Just a quick post tonight because it’s late and I don’t have it in me to write something more in-depth. I’ve gotten good at making tacos for dinner. Turns out it’s super easy to do! Just one main ingredient, plus some condiments, and it’s filling and delicious. And I can make the perfect servings for eating solo.
Tonight it was steak tacos. I’m starting at an advantage because I keep a bunch of stuff on hand: I always have corn tortillas, for example. I buy a lot, and they keep forever.
I have a bunch of spices: coriander (in Spanish it’s cumin), chili powder, hot chili powder, oregano. Sea salt and black pepper.
I always have some fresh garlic and white onion in my drawer (they keep better if you keep them in a dark, cool place.)
Another helpful ingredient is a 2 lb bag of shredded cheese. Again, it doesn’t go bad very fast at all, and it’s excellent for garnishing just about anything I cook. Like, say, tacos!
When I go grocery shopping, I always buy some thin-cut steak for carnitas and a bag of frozen chicken breasts. The chicken comes in a zipper bag; I can pull out one or two breasts at a time; I can even cook them from frozen, if I have forgotten to thaw some out, and I haven’t been able to tell the difference.
The steak I package up into 3-4 slices per bag and toss them all in the freezer. This morning, before I left for work, I took one bag of the steak out of the freezer and let it thaw out in the fridge while I was at work.
On the way home, I stopped to get some sour cream, a bunch of fresh cilantro, and an orange bell pepper. When I got home, I realized I had a Roma tomato that was still good. I pulled the steak out of the fridge to warm up (beef cooks better when it’s at room temperature) and then spent the first hour washing, chopping, and slicing all the vegetables and getting them ready.
When the vegetables were ready, I used my cleaver to cut the steak into strips, against the grain (makes the bites easier to chew). Next, I heated my wok very hot (on the 1–8 scale, I turned my electric stove up to 6 1/2—you want the wok hot) with two tablespoons of olive oil (non-virgin, since I was going to be stir-frying.) As soon as the oil started to smoke a little, I dropped in the chopped white onion and some chopped garlic cloves and stirred until they were beginning to turn translucent. Then I added in the steak strips.
I cooked that whole mixture until the steak was starting to brown, then pulled out the steak and let it rest on a plate. While it was resting, I added in the bell pepper and some spices (cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt, and pepper) with the remaining oil, garlic, onions, tossed in some fresh chopped cilantro and mixed it all up on medium heat.
That’s when I added the steak back to the wok, and mixed it all around to let the flavors soak in.
I turned the heat down to low, then put a bunch of tortillas in the warmer with some damp paper towels, and heated them in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time until they were warm and pliable.
At that point, it was just a matter of assembling the tacos. Tortillas, some meat, then add on some chopped tomato, some chopped onion, shredded cheese, sour cream, and a sprinkling of chopped cilantro, and settled down to watch some TV with delicious tacos!