Super Tacos

 Just before Sarah and I left Chicago to go visit her family, we spent a couple of days trying to eat everything in the fridge. We were going to be gone long enough that anything that wasn't eaten would probably go bad, and I didn't want to throw anything away.

By the final night of fridge cleaning, we were down to one chicken breast, the remnants of several bags of shredded cheese, and several corn tortillas. I combined these things into a hybrid taco/quesadilla. I liked this so much, I decided to do it again. This time, with pork.

Super Tacos:

1. pulled pork: chopped leftovers from the slow cooker pork roast is perfect for this. I put it into a fry pan to reheat and let it crisp up a bit. (I happened to have taken too much of the leftover pork to work for lunch, so I supplemented to the amount of pork with some shrimp from the freezer).
2. tortillas: once the pork is hot, remove them from the pan and then lay the corn tortillas in the pan on medium heat. after about a minute, flip the tortillas over and top with the chopped pork. it's going to look like an open face sandwich or a mini pizza. 
3. cheese: after you add the pork, add shredded cheese. the kind we had had was Kraft "Authentic Mexican" shredded blend. It had manchego cheese, some other cheese, and "Queso Quesadilla" cheese. No joke.
4. peppers: chop up some green pepper. once the cheese melts, add the peppers and fold the tortilla over like an omelette. If you've done it right, the cheese melted should hold the thing shut.

It's tempting to add salsa, tomatoes, onions, beans, lettuce, and all sorts of crap to a taco. The problem is, assembling a taco like that takes forever, and it all falls out anyway. I just don't have that kind of patience for food I am going to eat with my hands. 

Lately, I have been trying to keep the number of toppings of my tacos to a minimum. Because tacos are like pizza, if you think about it. Having a pizza with as many toppings as I could think of was fun when I was 12. These days, I think it should be sauce, cheese, and one or two toppings. Tacos are the same. It should be meat, cheese, and one or two toppings. It's not a matter of ethnic food authenticity, as I have very little idea what an authentic taco should taste like; it is a matter of ratio. 

I was really happy with these tacos. The melted cheese kept everything from falling out and also made sure that these soft tacos kept their folded-over shape. Plus, cooking the tacos in the pans gave the tortialls slightly crispy edges that added a nice texture element.

I served this with a ton of habanero sauce and a box of instant Spanish rice that Sarah and I have been loving lately. I was also going to serve it with sour cream, but I could not find the sour cream in the fridge.

I could have swore that I just bought some. But when I thought about it some more, I remembered that I had looked at the sour cream at the store, was about to pick up a container, and then got distracted by something else in another aisle.

That happens to me a lot at the grocery store.