My new life of traversing mountain sides, getting lost on trails in the woods, wading through running rapids, and generally just walking my ass off (sadly it was small and inconsquential to begin with) is SLIGHTLY different than my old life of 8 hours at a desk apart from the odd scamper up half a flight of stairs to share combustible gossip. All the fresh air and the (sorry for the following trite descriptor, but it's true) breathtaking scenery makes a gal a wee bit hungry. The energy output has altered my eating habits as equally as moving in with a carnivorous Mediterranean male. His life is about: pasta, red wine, and meat. Mine used to be about: tofu and stir fried vegetables mixed with Indian pickles four times a week, cheap white table wine, and every variation on the raw vegetable imaginable. I still get away with my ridiculously over zealous salads but my wine standard has been raised as has my meat intake. For those new to this blog, I was vegetarian for over 15 years. And strictly so. I would gag at the thought of quivering fish flesh on my plate or the soft flaky noxious taste of egg yolks or the slightly acrid animal-taste that is in butter. One day not too long ago a friend was over and he made some eggs and he put ham in those eggs. They weren't intended for me but the oddest sensation came over me as the eggs started to firm and the cheese began to melt and the ham got a bit crispy in the pan. I took a bite of his eggs, ham and all. Anyone who knew me would have fallen over dead if they'd witnessed that. Out of pure shock. I wasn't a rampantly righteous type of vegetarian; I was simply a rampant meat-hater since the age of 3. Around the age of 30, my body had some sort of internal dialogue with itself and rebelled. All of this was I guess lucky otherwise I would never be in a relationship with someone who had such a fond relationship with the animal flesh. I just don't know that it wouldn't have made me sick. Now that we live together, we eat meat (or fish, which I consider meat in that it's not a vegetarian dinner) most nights. That is a huge adjustment for me from eating meat only when I went out to eat. There are still some dishes I get a bit trembly and queasy over but tacos are not one of them.
I love the crunchiness of a corn taco shell matched with the heat of spiced ground beef and topped with a cool zesty salsa. It's totally addictive and I can eat about 7 of them.
We copied the spices that are in a pre-made package of taco flavouring minus all the crap. We seasoned our beef with chili powder, cumin, cayenne, garlic powder, salt and pepper. We cooked down a chopped onion beforehand and added the beef. Once it had stewed and began to turn brown and there was ample moisture we added in the spices, tossed again, and let cook for a few more minutes. For the salsa, we chopped off the kernals of 3 cobs of corn, diced a few field tomatoes, chopped up some cilantro, minced a whole jalapeno pepper, seeds included, diced an avocado, chopped a few tsps of white onion, and then topped with fresh lime juice, and some salt. We grated old cheddar cheese and sliced some iceberg lettuce. And took sips of a spicy shiraz in between total taco explosion. They aren't pretty to eat but they sure are tasty.
I love tacos but I generally prefer them in a soft shell. The hard shells are just too messy!
Posted by: Dana McCauley | August 27, 2008 at 09:40 PM