Taco Time

Tacos have been a long time favorite, ever since my first hard shell from an Ortega taco kit somewhere circa '94 (it was a good year for music, too). For a long time I didn't know the expansiveness of the taco game, a game which I fall happily into on a repeated basis. I relied heavily on the idea that a taco consisted of ground beef, seasoned with a salty/spicy mixture, then covered in lettuce, tomato,  cheese, and some hot sauce from a jar (or packet if you're really cheap). Nested between a hard shell corn tortilla and I was hooked. Something about the refrigerated hot sauce and warm ground beef combo sucked me in, and I proceeded to far exceed the suggested serving size of tacos per human.

Since progressing past Ortega taco kits, the alluring part has been the endless possibilities of items you can put between a tortilla. Different meats, salsas, vegetables, hot sauces, cheeses, potatoes, eggs. The list never ends, and why should it? You can make a taco out of just about anything. A proper taco allows you to taste all these components both on their own and in conjuction with each other. I've searched far and wide in my travels to find the best taco, and while I can't say I have a definitive answer, I've learned a thing or two about what makes one good, and what makes one just ok. It's always fun when you can play off your glutinous eating habits by saying it's for research purposes, so do it when you can. I can't really remember ever having a horrible taco. I'm sure I have at some 3am food desperation, but I guess the good ones have far outweighed the bad in my taco remembering cortex.

This "recipe" is kind of a collection of recipes/ideas for you, taco lover. It starts with a meat that during my relatively young taco eating career I have decided is the ultimate flavor delivery vehicle. That item would be pork, or in this case, CARNITAS. Carnitas offer the best of both worlds: slowly roasting pork followed by frying it in its own fat. Just think about that for a second without drooling.

I topped off these tacos with black beans, cheese, fresh salsas, pickled onions and kimchi, but you can try anything.

What you will need:

- 1 3-5 lb. pork butt, depending on how many heads you got to feed. Or if you just want leftovers go big. The recipe here was used on a 3 lb. piece
- 1 bottle of beer
- Salt & Pepper
- 2 Tbsp. Sugar
- 3 or 4 dried chilis, ancho or guajillo
- 2 Limes
- 1 Orange
- 2 Tbsp. Mexican Oregano
- 1 Tbsp. Cumin
- 1 or 2 Tbsp. chili powder
- 1 Bay Leaf (used to never waste my time with these, but just buy a bunch you'll be surprised how many things you can use them in)


Marinate
1. Boil some hot water and put in your dried chilis. There's really no limit here for how many you use, but I think a few should do. You can try different ones you can find, I used mainly guajillo and ancho here. Ancho are smoky, guajillo a little more sweet. Simmer for about 20 mins just to bring them back to life before shredding away in your food processor. Add to your food processor, along with lime juice, sugar, fresh squeezed orange juice, and some of the remaining water from boiling the chiles. You want this to be somewhat paste like, so don't use too much water.

2. Saute onions and garlic in the pot that you will be cooking your pork in, something with a heavy bottom is best. Add in your mexican oregano, cumin, bay leaf, and chili powder. Add in a bottle of beer, something like a Pacifico or Modelo. Let this simmer and place your marinaded pork in the pot. Cover and find something to keep you occupied for a few hours so you are not tempted to remove the pork too early. Your patience will be rewarded.

3. Once the pork is done (approx 3 hours for a 3 lb piece of pork), you want to let it chill for a few minutes with no heat. Once it starts to cool you can shred it and remove it from the pot. In theory you are done, but there's one final step that takes these tacos to another level. Heat up the liquid that the pork was cooking in and mix it in with your shredded pork. It's a little messy, but you don't want to lose all that flavor (aka fat). Then heat up a frying pan to hot and throw batches of your pork on. In just a minute or two it will blacken and crisp up the pork, and who doesn't like crispy pork?

The final steps are completely up to you. It's your taco, do what you please. Everyone likes different things on their tacos, so go wild. For these I went with homemade pickled onions and fresh salsa verde. The recipe I used for salsa can be found here:
http://gdonheiser.blogspot.com/2013/11/green-salsas-are-salsas-too-ok.html

Mac and kielbasa grilled cheese, because why not?

