – I love finding something that tastes great and love it even more when I can share it!

(That’s a real life picture of one of my pizzas from last night)

Related posts:

1. Super Easy and Awesome Pasta Roll-Ups
2. Homemade Chicken Pot Pie
3. Thursday List-Post Roundup

If you read the comment I made yesterday in response to Firemom’s Chicken Pot Pie comment, I said that I was working on a pasta recipe for today – one that came in my What-Used-To-Be-Free-and-I-Loved-It-But-Will-Now-Be-A-Paid-Publication Kraft Foods Food & Family Magazine (I’ll blog more about that at a later date).

Basically, I’m looking for quick and easy stuff I can do after work and when flipping through F&F on Friday at the stop light, I saw a recipe for something called “Cheese-Lovers Pasta Roll-Ups” – but the reality is, it’s more like a super easy Manicotti (you know minus the pain in the you know what shells) or even a cleaner and in my opinion, easier Lasagna. Bottom line – this is easy and inexpensive to make – plus, it’s a great Prep & Freeze (up to one month) meal, if you like doing that sort of thing.

So, let’s get started.

First, the recipe makes 8 Servings – a serving is considered 2 roll-ups per person – so make concessions for that, if you’re feeding a house full of growing boys.

On your grocery list, you need the following:

• An Egg
• 15 oz. container of Ricotta Cheese
• 2 Cups of grated Italian 3 cheese blend
• 4 Green Onions
• Italian Seasoning, if you don’t already have it in your spice rack
• 26 oz. Jar (or in my case, because I really like Hunt’s canned sauce) of Spaghetti Sauce
• Box of Lasagna noodles (the recipe says 16 noodles, which it will easily make)
• 1/4 cup of grated (not the dry green jar stuff) parmesan cheese

Ok, so you’ve gone to the store, picked up your ingredients and now, it’s time to get started.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees (the all important FIRST step that is always the LAST step in my kitchen, due to absentmindedness)

Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a bowl until well blended while you cook your lasagna noodles per the package instructions.

Spread about half (maybe a little less) of your sauce in the bottom of a 13X9 casserole dish/baking dish.

Allow the noodles to cool some, so they don’t burn your fingers while you roll.

Then, spread about 3 tablespoons of cheese mixture over the length of each noodle, roll and place seam side down in the dish.

Cover with remaining sauce and parmesan cheese.

Once you’ve completed all the steps, you’ll cover the dish with foil and bake for 50 minutes at 375 degrees, removing the foil for the last ten minutes to allow the cheese to get good and gooey.

Ok, now you have to know I did some MacGyver’ing when making this for my family. I just can’t leave well enough alone – and the point I went off the reservation is right before the “Cover with remaining sauce…” – step. What I did was just pore a tiny bit of sauce on each little noodle pod and then added some canned (I know, I know…but I *like* canned) mushrooms over the top before pouring the remaining sauce and adding the parmesan.

We like us some mushrooms with our Americanized Italian food – personally, I’d have loved to add some black olives too, but the old man can’t stand them and I wanted to feed him something besides Lucky Charms for dinner – even if they are magically delicious.

I should add – I also added some chopped garlic to this masterpiece – I didn’t include it in the recipe because unlike most self-respecting cooks, I buy my garlic already diced and covered in olive oil – so I just dumped a little in. I’d suspect, if you’re a garlic lover and you want to add it, you can add about half a clove or so – whatever tastes and feels right for your family.

Like last night, I am writing this as the dish is cooking – so I haven’t actually tasted it.

We’re serving ours with:

• Italian Salad (Italian salad mixed greens, with garlic croutons, romano cheese and my secret weapon – Olive Garden Italian Dressing – because yes, you can buy that stuff in a bottle at the restaurant, in case you didn’t know)
• Garlic Cheesy Bread (loaf of Italian bread, toasted in the broiler with garlic butter (real butter, mixed with the garlic I talked about above) then sprinkled with cheese after removing, but while still hot)

Try it, tell me what you think – I’ll come back and post my feedback when I’m done eating!

Related posts:

1. Homemade Chicken Pot Pie
2. I Had A Swell Day – Seriously =)
3. It Wasn’t All Bad…

This is a fun and easy one that I enjoy throwing together, because it literally takes 10 minutes or less to do it, if I have all the stuff I need. If I don’t – it takes a few extra minutes in the store to pick up the ingredients, but above all, it’s an inexpensive dish that the entire family will love.

Preheat your oven at 350 degress

To start, you’ll need the following:

• 9 Inch Pie Pan (I have a glass Pyrex model that works well for me, but any will do)
• 1 box of refrigerated pie crusts (there are two crusts included)

Or

• Frozen 9 Inch Pie Crust
• 1 box of refrigerated pie crusts (there are two crusts included) – you’ll need it for the top

The following items you’ll need, regardless of the type of crust situation you choose from above:

• One 12 oz. Package of Frozen Mixed Vegetables (pick what your family likes, I do corn, peas, carrots, green beans)
• 1 small white potato
• 1 small red potato
• Regular sized can of condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
• 1 whole rotisserie chicken from the deli section of your favorite store (this is what really cuts down on prep time, but if you just really enjoy cooking a whole chicken (or 4 whole breasts of chicken) – then go for it!)

Now that you’ve got all the ingredients together – you’ll need to prep your crust – either open your frozen crust that’s in the pan already and set it aside (make sure you check and see if there are 1 or 2 crusts, often the frozen ones come with two, stacked on top of each other or if you got the refrigerated kind, open and unroll the crust into your 9 in pie pan.

In a large sauce pan on the stove, pour in your can of condensed soup, 8 oz of the vegetables of your choosing and turn on a low heat.

While the soup mixture warms, start dicing your red and white potato into very small pieces (it’s important that they’re small, because they’ll only have about half an hour or so to cook). Once you’ve finished dicing the potatoes, add them to the soup mixture and stir.

Allow the mixture to warm for a few minutes while you start to prepare the already cooked chicken.

I am assuming, at this point, you’re as lazy as I am and you’ve purchased an already deliciously cooked rotisserie from your super market.

Remove the chicken from what ever container it came in and take off the skin and remove the bones, leaving only the chicken meat.

Once you’ve deskinned and deboned the chicken, you’ll want to chop up the meat into bite sized pieces and set it aside.

Then, take the soup mixture from the stove and pour about half of it into the pie crust. After pouring half the soup mixture into the crust, you’ll add all of the chicken meat to the pie crust and then cover with the remaining soup mix.

Finally, you unroll the refrigerated crust and place it on top of the mixture, pinching the sides making a pie crust top.

Make a few slices in the top, for venting, then put it into the oven and let it cook for about half an hour, or until the top crust is golden brown.

Remove, let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

We’re having ours with a tossed garden salad and some fantastic rolls from the bakery.

Related posts:

1. I Love A Clean Kitchen – Seriously!
2. NaBloPoMo – Am I Just Dense or What?
3. I Was Thinking I’d Do Another List Post