5
May
Posted by Edward Antrobus in Recipe Sunday | Tags :burrito, casserole, Cinco de Mayo, Tex-Mex, Tortilla | 1 Comment
In two and a half years, I’ve never posted a Cinco de Mayo recipe! I’ve posted 10 different Tex-Mex recipes over the last 2 1/2 years, but never one specifically for the celebration of Mexico’s victory in a key battle against the French occupation. But this year, May 5th is a Sunday, so it’s an opportunity I can’t miss! So for my first annual recipe celebrating Cinco de Mayo, I am sharing a recipe for a cheesy taco casserole.
Many people think that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence day. It isn’t. In fact, Cinco de Mayo isn’t even celebrated much in Mexico, but instead in Mexican communities in the U.S. It was first observed in California to celebrate Mexico’s victory in the Battle of Puebla against French occupation forces.
This cheesy taco casserole would make a great side for Cinco de Mayo or even a meal for picky families. Plus, it is easy to make and takes under an hour, including baking time.
Cheesy Beef Taco Casserole: Cinco de Mayo Recipe
Author: Edward Antrobus
Recipe type: Casserole
Cuisine: Mexican
Serves: 4
- 1 pound ground beef or ground turkey
- 1 TBSP If You Can Read, You Can Cook taco seasoning
- 1 can (10¾ ounces) condensed tomato soup
- 1 cup thick and chunky salsa
- ½ cup milk
- 2 flour tortillas or 4 corn tortillas
- 2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In medium skillet over medium high heat, cook beef until browned, stirring to separate meat. Pour off fat.
- Cut half of tortillas into 1″ strips. Dice remainder into 1″ pieces.
- In shallow baking dish, add meat, taco seasoning, soup, salsa, milk, tortilla piece (not the strips) and 1½ cups cheese. Mix together until well combined. Top with tortilla strips in a lattice pattern. Cover.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until hot. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
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Feel free to use your choice of ground meat, or your preferred vegetarian option. A cup of corn can also be added to make this more of a meal.
Other Tex-Mex recipes for Cinco de Mayo you may enjoy
Burritos & Tacos:
Dips:
Sides & Seasonings:
Other:
Cookbooks & Tools
- The If You Can Read, You Can Cook cookbook also has two Tex-Mex inspired dishes not found anywhere else. Buy it today from the e-store or Amazon.
- If you don’t have time to make your own taco seasoning from scratch and don’t want to buy preservative and allergen-riddled packets from the store, consider my all-natural, allergen-free premium taco seasonings available in hot, medium, mild, and sweet cumin.
28
Apr
Posted by Edward Antrobus in Recipe Sunday | Tags :Bisque, Campbell Soup Company, semi-homemade, soup, Soups and Stews, tomato, Tomato soup | No Comments
I was 30 before I had ever heard of a version of tomato soup that wasn’t Cambell’s Condensed Soup. I especially love a chunky tomato bisque. But who has the time to make a bisque from scratch? Fortunately, there is a really easy cheat to turn ordinary condensed soup into velvety bisque. This semi-homemade tomato bisque will fool your family and your taste-buds into thinking you made this meal from scratch.
The best part is that this semi-homemade recipe is cheaper than making bisque from scratch. Made from scratch, tomato bisque would require a pound of tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes can go for as much as $4/lb, while a can of Cambell’s Condensed Soup costs a dollar and a half. If you go with store brand, it’s even cheaper. The Kroger Value brand is just $.69. That’s half the price of even the cheapest tomatoes in the store.
Tomato Soup vs Tomato Bisque
For a long time, I was confused by the difference between a tomato soup and a tomato bisque. It turns out, not much. A bisque is a cream-based soup, while most other soups are water/broth based. However, in my family, we always added milk to our condensed tomato soup, which made it more like a bisque. But a true bisque will use cream instead of milk to make it thicker.
A bisque was originally a cream-based shellfish soup from France. The term “bisque” comes from bis cuites meaning “twice cooked” since the shellfish were first sauteed and then simmered in the broth. So I guess a twice-baked potato would be a bis quites potato. :) The soup was then strained and rice added as a thickening agent. Eventually, the term came to mean any cream-based soup such as tomato or squash.
Since a bisque is a creamy soup, why did I describe this semi-homemade recipe as a chunky bisque? Because I like it that way. When making a tomato bisque from scratch, you would puree the tomatoes into a smooth, creamy consistency. But some people, myself included, prefer chunky foods. Chunky applesauce, chunky peanut butter, chunky mashed potatoes, and chunky soup. Contrary to popular thought, those foods aren’t made chunky by pureeing them less. Instead, they are made by pureeing completely, but setting some pieces aside to be mixed in later.
It is the same way with this semi-homemade tomato bisque. Only the good folks at Campbells have already done the pureeing, you just need to add some tomatoes that you bought separately.
Semi-Homemade Tomato Bisque Recipe
Author: Edward Antrobus
Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: American
Serves: 2
- 1 Can condensed tomato soup
- 2 cups cream
- 1 roma tomato
- 1 Tbsp basil, chopped
- Pour condensed soup and cream into small saucepan and heat over low heat. Simmer for 10 minutes until hot.
- Dice tomato into ½ inch pieces. Stir into soup.
- Spoon soup into 2 bowls. Sprinkle basil over top
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Other options include frying some bacon to mix in, sprinkling some mild cheddar over the top, or adding rice as is sometimes found in a traditional bisque.
21
Apr
Posted by Edward Antrobus in Recipe Sunday | Tags :pita, Potato chip, tuna | 2 Comments
While I don’t eat it as much as I would like because it is a bit pricy, I love tuna and would eat it for lunch nearly every day. And nothing makes a better side to tuna salad than potato chips. So I thought, why not put the potato chips in the tuna salad?
The potato chips don’t show up well in this photo, but they are there.
By incorporating potato chips into the tuna salad, it provides an extra crunch to the sandwich. I had started out with simply stuffing potato chips into the pita. But I would run into the issue of pieces of potato chip falling out as I bit into it. By crushing up the potato chips and mixing them into the tuna, you keep the crunch without the mess.
You could also call this a pita melt because I’ve found that melting the cheese in the pita helps hold the sandwich together better. I discovered this accidentally last week when I put the cheese inside the pita and then decided I should warm it up because it was slightly stale.
If you don’t like this particular tuna salad recipe, you could try my fat-free tuna salad recipe instead. Or instead of a pita, you could make a more traditional tuna melt, instead.
Potato Chip Tuna Pitas
Author: Edward Antrobus
Recipe type: Lunch
Cuisine: American
Serves: 2
- 1 pita, cut in halves
- 2 slices cheese
- 1 can tuna
- 1 oz potato chips, any flavor
- ¼ c. mayonnaise
- 2 TBSP relish
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ⅛ tsp pepper
- Place cheese slices inside pitas. Microwave 30 seconds to melt cheese.
- Drain tuna. Crush potato chips into slivers. Mix in remaining ingredients together.
- Fill pitas with tuna salad.
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You can use any flavor of potato chips, but I have found that kettle-cooked or ruffle chips work best. They hold their crisp better when crushed. Ordinary potato chips are more likely to turn to potato crumbs instead.
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