COOK: Fajita/Taco Seasoning Recipe

Let's taco-bout quick and easy dinners, and ways to use the leftovers to create a new and different meal the next day.  Did I lose you all at "taco-bout"?   I know that was corny.   (Although corn is a great addition to a lot of these meals.)

I'll add my basic Fajita Seasoning recipe at the end of this post, (if you only want the recipe scroll to the bottom now.) but first I'd like to talk about some of the different ways you can use the seasoning in different ways, and how to transform the leftovers.

This seasoning is great on ground beef, steak, chicken, shrimp, fish, veggies, and even tofu crumbles!  If your kiddos are anything like mine "Taco Tuesday", on any day of the week, is one of their favorites.  Flour tortillas, corn tortillas, or taco shells, maybe even chips for nachos are the norm.  That said, what happens when everyone is bored of the same thing and you have either leftovers to use up, or want a quick meal?

KC taught me about Taco Grilled Cheese, why I had never thought of this, I don't know, I guess I'm lucky I found him.  This one is simple, butter your bread, put butter side down in your skillet or pan, add a slice of American Cheese, (the only reason I buy the cheese singles is for grilled cheese, or burgers in the summer time), add a bit of warmed up taco meat, top with a bit of grated cheddar cheese, add hot sauce if you want, then top with the other slice of bread, butter side up.  Flip until both sides are toasty and cheese is melted.  If you have some left over Green Chile from your Taco Night you can warm that and use as a dipping sauce.

One of my favorite ways to use up leftover fajita meat and veggies is to cook some pasta and make a quick cheese sauce, (If you are low on time, or energy make some boxed Mac and Cheese!) then add the meat and veggies, mix, top with leftover grated cheese, sour cream, or green chile sauce.  You could also do the same with rice, add in a can of black beans and some corn and you have a real feast!

If you want to get extra fancy you can make Enchiladas, my post with  homemade Enchilada Sauce is here, or you can find my recipe for Baked Chimichangas here.  We also like to make Empanadas, they are easy to freeze, and reheat easily in the microwave for lunches, I'll update the post with my Empanada Dough recipe, but you can also use my Flaky Pie Crust Recipe (omit the sugar) found here.

A few last notes, instead of using water with the Fajita/Taco Seasoning my Father-In-Law uses Pineapple Juice, while KC and Dust hate pineapple they like the flavor it adds.  If you are using the seasoning as a marinade try adding some citrus flavored seltzer to your marinade mix.

Fajita/Taco Seasoning

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon Cornstarch (omit if using for marinade)

2 teaspoons Chili Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Paprika

1 teaspoon Onion Powder

1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

1/2 teaspoon Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (add more if you like spice!)

1/2 teaspoon Cumin

This is enough for about 2 pounds of meat, you can save any leftover seasoning in an airtight container.

You can use this as a dry rub (great for fish), mix it with some oil, lime juice, seltzer, or even just water to make a marinade for your meat, or add it to cooked meat and/or veggies and add about 1/4 Cup liquid per pound of meat and mix and let simmer.

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COOK: Spicy Ginger Sesame Sauce

We really like making "stir-fry", it's a great way to use up leftover meat and random veggies from the fridge, and they are usually really quick to throw together.

I've shared my Chinese Firecracker Sauce on the blog before, it's one of KC's favorites, but it's very spicy and I wanted to find something that would work with any kind of meat (or tofu) but not be too spicy for the kiddos.  After looking at a ton of different recipes I made up this "Frankenstein" recipe.

I used pork the first time, and didn't have any veggies but did have a can of water chestnuts in the pantry so I threw those in.  I think this would be really good with tofu and snow peas, or beef and broccoli, or probably any other combination of protein and veggies.  I served it over ramen noodles, but you could serve it with rice, or on it's own with lots of veggies.

This sauce has great flavor with some heat that lingers, if I was making it when the kiddos were here I would probably use half as much sriracha.  

Spicy Ginger Sesame Sauce

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce (I always use the low sodium)

3 Tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar

1 1/2 Tablespoons Honey

1 Tablespoon Sriracha (less if you don't want too much spice)

1 teaspoon Sesame Oil

2 Cloves Garlic (minced, or you can use garlic powder)

1 teaspoon Ground Ginger 

Preparation:

Mix everything together.

You can use it as a marinade for your meat (if using as a marinade on tofu omit the sesame oil, it will keep the tofu from absorbing the marinade.) 

Or use it as a sauce, I cooked cubed pork, then added my water chestnuts, added the sauce and let it simmer for a bit, I wanted a thicker sauce so after it had simmered for about ten minutes I mixed some cornstarch with cold water and added it a bit at a time while stirring until the sauce reached the consistency I wanted.

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