Tacos & Flautas...oh my.

You know I love tacos in all forms...don't you? I never really thought about how often we actually eat taco-ish dishes. If we're in a hurry, we'll heat up some beans, add some chopped veggies and cheese or if I've made some sort of meat and have extra, I bag it up and use it as a filling...then heat up some tortillas, wrap and eat! Usually I'll make up a batch of taco seasoning and put it in a jar to sprinkle on ground beef or turkey. Sometimes I feel lazy and just buy a seasoning packet (low-sodium, no MSG). Yeah, I said it. Believe it or not, I am actually eating a couple of shredded beef, salsa & queso quesadilla soft tacos as I type this up. And in all honesty, if I want hubby to do the cooking, I end up with some for of Mexican food...but I'm not complaining, that's one of the reasons I married him (kidding! sort of.). I love to cook a pork butt or a chuck roast, shred it and package it up for other meals...and it's much easier for hubby. Especially if it's in the front of the fridge. Seriously, anything in the "second layer" may as well not even be there. Where is it? There's no meat in here. Sour cream...I don't see any. Usually it makes me laugh. I go in, pick up a container, grab what's behind it the meat, the sour cream and keep doing what I was doing. Sometimes it's not so humorous. Whatcha gonna do? On to this week's taco highlights...a joint effort. I cooked up some ground turkey, added taco seasoning and then we rolled them into flautas. Now, if you read my other flauta post, you'll notice that I like to roll up all of the flautas, secure them with toothpicks and then fry the whole batch; do it in steps. When hubby (should I call him mexichef?) makes flautas, he rolls a few, then gently lowers them into the oil (sans toothpick) and goes on to rolling a few more. Since we were making them together, we did it his way. I filled and rolled, and he lowered and fried. They turned out mighty tasty. Here's the process: Seasoned Turkey Flautas by girlichef & mexichef cook as you would any ground taco meat: ground turkey your favorite taco seasoning water Heat a stack of corn tortillas, wrapped in a clean kitchen towel, in the microwave for about 3 minutes, or until hot & pliable. Put cooked meat in a line across one edge of a tortilla and roll tight. Either secure with a toothpick, or pray it holds tight while you roll some more. In preheated vegetable oil (frying temp...hot!), carefully lower flautas and fry until golden all around, flipping after a minute or two. Remove to a paper towel lined plate until ready to serve. Serve with your favorite toppings. Some of my favorites are lime & salt cured cabbage, crema, queso fresco, avocado, salsa....I made a Chipotle Tomatillo Salsa this time. If you go back to my recipe for Salsa Verde, make it as stated, then add a couple of canned chipotle chiles w/ some of the adobo sauce, to taste, to the blender and voila! Some more of our taco adventures from the past week...all made by mexichef... the picture on the top right is flautas filled with a mixture of red potatoes, chorizo & salsa all mashed up together (this was killer!)....bottom left was black bean & chorizo tacos (yup, yum!). It was a good week for taco-ish foods.Be sure to head over to Tex-Mex Foodies to check out Gloria's Taco Tuesdays. One can never have too many tacos.