Cinco De Mayo

So, I tried being Betty Crocker last night: I made a new recipe, which I have posted below (keep in mind the narrative is from the blog I stole it from, my additions are in different type). It was really pretty good and I think I will make a few tweaks to it to make it better. I tried making zucchini chips last night too, but my slices were uneven so some are not too crispy, I'll report on those later when I try to eat them. Speaking of zucchini, I am tempted to plant some in my garden, which my brother in law, graciously came to til, HOWEVER, legend has it zucchini multiplies faster than than the chicks on Teen Mom, so I am a bit hesitant. IF I decide to plant some, be prepared to find bags of it mysteriously left on your doorsteps.
OH I also tried ANOTHER new recipe, I will post that later, don't want you to have recipe overload on this post, its perfect for using up the soft serve you got duped into buying. For those of you who like the soft serve, I mean no offense, but perhaps a head examination is necessary? I mean the shit just isn't worth the hassle. Anywho..soft serve recipe, look for it later today...unfortunately, I have nothing more insightful or entertaining to share today, but its early, I might think of something and post it.

TACO BAKE: Perfect for Cinco de Mayo! I wanted to add more meat and less cheese than what the recipe called for because of the sodium content plus it is a lot of cheese! The crust has a ton of cheese in it already so I reduced the cheese on top by half. I also wanted more sauce with my meat which is why I added more tomato puree. To make the tomato puree, all you need to do is chop some tomatoes and put them in a blender. That's it! Pretty simple, huh?(Well, to me, this made a pretty soupy puree, so in the future, I would go ahead and blanch the tomatoes, to remove the skin and cook them a little bit before pureeing, you have plenty of time to do so while you're waiting for the crust to bake. I also added the green chilies right into the puree. A can of Rotel might be a whole hell of a lot easier.) I didn't add any salt because of the taco seasoning. I cut the recipe below in half so that I only made 4 servings because 8 servings is a bit much for just me. This allowed me to have a serving today, a serving tomorrow and 2 servings for the freezer. I just put a serving of the taco bake in a disposable Ziploc container and placed it in the freezer for another day. This makes it wonderful for those days you just don't feel like cooking. Enjoy!

This is definitely pure comfort food! A taco meat mixture topped with cheese and baked over a cream cheese and cheddar or Mexican cheese crust!

The crust before it is placed in the oven.

Ground taco meat mixture spread over the baked crust and then sprinkled with cheese.

Nice and hot out of the oven!

Taco Bake (I cut this in half)

Slightly adapted from Rosalu from the Medifast Forums

Ingredients:

Crust

8 tbsp or 1/2 cup reduced fat cream cheese, softened (8 Condiments)

1/4 cup egg beaters (0.125 Lean)
5 tbsp Fat free half and half (5 Condiments)(Sorry, but where the fuck do you find FF half and half? I didn't find any in Audubon, didn't use any not sure what it would do)

1/2 teaspoon taco seasoning  (.25 Condiment)

8 ounces low fat Mexican cheese blend, shredded (2 Lean)

Topping

24.37 ounces 93% fat free Jennie-O ground turkey, cooked (4.875 Lean)(Fucking get real. 24.37 ounces? Since I half this recipe and use a little less cheese on top, I brown a whole pound of lean ground beef, then weigh out four servings. If I have some left over, I just tuck it in a ziploc for future use. 24.37 ounces, please bitch.)

4 teaspoons taco seasoning (2 Condiments)

1 cup tomato puree - tomatoes chopped then pureed to equal 1 cup (4 Greens)

4 ounces chopped green chilies (8 Condiments)

4 ounces Mexican cheese blend, shredded (1 Lean)

Directions:

For the crust, beat the cream cheese and eggs until smooth. Add the cream and seasoning. Grease a 9"x13" baking dish; spread the cheese over the bottom. Pour in the egg mixture as evenly as possible.(The shit doesn't pour, perhaps if I had the FF half and half it would, I'll try and remember it the next time I go out of town, but then I will be stuck wondering what to do with a pint, minus 2 1/2 tablespoons of FF 1/2 and 1/2.) Bake at 375ºF, 25-30 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before adding the topping.

For the topping, brown the hamburger; drain fat. Stir in the seasoning, tomato sauce and chilies. Spread over the crust. Top with cheese. Reduce oven to 350ºF and bake another 20 minutes or so until hot and bubbly.

Serve with your favorite veggies!(Now, what I did, since I was working with zucchini anyway was shred some up and browned it with my hamburger. Its one of those sneaky-ass mom tricks to get the family to eat vegetables when they don't even know it. They happily ate their pizza mac and had no freaking clue there was green shit in it! I added some chopped tomato diced green pepper to it too before baking. I then topped it with some more chopped tomato and shredded lettuce.)

8 servings with 1 Lean, 3 Condiments, and 1/2 Green per serving (You will need 2 1/2 more greens per serving) (As written, again, I cut the recipe in half and added more veggies to equal the 3 servings and I didn't count the green chilies as a condiment I put a spoonful of them in my puree and considered it part of vegetables. Besides, aren't chili peppers vegetables?)