Monday, April 26, 2010

Sweet Desayuno Tacos

A Hearty, and Simple, Meal That Any Single Guy Will Love

I think the first thing I could ever cook was eggs. My mom told me how and I just started doing it. Scrambled, poached, fried, hard-boiled… I got it covered. I have been known to make pretty good breakfast sandwiches and have even snobbed them up by using muenster and turkey. In late 2007, I started changing our diet to be more gluten- and casein-free. This meant wheat was out as well as cheese and milk. One thing we could eat a lot of that was easy to find was corn tortillas, which meant lots of tacos for many meals. I eventually translated my traditional breakfast sandwich into a gluten-free, casein-free breakfast taco, using some taco seasoning and rice milk in the eggs and either gluten-free sausage or ham. The rice milk actually adds a bit of a sweet flavor to the eggs and makes it harder to burn scrambled eggs.

That experience lead to tonight’s meal, a mexican-inspired dish called Sweet Desayuno (breakfast) Tacos. It's a fairly simple recipe and flexible for your own modification. The ingredients include (for 1 or 2 people, 4 tacos):


12-16 tater tots
taco seasoning
3 large eggs
5 slices of deli ham (approx.)
milk
white corn tortillas
salsa con queso
strawberry jelly

The first thing that needs to be done is to get those tots in the oven. I sprinkled a touch of taco seasoning on them before they went into the oven. I found, in the absence of a proper spice rack, you can buy seasoning packets for $1 on sale and they can actually last a while if you're cooking for one. While the tots are cooking, start prepping the eggs. Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl, chop the ham and add it into the eggs, sprinkle taco seasoning into the eggs (to your taste, maybe 1/2 t), add a touch of milk, and scramble, scramble, scramble. Currently I cook scrambled eggs in a microwave, about 50 seconds, stir, then another 50 seconds, but cooking them in a pan helps with the timing of the tots being ready. Prep the corn tortillas on a plate, ready to receive their due portion of eggs. If you’re a tried and true Southern Californian, you know that unfried corn tortillas only do their job if they work as a double team, meaning each taco has 2 corn tortillas just slightly offset from each other. Divide the eggs between the tacos, add 3-4 tots per taco, drizzle them with just a touch of salsa con queso and a bit of strawberry jelly. Enjoy!

Feel free to modify this recipe. You might not like jelly on your tacos, but I recommend you try it before saying that. It’s the perfect balance to the mexican flavoring. Have it for breakfast or for dinner.

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