Bruce's Easy Dinner

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:10 pm

So here's a crowd pleaser that--and I live five minutes from Taco Bell--takes less time than the round trip to the Bell, or damn near, and is about a million times better.

Easy-Ass Tacos serves two
12 Taco Shells
1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion
6 cloves garlic
2T or so cumin
1T? coriander seed
1T cayenne
salt
1/4 lb extra sharp cheddar
2 ripe avocados
sour cream
salsa

Put the taco shells in the oven on a cookie sheet at 200.

Put your heavy iron skillet (or other reasonably nonstick heavy pan) on medium heat.

Chop the onion.
Chop the garlic.

By this time your pan is hot.

Add the ground beef to the pan. Add the onion and the garlic. While doing the next bit, keep stirring and scraping so the meat doesn't burn to the pan. After a couple minutes all the grease will come out of the meat, and the onions will juice, and it won't be an issue anymore.

Cut the avocados open, scrape out the fruit, mash with a fork.

Put the coriander seeds in a pan and dry-roast over medium-high heat. Then crush in mortar. Yeah, if you had powdered coriander you could use it too, but roasted coriander smells really, really good.

Add coriander, cayenne, cumin, and salt to meat. Stir in. Don't be shy about the cumin. You can't have too much cumin.

Grate the cheddar. I really like my Mouli rotary grater; YMMV. I tend to grate my fingers on the linear graters when I'm cooking drunk.

Open the sour cream and salsa and stick spoons in them.

Keep stirring the meat until the excess liquid is pretty much gone. Remove from heat.

Remove taco shells from oven.

Pack meat and other fillings into taco shells and eat, with beer.

Haute cuisine? Hell no. Cheap? Really easy? Tastes pretty damn good? Hell yes.

Bruce

Taco Expert · Post by **Taco Expert** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:42 pm

Taco shells? Taco "shells"? Taco shells??

Sir, tacos should be served with warm flour or corn tortillas, or not at all.

Taco *shells*. Really now.

Taco Expert · Post by **Taco Expert** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:44 pm

Also, please to be explaining how one can make tacos -- even easy ones -- without fresh cilantro and lemon or lime juice to top things off.

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:53 pm

Taco Expert wrote:Also, please to be explaining how one can make tacos -- even easy ones -- without fresh cilantro and lemon or lime juice to top things off.

Because I'm out of cilantro and didn't want to go to the store.

If it makes you feel better:
quarter bunch of cilantro
Chop

and

1 lime

Cut in half. Squeeze over avocado.

This was an easy comfort food recipe, not a fine meal, Taco Expert.

Bruce

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:56 pm

Too bad "Riding on the coat tails of CE expert" won't fit.

Vitriola · Post by **Vitriola** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:24 am

The problem I have with recipes like that is that by the time I buy all these ingredients, I've spent about $25, whereas if I go down the street to a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, I can eat for less than $3, and know that I supported a local business in the process.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:26 am

Vitriola wrote:The problem I have with recipes like that is that by the time I buy all these ingredients, I've spent about $25, whereas if I go down the street to a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, I can eat for less than $3, and know that I supported a local business in the process.

Local businessssesss gives one rancor!!!!

Vitriola · Post by **Vitriola** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:50 am

They don't like your kind. Me, they like.

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:12 pm

Vitriola wrote:The problem I have with recipes like that is that by the time I buy all these ingredients, I've spent about $25, whereas if I go down the street to a neighborhood Mexican restaurant, I can eat for less than $3, and know that I supported a local business in the process.

Jesus, where do you shop?

Let's presume that this serves two. It might not come in for $3 per, but let's find out:

1 lb. ground beef: $1.89
12 taco shells (sorry, TE): $.99
2 avocados: $1
Onion and garlic: $.25
Spices: maybe $.05
1/4 lb. cheddar cheese: $1.50
Sour cream: maybe $.10

Now, granted, you have to buy the spices a container at a time--and don't fucking buy Spice Island or McCormick's rip-off jars, go down to an ethnic market and get a giant-ass bag of cumin for $2.49, for instance. Still, the amount you're using makes the cost-per-spice negligible. But seriously, you should have garlic, salt, cumin, coriander, and cayenne in your house. And yeah, you probably buy your onions in a five-pound bag. The beef ain't filet mignon. The cheddar ain't black-wax 8-year-aged cheddar. The sour cream is probably $2 a pint, but it's not like you're using more than a few spoonfuls here, and it doesn't go bad fast.

