B + B Tacos

A few weeks ago we went to Bryan and Betony's for taco night. An invitation for dinner with friends is always welcome, and if that dinner is tacos, I am all the happier. I have it bad for tacos.

An adorable thing I do while eating tacos is exclaim: "I think these are the best tacos I've ever had." The tacos are always the same, always equally good, but I just love them so much that I think every taco is the best taco I've ever had. Having said that, it is quite possible that the tacos we had at B + B's, might have actually been the best tacos I've ever had.

Here were the highlights:

• Taco beef cooked with taco seasoning, a jar of salsa, and a squirt of 1000 Islands dressing
• Hard tacos wrapped in soft tacos using refried beans as the glue
• Delicious homemade guacomole
• Thick, amazing sour cream
• Giant tacos loaded with awesomeness - I could only eat two but wanted ALL of them

Best tacos I ever had.

I thought about those tacos for days after, and then had to recreate them at home. We have re-done our meal plan to include two nights of these amazing tacos (leftovers for the win!) and we are looking into recipes to make our own refried beans. I might even have a go at soft tacos again, especially if I'm going to eat these every week...because obvioulsy I'm going to.

Here are the ones we tried at home. Forever thanks to B+B for their extensive knowledge of all that is delicious.

Refried beans on a soft taco (tortilla)

Soft tacos wrapped around hard tacos -- the best!

My filled tacos. This was day 2, so the guacamole was already all eaten

Holy crap these are so good! I want to eat them every day!

On Repeat: "Let It Go" preformed by Idina Menzel

I finally watched Frozen and really enjoyed it. It was not only a good movie, but a great movie musical. The songs were so much fun and added so much emotion to the film. My current obsession is "Let it Go", as performed by Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel). I have yet to make it through the entire song without my eyes getting wet, it is just so damn good. I am totally blown away by Idina Menzel's voice. She is just so amazing.

Pie Crust Shield

I bought myself a present and it is pie related.

I've been making a lot of pies lately and sometimes the edges of the crust will brown way faster than the pie cooks, so you have to cover them in foil to keep them from burning. I quickly realized that using foil to do this is really finicky, and also kinda burny, as I'm usually wrapping the edges while the pie plate is already hot.

This novice pie maker did some Googling and learned that they have a thing for that: pie crust shield! The one I got is silicone, adjustable to multiple sizes of pie, and the reviews on Amazon were pretty good so I went for it. I figure if I'm in my pie making years, this new toy is going to get a lot of use over the next while.

My new pie crust shield

How it works (click to enlarge)

The total circumference of the pie shield laid end to end

Placed on my 8 inch, rimmed, glass pie plate

Placed on a tin pie plate from store bought pie crust

Now I have a great excuse to make a pie!

Chips and Chips

I was craving deep fry insanely bad on the weekend so we did up some potatoes. Whenever we make home made french fries or chips, I'm always amazed at how much food comes from one potato. I'm also amazed at how many potatoes I can eat after they've been deep fried.

Using 5 potatoes, we made 3 into fries and 2 into chips. I used the fancy ripple blade on my food processor to make the chips, the fries we cut up by hand.

Fancy ripple blade

We soaked the ripple sliced potatoes in water and then spun them a few times in the salad spinner to get the excess water off. We patted them dry with paper towels to make sure they were really dry.

Then we deep fried them.

 Salted and full of crunch.

Next we chopped up french fries and got them frying too.

They were really, really good.

In My Pie Making Years...

I am really into pie right now and have been thinking about all the different varieties there are. Fruit,
custard, pudding, sugar... I am really excited about all the options and all the different pies I am soon to make.

For pi Day, my friend Tasha made a lemon meringue pie, which reminded me that I love lemon meringue pie. I've made it before from a box mix, but I tried the real deal this time. There are a few steps to this pie, but mostly it is pretty easy to make. I didn't take any photos of preparing the lemon filling, but check out Tasha's post about this pie, as she has some great step by step photos.

I used my Mom's Lemon Meringue pie recipe, which is pretty similar to the one found here.

The meringue and the lemon about to become good friends

Together as one!

Baked and browned

Pie!!!