Lyndee's Lazy Day Tacos

I walked to the kitchen about 15 times yesterday, hoping each time I opened the fridge door that some food would’ve magically appeared. I was feeling so lazy I didn’t even want to go out and pick up food at a restaurant.  A friend suggested that tacos make everything better and I couldn’t disagree with that logic at all.  I whipped these up and I was not disappointed! They took little effort and totally hit the spot. 

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef, browned

1 small onion

1 tbsp. minced garlic

Hot sauce

Salt and pepper

3 tbsp. taco seasoning

¾ cup water

Small flour tortillas

Toppings

Shredded cheese

Feta cheese

Green onions

Salsa or pico

Cilantro

Brown ground beef with chopped onion, minced garlic, a few dashes of hot sauce and salt and pepper.  Drain. Add the taco seasoning and ¾ cup of water.  Stir and let simmer for 5-10 minutes. 

Spray small pan with cooking spray and cook tortilla a few minutes on each side to warm. You can also throw tortillas in the microwave for 15 seconds too.

Garnish with the cheese and toppings of your choice! I like shredded Colby jack, feta cheese, green onion, cilantro and salsa.  But feel free to add olives, sour cream, tomatoes or anything else that floats your boat. 

Crockpot chicken tortilla soup

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken breast or tenders

15 oz. can rotel

10 oz. can enchilada sauce

1 medium onion, chopped

4 oz. can chopped green chile peppers

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups water

14.5 oz. can chicken broth

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

10 oz. package frozen corn

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Vegetable oil

7 corn tortillas

Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chiles, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.  Stir in corn and cilantro. Cover and cook on low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on high setting for 3 to 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Lightly brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Cut tortillas into strips, and then spread on a baking sheet.  Bake in preheated oven until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes.

When soup is done, shred the chicken breasts with a fork.  Sprinkle tortilla strips over soup. Garnish with avocado if desired.

Summer made this for soup night and actually didn’t use tortillas.  It was still awesome! Just more of a broth based soup.  Also, if you don’t like heat, cut the cayenne pepper and replace the can of rotel with a can of diced tomatoes! Add some black beans! Another tweak, use all chicken broth instead of the 2 cups of water.  

Cheddar bacon ranch rollups

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients:

2 blocks cream cheese

6 strips bacon (cooked and crumbled)

1 cup shredded cheddar

1 ranch packet

Pack of flour tortillas

Let cream cheese soften to room temperature.  Add ranch packet, cheese and crumbled bacon.  Spread on onto tortillas.  Roll up and set in fridge to chill for a few hours.  Slice up before serving. 

These were ok.  Not my favorite rolls ups ever. Just a bit bland.  I think next time I would add some green onion and a little garlic powder to the cream cheese mixture.  Or maybe a few more pieces of bacon. They were definitely easy to make though and they all got eaten at the party so that’s what counts. 

Easy pork enchiladas

Review by Lyndee:

Remember my crockpot pulled pork recipe last week? Well we had a lot of meat leftover and I decided to use it up in something spectacular last night.  The kids love Mexican food.  We’re generally chicken or beef kind of taco people but the idea came to me to get a little creative.

1 package flour tortillas

Pulled pork

1 can rotel

1 jar queso

Shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 450.  Grease baking dish with non-stick spray. 

Place pork on tortilla in a line.  Add a dollop of queso and a pinch of shredded cheese. Roll and put in the baking dish.  Repeat.  Our 9x13 held six enchiladas.  Pour one can of rotel over the top.  Add a few more dollops of queso and some shredded cheese.  Bake 20 minutes or until cheese is golden brown and edges of tortilla are starting to crisp.  Serve with salsa and cilantro.

This was very easy to throw together and the boys just died over it.  They chowed down and kept moaning and oohing and aahing how I need to make these again soon.  They were shoveling it in so fast I told them to slow down so they didn’t choke.  They said it was one of the best recipe experiments I’ve done yet and that’s saying a lot.  We will definitely be putting this in the dinner rotation.