Pork Tacos with Pico and Avocado Cream

I love my recipe for Pulled Pork. A lot. If I ate nothing else for the rest of my life, I would eat this dish. But other people, while fans, don't have that same devotion to slow-cooked meat slathered in BBQ. So when I make it, I've got to get a little creative. And there's no better way to use up leftover meat than with tacos.

To avoid showing you a recipe where I just stuff some taco shells with meat, I decided to make my own taco toppers. Some fresh salsa, also known as pico de gallo, and avocado cream.

Let's do the pico first. I picked up some pretty looking roma tomatoes at the store. First, you cut them in half. Then you cut them into planks (but not cutting the very root part of the tomato.)

Then you turn the tomato 90 degrees and cut the planks into cubes.

Do the same with an onion. I used something like 1/4 of an onion.

Messily mince a clove of garlic and add it to the onion and tomato.

Or just try to do a better job than I did.Wipe your board clean first if tomato water everywhere bothers you.

Squeeze in the juice of half a lime.

Track down a jalapeno. In an attempt to limit the contact my hands have with the inside of the pepper (the hottest part), I cut jalapenos from the bottom up, and mince them that way.

Or you could wear gloves. I just hate how they feel on my hands.

Anyway, mince it up and add it to the bowl of tomatoes.

Grab a handful of lovely fresh cilantro.

Gather it up to make a tight bundle, for easier cutting.

See?

Add the cilantro the bowl, along with some salt and pepper.

Stir it up and let it sit. For optimum pico-ness, you can make this a day in advance and let the flavors meld overnight.

Now that the pico is done, you make the avocado cream.

Pick a nice, ripe avocado. I like to buy mine while they're still firm, and let them ripen at home. There's less chance that they'll get overly bruised that way.

Scoop the avocado meat out of the peel and mash it around in a bowl until it's as smooth or chunky as you like it.

To keep it from turning brown, use the rest of your lime's juice.

Avocado cream is pretty much exactly what it sounds like--avocados and cream. So add the cream. In this case, sour cream.

Be sure to add salt and pepper!

So pretty and green and creamy.

Now that your taco condiments are ready, you can start assembling. First the meat.

Then the avocado cream.

Now the pico.

Have I mentioned how much I love tacos?















A  sprinkle of cheese, and your tacos are ready! This is a great recipe for any leftover meat. Try using leftover Dry-Rubbed BBQ Chicken, Slow-Cooker Pot Roast, or Stout-Braised Short Ribs!

Recipe: Pork Tacos with Pico and Avocado Cream

leftover shredded meat
soft and hard taco shells

Pico:
3 Roma tomatoes
3 tbsp. onion, minced
2 tbsp. fresh cilantro
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/4 jalapeno, finely minced
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients and stir.


Avocado Cream:
1 avocado, mashed
juice of half a lime
1/4 c. sour cream
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients and stir.


To assemble tacos: Spoon meat into shells. Top with avocado cream and pico. Serve!

Beef and Bean Burrilados

I asked The Kid what she wanted for dinner and she said, "Can we have tacos?" It was a good request--I had some ground beef that needed to get used. But we just had tacos last week, and we also didn't have any crunchy taco shells, which is my favorite way to have a taco. I have a recipe for chicken enchiladas, but not all the ingredients. I searched through my pantry to see what I had, and came up with this really good recipe.

I wasn't sure how to categorize these! They're obviously not tacos, even though they use taco seasoning. They have enchilada sauce and are baked, but have burrito ingredients. And since I'm not the place with the chihuahua I guess I can't call them enchiritos. So burrilados it is!

There are a few steps involved to assembling these, but it's really a lot easier than it looks. The first thing I did was prepare my meat filling. I started some onions out in a little vegetable oil.

Once the onions started to soften, I added the ground beef and broke it into small pieces.

I added a tablespoon and a half of my Perfect Taco Seasoning to the ground beef. I also added an equal amount of water.

Just a note--I cooked a whole pound of ground beef, but only ended up using about half of it. I saved the rest to make nachos the next day. 

While your beef simmers in the seasoning, you can start your sour cream filling. I used a small container of sour cream.

In a small bowl, I combined the sour cream with half a cup of shredded cheese. A bag of pre-shredded cheese is about 2 cups. Use half a cup here and save the rest of the bag to top the burrilados.

Then I added sliced green onions and some salt and pepper.

Stir everything together and set aside.

Open a can of refried beans. I used vegetarian beans but if you like the traditional lard-y beans, go ahead and use those. I put them in a small bowl and microwaved them for about 30 seconds, just to soften them a little.

By this time, you can remove the beef from the stove and set it to the side to cool a little bit.

I wrapped my burrilados in corn tortillas. I'm usually a flour tortilla person, but when you're baking the tortillas, especially in sauce, corn is better. Flour tortillas can get gummy and fall apart; corn stands up better to the moisture.

I heated some oil in a pan and let each tortilla fry for about 5 seconds a side until they softened and puffed a little. Be careful when you remove them from the oil!

On your work surface, lay out your lightly fried tortilla. Spread a thin layer of refried beans over the top.

Next, lay down a layer of your sour cream mixture.

Spread a spoonful of the taco meat down the center line of the tortilla.

Cover the taco meat with a spoonful of salsa.

