In Case You Get Tired of Turkey...

here's the long awaited recipe for my taco meat.  After posting about the enchilada sauce, I was hard pressed for some ground beef to take the pics to do a post showing you how I make our taco meat.  I finally picked some up.  Daddy actually did.  He does all of the shopping now since I'm a recluse with my babies and small children.  I've always hated shopping for groceries and since we do most of our shopping at Costco...bulk is better!...who can resist all the gadgets, big box items, and clothing?  It's a one stop shop of which my espoused loves to partake.

Start with 3 lbs. of ground beef.  I have no suggestions for meat...I've done it all...grass-fed, 93/7, 80/20 (ick!), organic, ground turkey.  It's all pretty much the same to us except for the 80/20!  I like to break up the meat using 2 cups of water.  I brown the meat in the water and drain it after.

After the meat is browned, I drain off all the excess liquid.

I keep spaghetti sauce jars handy and use them as "grease" jars.  I collect the grease, freeze it in the jar, and chuck it
into the trash on Trash Day.

I then add 2 T. of flour to make the meat saucy with the spices.  For those of you who are gluten-free or are trying to be, you can just skip this step.

Just mix up the flour and meat mixture and let it cook for a little bit so the flour gets a bit toasty on the meat.

Next you can add the spices.  Here's what you've been waiting for!!  I add...

2 T. chili powder
1 T. cumin
1/2 T. salt
1 T. minced garlic

If you are making the sauce using the rajas, you can just add about 1 cup of sauce to the meat and that should spice it up enough.  If you are grinding your own spices like our mom used to, you would use...

1 T. whole cumin
3 cloves of garlic

Pulverize these using a mortar and pestle or a molcajete if you can get your hands on one.  Add 1 T. water to the spices to make a nice little sauce before adding it to the meat.  This is a molcajete...

 It is a small bowl and stone made from volcanic rock.
A common item in every Mexican kitchen...except mine!

I have yet to add one of these to my collection of kitchen "gadgets."  I'd like to get my mom's, but I have two sisters to fight in order to make that happen.  Hee, hee!

Mix the spices right into the meat mixture and let it heat up for about 3 minutes.

Lastly, add a 1/2 cup of water to the meat and spices to make a nice, saucy taco meat mixture.

Now that you have the taco meat made, you can use it all week to make all of your non-turkey cravings...taco salads, tacos, nachos, enchiladas.  I freeze what we don't use right away.  But lately, I've just kept a container of taco meat in the fridge so the kids can make their own lunches or dinners.  Especially on a week like this one, it's nice to have some easy things in the fridge that you can throw together for yourself quickly.  I love to make taco salads using our home-canned salsa.  I wish I had a pic of that, but oops...I ate it!