Iron Chef Pantry

The other day we came home from work and needed to make some dinner.  Now I hadn’t planned *anything* and most of the meat I had was still up in the freezer.  The only thing down was mince (hamburger).  I was going to use that for the Thai Beef, but we just did that for friends the night before, so I didn’t want to make it again.  What should I do with it?  I could’ve made hamburger patties out of it, but that had no appeal.  I don’t have the makings for a meat loaf, and I really couldn’t think of much to do with it.

So what do you do?

I decided to just see what I had lying around the pantry.  I found taco shells, so tacos was a thought The problem is, I *loved* tacos with lots of cheese and sour cream.  I’ve never really been able to enjoy tacos since losing the ability to eat dairy.  Just the meat and lettuce was never appealing.  As a kid I used to scrape all the letuce and tomato off so there was more room for cheese and sour cream.  I never cared much for guacamole in tacos either - just meat, cheese, sour cream and taco sauce.  Having said all that, I decided to see if I could make tacos my own again, without the dairy.  It would have to e something that really added to the flavour of the mince. 

So I rummaged around in the pantry some more.  I found some tomato sauce.  Ok, that’s a start.  A tin of kidney beans - cool.  Hey, where did that jar of salsa come from??  Onions? Garlic? Wait - I have green onions in the fridge and a whole head of roasted garlic, let’s use them up instead.  Spices - let’s see, cumin, chili powder, cardamom (just a pinch), a bit of cayenne, salt and pepper.  That should work.

I started browning the beef, just like the old days of taco making.  Turn on the oven to 350 for the shells to warm up. Now usually at this point I’d just open the packet of taco seasoning and finish up.  Today though. I started adding the scallions and the whole head of roast garlic, then the jar of salsa and about half the tomato sauce.  Inspriation struck and I pulled out some cilantro (coriander) and a lime.  I juiced the lime and diced up some cilantro.  Into the skillet with you.  Ok, it’s getting close - pop the shells in the oven to warm up.

I have to say it turned out gorgeous.  No dairy was needed at all.  There was a lot of flavours and smells.  I wanted to get some corn in there, but didn’t have any on hand.  This was seriously one of those Iron Chef moments where you just go with what you have on hand and go for it.  If I hadn’t had the salsa, no biggie - it just would’ve taken more tomato sauce, more onion and some red chili flakes to make up the difference.  I can finally eat tacos again and enjoy it.  The DH loved it and requested it be put in the food rota.   To me, tat was the best complement of all.