Cooking shouldn't be hard. Motivation to get started may be lacking (especially when the TV is playing all manner of movies all day long), but cooking should be easy and recipes adaptable.
My recipe for tacos is pretty simple; but best of all -- it's versatile.
Tonight, intending to make enough for lunches, I thought I'd make a batch of beef tacos and a batch of refried been and tomato tacos.
The former is simple: dice your vegetables. Add a drizzle of oil to a hot pan and throw in your spices. Once they become fragrant, add your vegetables. When they're cooked, remove them from the heat and cook the beef in the same pan. Drain well. Then - add everything back into the pot. When it's good and hot; remove the mixture and set aside. Add about a cup of beef broth and scrape the pan well. When the mixture is reduced by 1/2, add a pat of butter. If you want it thicker -- add about 1/2 a cup of beans and mash them well. Add everything back in and reheat.
For the bean version - just replace the meat with the beans and add a diced tomato (juice and all). Use the pan gravy from the beef mixture (or start over with vegetable stock) and remember to mash the beans well.
Either wrap it in a tortilla or sever it over salad. I like to top it with sour cream and cheese, but anything goes.
It's too hot to make
mexican rice; but I am going to make a
lentil, hazelnut and cheese salad for tomorrow's lunch. That, combined with the re-fried beans and some lettuce will make for a filling meal.
Update: The
lentil, hazelnut and cheese salad was amazing; I'm definitely going to have it again. The vegetarian version of the tacos needed to be reheated--which I didn't want to do. I'll save the filling for either making chili or a rainy day. Dinner last night (the meat version of the tacos) was really good - but needed more kick than the poblano peppers provided. Fortunately we had salsa on hand to deal with the problem.
