Homemade taco seasoning.

We enjoy Mexican food in this house once a week if not every couple weeks so taco seasoning is a regular item we pick up from the grocery store (Lawry’s brand). There are few things worse than canceling our taco plans because we don’t have any seasoning in the cupboard. Well last time we were at the grocery I knew we didn’t have taco seasoning at home (it was on the list), but walking through the spice section I was like nah, I’ll just make it myself. I’d been wanting to make chimichanga’s for several days and needed something to spice up the beef (grass fed beef of course). Time for homemade taco seasoning! It was actually quite simple, I used the first recipe I found online from AllRecipes.com which had a five star rating (or close too) out of about 1,600 reviews. That’s usually a good sign. I had most of the spices here except for crushed red pepper flakes which I know we have somewhere but I haven’t seen ’em in a while and I didn’t really want ’em in there for little Z’s sake. The seasoning came out pretty hot so she still couldn’t eat any meat that had been seasoned anyway, but I always set aside some with just salt and pepper for her anyway, just in case. It wasn’t quite as good as Lawry’s but when I looked at the ingredients of Lawry’s it had sugar and cocoa powder in it. It does add a little more sweetness to it so I’ll most likely be messing around with adding those two ingredients next time as well. Maybe add a little sugar yourself when you make it. If it works out better for my taste I’ll update this recipe here.

The goods baby, they look so nice together, all those wonderful spices.

The oven baked chimichangas were awesome. Homemade tortillas, corn and peas mixed into the beef and spices, refried beans, yum. I’ll be making these next time we have Mexican and do an official post with the recipe etc. They were lacking enchilada sauce and I might have crisped them up just a few minutes more in the oven. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice and crispy but we were super hungry and didn’t have the patience nor the stomach for experimenting with baking times. Z loved it and ate the whole thing. It works well for kids because the baked tortillas harden/seal it up so there’s less bottom drop out (mess).