I like things covered in cheese. I would venture to say that cheese is almost equally important as protein (aka meat) in the average American diet. According to the NY Times, Americans eat about 33 pounds of cheese a year, about 3 times as much as consumption in 1970. It's everywhere, whether you want it or not. What made Domino's new pizza formula better last year? More Cheese (and garlic butter mysteriousness). I've ordered plenty of things that have the option to include meat (think: salads, sandwiches, pasta) and held back the temptation to add it on. But the same cannot be said for cheese. I can't really remember ever saying, 'o ya that salad I ordered? Can I not get cheese on it?' It would be like saying can you play that song with the guitar solo bridge, but just skip right back to the chorus? No can do.

So naturally, this post is about a meal that combines these 2 colossal worlds in a way that some might say they shouldn't be. But we know better. This started as a way to just make some old fashioned (kind of) traditional home-made mac and cheese. Then morphed into a sandwich that's probably one of the more disgustingly awesome things you can eat, with possibilities for all sorts of variations. I have my roommates to thank for being guinea pigs for these types of experiments. Always hungry guinea pigs. So get yourself some dried elbows and get down on some heady mac-and-grilled-cheese sandwiches.

What you need:
- 1 lb elbow pasta
- 1 package keilbasa (any kind works, get turkey if you want to be healthier. Then again, you're eating mac and cheese with kielbasa, so health is probably not your #1 concern here)
- Approx 1 package shredded cheddar, plus or minus depending on your love of cheese
- (insert additional cheese here) I wouldn't use a lot more, but if you have some gruyere or pepper jack you can sprinkle some in here
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 3 or 4 cups of milk
- 1 tablespoon dry mustard powder, or some regular mustard if you don't have
- 2 tablespoons paprika, mixed in and on top
- 1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
- Hot sauce
- Garlic powder
- Salt & Pepper, to taste
- American cheese
- Bread of your choice

1. First things first you want to cook your pasta. Quite the process. Should take about 8 or so minutes, check the box. Once it's done, drain and rinse under cold water. This stops the cooking process so you don't have mushy pasta, unless of course you LIKE mushy pasta then by all means skip this step.

 2. While the pasta is cooking, brown up the kielbasa. The smell of kielbasa sizzling in a frying pan is something I've come to love over the years, so if you're unfamiliar with this, it's likely you will too. Once it's done cooking chop it up into bite size pieces.
















3. Next you want to get your cheese sauce going. This is the fun, droolworthy part of the show. Melt the butter on low and gradually add your flour. Keep whisking this around as you don't want the flour to burn. Add most of your cheese, keep stirring. It should melt quickly. Add in your milk. Add in your mustard, garlic powder, black pepper worcestershire, and about half the paprika. Taste test for cheesy-ness. You can always add more.
























4. In a deep pyrex glass type roasting pan, mix together your pasta and cheese sauce. Try to keep yourself from just eating it all right there. Add in your kielbasa throughout. Sprinkle on top some breadcrumbs, paprika, and a little more cheese for good measure. Pop this in the oven at 375 and cook for about 20 minutes, until things start looking crispy on top and cheese is thickening and bubbling. It's a sight to behold.

5. So you could stop here and call it a day. Enjoy you mac and cheese on a plate or a bowl, and be perfectly content. First time making this that is what I did. But putting it in an already cheesy sandwich just puts this whole thing over the top. So give it a shot.

6. For the grilled cheese, just butter 2 pieces of bread, throw on 2 slices of 'Merican cheese because let's have some processed cheese in our lives, and let this brown up. Top one side with your warm mac and cheese. Add a little hot sauce and garlic powder. If you have some pickles, they would be awesome here. Close that sandwich up and watch cheese heaven unfold before your eyes. An American classic sandwich meeting it's cheesy counterpart. Carbs meeting more carbs. Sausage meeting it's happy nesting place in between 2 pieces of bread. Ok ok, it's just mac and cheese between 2 beautifully buttered pieces of bread, but it's something you secretly want but don't get to eat/think about every day.