Ma Whats For Dinner?» tacos

Superbowl Week – Carnitas

Alex aka Ma, What's For Dinner — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:00:26 +0000

My favorite Superbowl food?

Hands down….

These Carnitas!

We love football around here.

We love our Pats.

We love Superbowl Sunday with snacks and the whole hood gathered round.

We love these carnitas.

Want to feed a crowd easy?

Make these carnitas and a taco bar.

Make a lot though.

My boys can rifle through these things in no time flat.

Big thanks to Girlichef for this amazing, slimmed down recipe.

So easy

Sooooo good!

Pork Carnitas

WHAT YOU NEED:

Serves 8

6 pounds country style pork ribs

kosher salt

water

corn or flour tortillas

chopped onion

chopped cilantro

guacamole

WHAT TO DO:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Liberally salt your pork on all sides with kosher salt and lay in a 11×13 baking dish. Space them out so they are not touching. You may want to use 2 dishes.

Add 1/3 cup water to each of the pans.

Cover with foil and bake at 375 for one hour.

After an hour remove from oven and turn the oven up to 450 degrees. Remove the foil from the pans. Bake uncovered at 450 until all the water is gone and all that is left is the fat that has run off the pork, about 30 minutes.

Continue to bake an additional 20 minutes while returning to baste the meat at least twice in it’s own fatty delicious juices.

Remove from oven and chop up pork and sprinkle with salt.

Serve on tortillas with onions, cilantro and quacamole.

Game on!

LETS GO PATS!!!!

Taco Pie

Alex aka Ma, What's For Dinner — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:00:49 +0000

My family loves tacos.

Let me repeat that…

MY. FAMILY. LOVES. TACOS.

Seriously, they’d eat them every day if they could.

Sometimes I don’t feel like a regular taco.

Enter my girl, Tiffanee at One Crazy Cookie.

She came up with a new spin on our Fitz Family Taco Night.

The boys had a blast making this one.

And eating it too!

Taco Pie = $ 10.72

Family of 4 = $2.68 per person

Taco Pie

1 lb ground beef $2.49

¾ of a large onion, diced $.50

taco mix $.88

Meat Filling:

Brown 1 pound of hamburger with 1/2 cup chopped onions, drain. Add 1 packet of taco seasoning mix and 3/4 cup water, simmer while you make the crust.

1 can refried beans (optional) $1.29

Taco Crust

2 cups flour $.50

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (or 1 packet) $.34

1 Tablespoon sugar $.30

2 teaspoons finely chopped onion (optional) (from above)

3/4 teaspoon salt $.05

2/3 cup warm water

2 Tablespoons oil $.15

1/2 cup crushed corn tortilla chips $.20

Toppings:

shredded cheddar cheese $1.94

shredded lettuce $.79

chopped tomatoes $.52

sour cream $.25

Preheat Oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup flour, yeast, sugar, salt and onion. Mix well. Add warm water and oil to the flour mixture. Mix by hand until smooth. Stir in chips and enough remaing flour to make a stiff dough. (I used 2 cups). Spread into a well greased pie pan, forming a rim around the edge. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 10 minutes.

If desired spread 1 can of refried beans on the bottom.

Spread taco meat over top of beans.

Sprinkle with some shredded cheese about 1/2 cup.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes until the edge is crisp and light golden brown.

Sprinkle with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and serve with some sour cream.

Meaty Morsel: Let the kids help you make the pie crust. Kids love getting their hands into mixes and dough while baking. Also you can let them spread out the refried beans and sprinkle the cheese. Let them get creative with their toppings. It’s a great opportunity to get them to try new foods.

I had some jarred jalapenos in the fridge that I added to mine…I like it spicy!

Stick to your ribs Steak Tacos

Alex aka Ma, What's For Dinner — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:42:15 +0000

Last weekend we had some of my old college girlfriends up with their families for a BBQ.

It was the first time we had gotten our families together.

I can’t believe that between us we have 9 kids.

Oh, how times have changed!

Instead of planning after hours parties and heading to the cafeteria to eat away a hangover…

We were discussing what kind of bottles we thought worked best and how many soccer practices a week a 5 year old should have.

Oh how the mighty have fallen…

Well, before the party the hubs freaked out and didn’t think we had enough food.

Really, honey?

Have you met me?

Of course we have enough food.

Yet, off he went to the store to purchase more and he came home with meat…lots and lots of meat. Needless to say I have about 7 extra steaks in the fridge to use up this week. Get ready for some steak leftover recipes guys! Grill a lot of it this weekend…you’ll be glad you did.

Serves 4 Prep Time: 1o minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes

1 T canola oil

2 large leftover steaks (you know the one your hubs thought you needed) If you are a vegetarian you could use portobello mushrooms instead

1 large onion, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

1 yellow pepper, sliced

1 t garlic powder

1/2 t dried oregano

1/2 T ground cumin

1/2 T ground corriander

1/2 T chili powder

1/2 cayenne pepper

S&P

tortillas

shredded cheese

guacamole

sour cream

hot sauce, this is optional, but I like it spicy!

