Cooking the Web – Homesick Texan – Tacos & Uncle Richard’s Salsa

Outside of Texas, a good taco is hard to find. Even growing up, my family’s version of tacos involved a bag of taco mix bought at the Kroger. Needless to say, I was never a fan. However, since I started reading the goldmine that is The Homesick Texan, I’ve been meaning to try her recipe for tacos.

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2007/06/good-bad-and-puffy.html

In addition to a recipe for taco meat, the Homesick Texan even tells you how to make your own puffy taco shells. While that sounds delicious, I’ll save that for another time, after I buy my own tortilla press. For now, I decided to give her taco recipe a try.

Everything on the ingredient list seems pretty straightforward. There are the usual suspects of ground beef, onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder, but I’m a little surprised to see that the recipe calls for “½ cup of your favorite salsa.” Knowing that much salsa could make or break the tacos, it seemed fitting to use one of the Homesick Texan’s salsa recipes.

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2006/09/when-life-gives-you-tomatoes.html

Uncle Richard’s Salsa couldn’t be easier.

¼ cup of diced onion and 2 minced cloves are garlic are first in the food processor.

Next is a cup of cilantro leaves and then the peppers. The recipe calls for 2 serranos or 2 jalapenos.

Figuring that 3 is almost always better than 2, I diced up 3 jalapenos and threw them in the processor.

The main ingredient to the salsa came next, one 28 ounce can of tomatoes

After that it was 2 tbs of chili powder, salt to taste, a dash of sugar and the juice of ½ lime.

This looks awfully familiar. After tasting, it needed a little more salt, some pepper and the juice of the other half of lime.

With my jar of salsa ready, I could move on to the tacos.

In no time at all, I had everything ready to go.

Clockwise from the bottom, I had ½ onion chopped with 3 chopped jalapenos, 3 cloves of garlic minced, 2 tbs of fresh cilantro, and 1 tbs chili powder, 1 tbs cumin, 1 tbs Mexican oregano, and ½ tsp of cayenne pepper.

First in the pan with ¼ cup of oil was the onions and peppers.

It took 10 minutes on medium before I was ready for the next step.

The garlic was next in the pan and then 2 more minutes of cooking.

Now it was time for almost everything else to join the fun.

I couldn’t forget the ½ cup of salsa. With everything added, I lowered the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Once I added the final tablespoon of lime juice

I had a pan full of delicious taco meat.

Of course I only had crappy premade taco shells on hand, but with a little lettuce, cheese, and salsa, I had a good looking taco. Once again, the Homesick Texan comes through. I’m honestly wondering if there’s a bad dish on her site.