There are lots of cooks out there who actually know what they are doing. I pretty much taught myself to cook, out of necessity. I haven’t a clue most of the time, but I do love to eat. Taco-things are made from left overs, salsa, and cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla folded closed and fried in oil with a little picante sauce splashed over them. Sounds like a burrito, right? Well, when I worked at La Clinica years ago, my co-workers told me it couldn’t be a burrito because burritos aren’t made like that. They objected to me calling it a chimichanga or a taco for the same reason. I bowed to their expertise in all things Mexican and called it a taco-thing. They liked that least of all, but I stuck to my guns. I was a hippie, this was hippie-food, and it’s been taco-things ever since.
Ingredients
- chorizo or bacon
- cooked, diced potatoes or refried beans
- diced onions
- eggs
- diced sweet peppers
- shredded cabbage or chopped left over veggies
- wild mushrooms in season
- a thin slice of cheddar cheese
- flour tortilla
- olive oil
- salsa verde
- Cholula hot sauce (any picante sauce will work, but I like Cholula- we call it Chupacabra sauce at my house.)
Fry the ingredients in a hot, oiled skillet. If the chorizo or bacon isn’t cooked, start with that, and stir in the onions and veggies after the meat is cooked. Break an egg over the cooked mixture and stir it in. Place the mixture into flour tortillas, add cheese and salsa before folding the ends over and rolling up. Paint the outside with Cholula and olive oil and fry in a hot skillet until brown and sealed.
Taco-things are best hot from the skillet, but they can also be frozen for later – a minute on high in the microwave, then flip them over and nuke for another 45 seconds seems to work.
I also like to wrap frozen taco things in foil and place them behind the cylinders on my motorcycle when I am going out for an all day ride. If I leave in the morning, they are hot by lunchtime and the whole woods smells like Mexican food as I ride by.