Now fold the sides of the tortilla toward the center. Be gentle--you don't want to break the tortilla, and you don't want your filling to fall out. It might take you a tortilla or two to figure out the perfect amounts of filling. Don't worry, even if your burrilados are ugly, they'll still taste good!

Carefully flip the tortilla over and lay it seam-side-down in a shallow baking dish. Continue filling and rolling the tortillas until your dish is full. Mine held 8 burrilados, which was the perfect amount for us.

Preheat your oven to 350F. Open a can of enchilada sauce and pour evenly over all the burrilados.

Top with the rest of the shredded cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes, just until the cheese is melted.














How good do these look? They taste as good as they look! Try these out the next time you're craving a Tex-Mex flavor. Your family will thank you!

Recipe: Beef and Bean Burrilados

1/2 an onion, diced
vegetable oil, for cooking
1 lb. ground beef
1 1/2 tbsp. Perfect Taco Seasoning
1 1/2 tbsp. water

8 oz. container of sour cream
1/2 c. shredded cheese
3 green onions, sliced
salt and pepper, to taste

corn tortillas
oil, for frying

1 15-oz can refried beans

1 jar salsa (I ended up using about 1/3 or 1/2 a cup in total)

1 can enchilada sauce

1 1/2 c. shredded cheese


Preheat oven to 350F.

Saute onions in vegetable oil over medium heat. Once onions are softened, add ground beef and cook until browned. Add taco seasoning and water; let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, shredded cheese, green onions, and salt and pepper.

In a shallow pan, fry tortillas in vegetable oil for 5 seconds a side. Remove tortilla from oil. Carefully spread a thin layer of refried beans over tortilla.

Spread a layer of sour cream mixture over tortilla.

Add a spoonful of ground beef and a spoonful of salsa into the center of the tortilla. Roll sides of the tortilla towards the center; carefully flip tortilla over and lay seam-side down in a shallow baking dish. Repeat for the rest of the tortillas.

Pour enchilada sauce over tortillas. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese over the top.

Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

Tortilla Soup

I love tortilla soup. It's a little spicy, a little crunchy, a little creamy, and a lot of fun to eat. I love soup, and I love soup with toppings, so tortilla soup fits the bill completely.

Here's today's lineup.

I forgot to photograph the garlic. Pretend there's garlic.

Oh look, here's the garlic! It's magic!

Get the peppers, onions, and garlic sauteeing in some olive oil. You can get your spices ready in the meantime.

Today I used smoked salt, oregano, cumin, and chili powder. Smoked salt's obviously not necessary. Just an extra.

Once the peppers, onions, and garlic are softened, throw in the spices and give everything a good stir.

Time for more color--diced tomatoes, diced chili peppers, and salsa.

It's a soup, so there ought to be broth, too. This is chicken broth.

Diced chicken is the protein of the soup. Sometimes I like to add pasta or beans to make it heartier, but I skipped those today.












I did, however, add corn. It's the end of the summer and there's not much time left to enjoy fresh corn.

To remove the kernels from the cob, I like to lay down a towel (to keep the kernels from going everywhere.) Then I set the corn up on its end and cut the corn straight off the cob.

The kernels go right into the soup.

When I'm done cutting the kernels off, I like to use the flat side of the knife to extract the little bits of corn and the corn's milk still left inside. And I add the cob into the soup to add more corn flavor.

The last thing I do is squeeze the juice from half a lime.

The lime gets to soak in the soup, too.

Now, while the chicken and corn are cooking, you can start on your toppings. First (and most important) are the tortillas.

I roll up two or three tortillas and cut them into strips.

Then they get fried in oil. You really don't need much oil at all. This is maybe a half inch.You just want to crisp them up a little.

Fry them until they are golden brown and crisp. Give them a sprinkle of salt right out of the oil.

Now for the rest of the toppings. One of my favorite toppings for tex-mex food is avocado.

Some people are put off by avocado because they don't know how to approach it. But it's really quite easy to work with.

After cutting your avocado in half, gently tap the blade of your knife into the seed. The knife should grab the seed and pop it right out.

Next, score the avocado the long way across. Try to get as close to the avocado's skin as you can--but avoid cutting your own skin!

Now slice the other way. You'll have some nice green cubes when you're done.

Scoop the avocado meat out with a spoon. If you're not going to eat it right away, be sure to toss the meat in something acidic to keep it from browning.

Here are the rest of my soup condiments. Sour cream, cilantro, avocado, shredded cheese, and lime. You could also use some of the leftover salsa.












Don't be afraid to spice up your next meal with this tortilla soup.

Recipe: Tortilla Soup
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder

1 can fire-roasted diced chiles
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1/2 jar salsa

1 box chicken stock

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

1 ear of corn, kernels removed

Juice from 1/2 a lime

Soft tortillas, cut into strips

Vegetable oil

Other toppings (tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, extra salsa, lime, etc.)


Saute onion, peppers, and garlic in some olive oil in a large pan.

When vegetables are softened, add in spices and stir to combine.

Add chiles, tomatoes, and salsa.

Add chicken broth, chicken, corn kernels, lime juice, and lime half.

While soup is cooking, fry tortilla strips in oil until crisp.

When chicken has cooked, serve the soup. Top with fried tortilla strips and other toppings.