Taco Pasta

Our plan for tonight was to have tacos. Soft tacos, but tacos none the less. Turkey tacos, actually, since ground turkey was on good sale this weekend.

But I didn't make it to Produce Junction yesterday, so I have no lettuce or tomatoes. And what is a taco without lettuce or tomatoes? It just isn't right.

So I gave little miss a choice - taco pasta or taco lasagna. She chose taco pasta, which actually takes a little less time, so she and I played a rousing match of Candyland and then got to work.

Ground turkey doesn't brown and crumble quiet the same way as ground beef does, but, especially when all of the spices are added, it doesn't really make that much of a difference. If I'd had tomatoes, I would have diced some and added them in to the pan at this point, but, well, I guess I already covered that... so all that was left to do was boil some pasta (whole wheat egg noodles) and prepare all the fun accouterments to go along with this dish, including grating some cheddar, cutting an avocado, and setting out sour cream and salsa.

The thing was, I had been planning on soft tacos. Which means tortillas. And I still wanted to use them. So I did. I cut them into strips, sprayed a foil lined baking sheet, and decided to try to make my own taco-chip-strips. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about this, and didn't feel like spending the time to look it up, so I seriously winged it. I set the oven to 400* and, well, waited. I checked them after about seven minutes, flipped them and shook the pan around a bit... put them back in... checked them a few minutes later... and guess what? It worked! Some puffed a little bit, some got a little darker than others, but they were really good, and I will definitely do this again!

All in all, dinner came out really well. Little miss thought that the meat was a little too spicy, which was a little surprising considering that she has had it before, and also that she likes other spicy foods, but that's okay. She is a real trooper and tasted it, so I can't complain.

And, in case you were wondering, she is a little ham and it is becoming a little difficult to take clean food shots with her around... she somehow figured out exactly when to pop her cute little face right into the frame... at just the moment when the camera has focused on the food... Goofy girl.