In a large cast iron skillet heat your oil over medium high heat. When the oil is hot add your onion and peppers. Saute for about 5 minutes until they are softened, season with S&P. Toss in your leftover steak and season with the remaining spices and additional S&P. Cook until heated through, about another 5 minutes.

Build your taco by laying your steak taco mixture in the middle of your tortilla. Top with cheese, sour cream, quacamole, and hot sauce. Need some good guacamole recipes? Here are two of my favorites…

Tyler Florence’s Guacamole

Barefoot Contessa’s Guacamole

My guacamole is kind of a combo of these. I’ve made a lot of guac in my day and I’d swear by these two. YUMMY!!!

Happy Friday Follow all! Please leave me a note to say you were here and I’ll get ya back over the weekend!

iCarly’s Spaghetti Tacos

Alex aka Ma, What's For Dinner — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:16:55 +0000

I did it, I finally gave in. After months and months of begging and hundreds of half hours of iCarly, I caved. We made Spencer’s Spaghetti Tacos. But at least I added lettuce and tomato to ours.

Is this show always on in your house too? I’m pretty sure, at this point, I can recite every line from every episode. I’ll be honest, as far as Nick shows go, iCarly is heads and shoulders over the rest of the lot. That Big Time Rush show is enough to make me Big Time Rush to turn it off. Incredibly annoying! But there’s something about those iCarly kids. They’re funny, sweet, and though they say stupid and butt WAY TO MUCH (are you listening Dan Schneider????) I’d rather the kids watch them than another annoying episode of Fanboy and Chum Chum, Spongebob, or Phineas and Ferb, and I really am glad they’re over the Wiggles.

So if you’re living under a rock, or God help you, your kids are still into the Wiggles or even worse, Teletubbies, then here is the low down. Carly Shea lives with her big brother Spencer and with the help of her two best friends, Freddie and Sam, they make the web show iCarly for all to adore. Spencer, being the artist that he is, doesn’t like steamed halibut for dinner, it’s too boring…he likes to make Spaghetti Tacos for dinner. For months my kids have been on my butt to make Spencer’s spaghetti tacos. So finally I did. And now we’re bringing them to you. The kids loved them! I couldn’t bring myself to eat them. I’m going to give you the same recipe that they give you on the iCarly website. Note, I did add some veggies to mine because the carbo load was making me twitch. You’ll have to make the judgement call on that one.

“Okay, some might say my brother Spencer is a little DIFFERENT. He makes sculptures outta junk, he has a bright, sparkly sock collection, and he is obsessed with making our toilet water blue. But, sometimes he does things that are weird AND good — like make Spaghetti Tacos. Who else would put together crunchy taco shells with spaghetti and make it soooo delish!?!? So, I thought I’d share his awesome Spaghetti Tacos recipe with you all!

Here it is:
Get taco shells.
Get spaghetti (with meat sauce).
Get a BIG spoon.
Use the BIG spoon to put spaghetti into taco shells.
Eat.
Burp.”

Please note that this recipe and all pictures of iCarly are the property of Viacom. Those pics of the other munchkins, they belong to me.

Oh and for the record, we will not be attempting iCarly’s “Chicken Soup in a Toilet.” Thanks but no thanks….living with 4 boys the only thing that goes into that pot, is Lysol! Ya know?

Fitz Family Taco Night

Alex aka Ma, What's For Dinner — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:25:57 +0000

Serves: 6 Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup beef stock

1 small can diced tomatoes with green chiles

1 T ground cumin

1/2 T ground coriander

1/2 T garlic powder

1/2 T onion powder

1/2 T chili powder

1/2 T dried oregano

S&P

Taco Shells

1 head romaine lettuce shredded

3 roma tomatoes chopped

1/2 onion chopped

1/4 cup cilantro chopped

1 avacado chopped

1 can sliced olives

sour cream

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

hot sauce

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Set a large skillet over medium high heat. Once pan is hot add in your ground beef breaking it up into small pieces. Allow to brown. Once meat is browned pour off the fat and return to heat.

Pour tomatoes into pan with the meat and mix. Add cumin, coriander, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, oregano and S&P. Stir and allow to simmer together for 3-4 minutes. Add in Worcestershire sauce and beef stock. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes while you assemble the toppings.

Chop your lettuce, tomato, and onions. Arrange on a plate and sprinkle onions with chopped cilantro. Shred your cheese and arrange on a another plate. Open sour cream, hot sauce and olives. Either transfer to a serving dish or place next to other plates.

Put your taco shells on a baking dish and bake in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 minutes until just warm. Allow your family to make their own tacos with whatever toppings they choose. That is part of the fun.

Ole!