Tacos, Anyone?

Beth recently emailed me and asked

We love tacos, but we are trying to cut back on prepackaged mixes and such. Do you have any suggestions for how to make some from scratch?

Well, I don't make my own taco shells...but I do like to make my own sauce and toppings for tacos.

First, a word on frugal taco shells...the ones we prefer that are also the least expensive come from Save A Lot. They tend to break less, and they taste pretty good...and as of last week's shopping trip, a box of 12 was under a dollar. I also buy taco shells at our bulk foods store (Country View Bulk Foods in Snover, Michigan), where they are 20 for $1.99, though they break more easily from my experience.

Next, ingredients for the meat...you can use pretty much anything. I can't say that this is my "recipe" because I tend to vary it whenever I make it, based largely on what is in season, and what I have available.

I usually start off using a cast iron skillet, and brown my ground beef, then drain of any excess grease. After removing that from the pan, with a light dab of veggie oil or olive oil in the pan, I brown 1 small onion or half of a large one (I save the other half as a topping later), and add 1 T or so of coriander seeds and cumin seeds (you can also use ground, but add it when you add the beef), and some hot red pepper flakes.

I then return the meat to the pan, and add 1 12 oz can of tomato sauce, and 2 T of either A-1 Sauce or Worchesterhire sauce for flavor (optional). I season it some more with chili powder.

After removing it from the heat, I add some chopped, fresh cilantro. Like Basil and Parsley, cilantro is best used fresh...and when fresh isn't available, frozen works too. I freeze my basil, cilantro, and parsley all in ice cube trays, and use it one ice cube at a time, when it is not in season in my garden (as it is right now). When adding it frozen, drop it in while it's still cooking over the heat.


Heat up the taco shells per package directions, and assemble your other toppings. For us that is usually grated cheese (hint: soft cheese grates easier if you stick it in the freezer for about 15 minutes), finely shredded lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, guacamole (for my husband), and red peppers if we have them. I prefer them to tomatoes on my tacos. I also add onions and a little bit of minced fresh cilantro. Sometimes we've added corn, hominy, and other things of that sort.

To more easily get the sour cream in the tacos, we use a baggie, with the corner cut off, and used like a pastry bag. It gets it in there easier. Last time I went to Kroger, they had a sale on those squeeze bottles of sour cream (10 for $10--what a deal), so I had that instead this time around. We have an assortment of taco shell holders, which makes it so much easier to assemble them.