Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Re: I just joined this forum

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Re: [fast5] Re: I just joined this forum

I highly recommend YouTube and HowToHeros for help in cooking, but
I'll tell you what I do.

1. Get some tortillas. They are cheap and last a long time in the
fridge. If you are fortunate enough to live near a Mexican store, get
ones that are made in the store: they are often supremely yummy.

2. Get a flat skillet. Any skillet will do.

3. Get some meat. Any meat will do. It's a good use for leftovers.
Chop the meat into little pieces and put it in a bowl. You can add
chopped onions if you like (onions aren't usually added to the meat in
"real" Mexican tacos though).

4. Chop some fresh onions, lettuce, tomato, peppers, or whatever you
like, for garnish. Keep them in separate plastic bowls, or mix them up
into a kind of all-purpose taco-stuffing-or-salad mix.

5. Get some taco sauce. I like the one called "green taco sauce". If
you are in the Advanced Class, you can make your own (it's not hard
and is decidedly impressive). But you should buy some first, if only
so you can re-use the bottle.

(optional): Heat up some refried beans for a side dish. "Spanish" rice
is also nice (make rice as usual, but add some tomato sauce to it
while it's cooking).

6. Now: heat up some oil in the skillet. The preferred oil in Mexico
is lard, but you can also use bacon grease, olive oil, or coconut oil.
Whatever works. If you don't like fat, you can even use a dry skillet
or one with just a little grease on it ("dry" tacos are also
traditional in Mexico).

7. When the skillet is hot, toss in a tortilla. It will soften. Put
some meat in the middle, then fold the tortilla over the meat. Like an
omlette. It is helpful to use two implements: like, a spatula and a
long chopstick (fusion cooking!). When one side is brown or crispy or
however you like it, flip it and do the other side (like an omlette).

8. When you get good at this, you can do 3 at a time in most skillets.
It helps to listen to music and be zen about the whole thing, because
it can take awhile to do 20 tacos. The first time you do it, it's
useful to disconnect the smoke alarm and have a fan going.

9. If you have a family, by this point they will be hovering and
grabbing the hot tacos off your plate and scarfing them down. Which
will make you jealous. So go ahead and eat a couple while you are
waiting for the rest to cook.

10. After everyone has eaten their fill, wrap the leftovers and
freeze. They heat up easily in a toaster oven.

I'm posting this on my blog, and I'll try to get some pics or find a
YouTube link.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 3:23 PM, balloonheartednojutsu
<randomized.ification@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Heather~
>
> I've never made tacos before-- (but it sounds really yummy and simple) could you possible give a step-by-step recipe of what you used to do? if it's not too much trouble.. Thanks!
>
> --- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@...> wrote:
>>
>> Hey, sounds like you are doing great!
>>
>> One comment about being in school (I did that a couple of times, a
>> long time ago). One thing that helps for dinners, if you don't need
>> variety, is to only cook one day a week. For me, way back when, that
>> was usually tacos. I did one BIG batch on Sunday, and froze them in my
>> little apartment freezer. Actually they probably didn't need to be
>> frozen, for only one week. I put 3 tacos in some tin foil, in one
>> little package. I also made one big "salad", which was lettuce,
>> tomatoes, etc, in a big plastic in the fridge. And I had a bottle of
>> hot sauce.
>>
>> So for dinner, which was at 10 pm or so when I finally got home by
>> bus, I would take out one little packet, stick it in the toaster oven,
>> and after a few minutes when it was hot, put some salad and taco sauce
>> in the tacos and pig out. That was my main meal of the day. And yeah,
>> I was skinny back then!
>>
>> Later on I did other weekly meals. But the common thread was: cook
>> once. Heat up daily. At the time I knew nothing about "health" but
>> "finances" were extremely limited, and so was "time". Anyway, it
>> works. Find some meal you really LIKE, and make a lot of it, once a
>> week.
>>
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