My raw ingredients cost here is...gosh, imagine that! Under six bucks!

Bruce

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:38 pm

EASY?! please...

Chicken noodle mush

1 pack of chicken ramen noodles
1 can condensed chicken noodle soup
1 can whole kernal corn

boil ramen noodles drain water add chicken flavor packet
add condensed soup, do not add water
drain water from corn add
mix
eat

it is the ultimate in laziness, beleive it or not, it's good, it's filling, and you can feed 2-3 people.

and lets look at the estimated cost - ramen .25, campbells chicken noodle soup 1.60, corn .89 = under $3

-LG

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 3:02 pm

LG, thanks for writing up a recipe that I have all the ingredients to ready. I'm having that for lunch tomorrow.

As for easy I don't see what you guys are so on about. If you are cooking anything but Thanksgiving dinner it shouldn't take you much more than an hour. You guys are going into a whole new world of lazy. Next someone will be recommending that you just leave a bunch of heads of lettuce and salad dressing bottles in the fridge. Wait, I'm recommending that actually, Basalmic Vinegarette is great tasting and won't make you gross and fat.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 3:34 pm

loafergirl wrote:eat

ECCCHhchhhh. Do I have to?

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 7:06 pm

Another "My God I'm Lazy" meal.

Chicken Pot Pie
Warning: do not attempt unless you have:
2 pie crusts or the makings thereof
Cooked chicken. I roasted a chicken a couple nights ago, and it was big, so I had a bunch of meat left.
A couple of potatoes.
An onion.
Cream of mushroom soup.
Veggies in the fridge that you need to do something with or they will go bad.

If you don't have these, then it'll turn out pretty crappy. Otherwise, pretty much everything else is optional.

Quantities are totally unimportant. If you make more filling than will go in a single pie, save and freeze the remainder for some other time.

Cut the potatoes into chunks and boil them for a little while--15 or 20 minutes. Just enough to soften 'em up, really.

Put the cream of mushroom soup in a pot. Tear the chicken off the bones and throw the shredded chicken in the pot. Add a little salt.

Chop up (if appropriate) whatever vegetables you have. Carrots and celery are good. Corn and peas are good too, but obviously don't require chopping. Throw in the cream of mushroom soup. This is kind of the point of the recipe: clean all your old veggies out of the fridge.

Chop some onions up fine and fry them up in your heavy cast-iron skillet. Throw those in the soup. These are technically optional but make the pot pie a lot better.

Your soup is now mostly solids. Add enough water that you can mix everything into a thick concrete-like paste, and heat to a simmer.

Remove from heat. Put into one of the pie crusts--you could make your own pie crusts, sure, but that's a lot of hassle, and it's not like the crust is the point of the pie--and cover with the other one.

Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Bruce

loafergirl · Post by **loafergirl** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 2:29 pm

Worm, did you enjoy chicken noodle mush?

-LG

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 7:59 am

Just figured there would be corn and condensed chicken soup. I'll do some substitution and post a picture today.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 8:58 am

I will pay you $20 not to.

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:27 am

Why do you think your shit don't stink when it comes to cooking, Pinner?

I think I'd get Jeff to drink a double scotch before I got you to eat a packet of ramen...

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:46 pm

Regardless of how confused Straw has left me, I did make LG's dish today. I substituted the condensed soup with chicken broth. It wasn't bad, I really didn't even think it would be. Corn is the kind of thing that is good in anything potatos, soup, or even brownies (These certain hungry man dinners always have corn in the brownies).

Though, can't you just make Ramen Noodles and a can of corn as a side dish?

Vitriola · Post by **Vitriola** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:23 pm

Bruce's Easy Dinner: RECOMMENDED!!!

I didn't do the salsa or avocado, and I ran out of garlic cloves so i used a bunch of powder. This came out quite well, and I even had the real Mexican sour cream, which was about 3x sweeter than it's northern counterpart. I also followed your advice to buy the spices cheaper at the carniceria, and ended up getting ripped for $0.10 per bag as compared to the supermarket across the street. I bought these ingredients when I was shopping for the carne asada meat, and their meats and cheeses were top notch.

Also, Pinner didn't bring any beer.

Guest status: NOT RECOMMENDED

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:35 pm