Food

Rainy Day Ride and a Recipe

Posted on by Amy
Today was rainy.  The girls were a little stir crazy after dinner tonight, so the Daddy brought in their wagon for a little ride.

They thought this was just about the coolest thing.  Then it broke, and they had fits.  But we colored and read books and did puzzles the rest of the night, and all was well.

On a totally unrelated note, several weeks ago I posted about my last “Chopped” ingredients.  If you recall, these were Duck breast, Avocado, and Gouda cheese.  I used the ingredients to make dinner a couple of weeks ago and have forgotten to post about it.  I made Duck and Gouda Hoagies with Avocado Spread.  I didn’t write down the recipe, thinking I would post about it while it was still fresh in my memory.  I have a pretty good memory, but this one might be a little fuzzy.

My ingredients:
4 duck breasts, skin removed
1 avocado
Gouda cheese, sliced
Salt and Pepper
Flour
Vegetable oil
1 Shallot, finely chopped
Maybe one or two cloves of garlic?
About a half cup of dry white wine
Mayonnaise
Hoagie Buns
One apple (optional)

I started by slicing the duck breasts crossways into about 1/2 inch-thick pieces.  Then I dried these, sprinkled them with salt and pepper on both sides, and coated them with flour.  I heated my pan over medium high heat, added about a tablespoon of oil, and put in the first batch of duck pieces.

I browned the duck pieces on both sides, then removed to a plate and continued with the other pieces in batches (adding a bit of oil with each batch).

After I got all the duck pieces cooked and set aside, I put the shallot in the pan to soften.  I can’t remember if I added a couple of pressed cloves of garlic after the shallot was soft.  I think I did.  If so, I would have waited until the shallot was soft, then added the pressed garlic and stirred it around until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Then I added the wine and scraped all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.  I let this reduce a few minutes.  Then I put this mixture into the blender with the avocado, some mayo and some salt and pepper and tried to puree it to a really smooth texture.  I should have used my Magic Bullet, because the blender didn’t do a very good job of pureeing the small pieces of shallot.  So, the final outcome of this avocado-mayo spread was a little lumpy.  While I was working on this spread, I preheated the broiler, put some duck meat into a each of two hoagie buns, topped it with slices of gouda, and put it in the oven.  Once the cheese was melted, I pulled them out, put the avocado spread on the top of the bun, and it was done.  I should have used a lower heat to melt the cheese, because my buns ended up getting burned, but the result was still good.  I also should have toasted the buns beforehand, because the bottom bun was a bit soft relative to the super crispy top bun.  Oh well.  I was in a hurry…

On my hoagie I put slices of apple, which I thought added a crunch and sweetness that was very yummy.  My husband is not a fan of apples on sandwiches, so I left them off his.

This was a successful meal, if not the most dazzling thing I’ve created.  The best part was the way I cooked the duck.  I relied on a strategy learned partly from my dad and partly from my cooking class in coating the duck with flour.  This really helped to hold in some of the moisture and the result was very flavorful, tender, and moist duck meat.  Score.  The least successful part of the dish was the avocado spread.  It ended up a little bland, and the chunks of shallot didn’t do anything for it.  If I made this again I would probably skip the shallots and pan deglazing all together and just use the avocado, some mayo, and some fresh herbs, maybe a little lemon or lime juice to brighten the flavor of the spread and keep it smooth.  My apologies for the haphazard “recipe.”  This is the best I can recall, several weeks later.

My husband has been working nights for the past two weeks, so we have been neglecting to select the ingredients for my next challenge.  Tonight is his last night to work (hooray!!), and we finally remembered to choose the goodies.  What did I end up with?  Tuna (canned), Panko bread crumbs, and Tomato paste. I already have a good idea what I’m going to do.  If it works, I’ll try to bring you that recipe with a bit more precision.

Spaghetti Squash with Spinach Meat Sauce

Posted on by Amy
I tackled my latest Chopped ingredients the other night: Spaghetti Squash, Spinach, and Merguez Sausage.  My husband made the merguez, and it was delicious.  I was correct in my belief that the sausage would be smoky, sweet, and have a little heat.  Honestly, it was probably the best sausage I’ve ever eaten.  I was pretty excited to create a yummy dish with these more reasonable, normal ingredients.  I decided to make a sort of “Spaghetti” with Meat Sauce, of course using the squash as the spaghetti and making the sauce using spinach instead of tomatoes.  It turned out great.
Here are my little sous chefs.

Spaghetti (Squash) with Spinach Meat Sauce
1 Large spaghetti squash
2 Merguez sausages (if you can’t find this type of sausage, you could use chorizo or Italian sausage)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
Salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 11-oz pkg spinach
1/2 cup heavy cream

Pierce the squash several times with a knife.  Put it in the microwave on high for 6 minutes.  Turn it over and microwave it for another six minutes.  Let it sit for a while to continue steaming.

Remove the sausage from the casing, crumble and brown it over medium high heat.  When it’s nice and browned, remove it to a paper-towel-lined plate. Leave the drippings and browned bits of sausage stuck to the bottom in the pan.  Cover it with foil to keep it warm.

Return the pan with drippings to medium high heat.  Add the onion and about 1/2 tsp of salt to the pan and cook until onion softens, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add wine.  If there are any browned bits of sausage or onion left on the bottom of the pan, scrape them up into the sauce.  Let the wine reduce for a minute or two.  Add 2 Tbsp butter and stir until it melts.  Add spinach and stir to coat with sauce.  Cook until it is nicely wilted (photo below is only partially wilted).

While spinach is cooking, slice open squash (you’ll probably need an oven mitt), scoop out seeds, and then pull out strands of squash with a fork or spoon and set aside.

Once spinach is wilted, put the entire contents of your pan into the blender.  When pan is empty, return it to medium low heat, add the remaining two Tbsp butter, let it melt, and put the squash strands in the pan.  Add about 1/2 Tsp salt.  Stir to coat with butter and cook for several minutes.  The main purpose of this is to try to evaporate some of the water that comes out with the squash so it’s not super wet when you put it on your plate, as well as adding a bit more flavor to it.  Puree the spinach mixture.  Add cream and continue to blend until smooth.  Add S&P to taste.  Put sauce, “spaghetti” and sausage on the plate!

This dish turned out really well.  The sauce was delicious.  The only thing I might have done differently was to use one more sausage, because there wasn’t quite enough for two servings plus what we gave to the girls.

Next up: Gouda Cheese, Avocado, and Duck Breast!

Tofu Chocolate Pudding

Posted on by Amy
We went to PetSmart today to get some dog food and I happened to see some fancy “chocolate” dog treats. I got a package of them for our dog, and Miss immediately started saying, “I want some chocolate treats too!” I explained to her that the treats were only for dogs, but that wasn’t quite going to cut it with my chocolate-loving two year old. I remembered a recipe I have for chocolate pudding with tofu, so I told her we’d make that when we got home. She wasn’t happy about having to wait a while for it to chill after we got it made (though she was pacified a bit by being able to lick the leftover melted chocolate from the bowl), and it was the first thing she asked for when she woke up from her nap. It only took a few minutes to make, and it was fantastic.




I even let Lass try a little bite.
She had to think about it for a second.
She liked it.

Tofu pudding sounds kind of weird, but it really was delicious. I had never used soft tofu before (I’ve only ever used tofu once before, in fact). I ate a portion of it and so did my husband. He called it, “Ridonkulous” which means super-awesome fabulously yummy. Here’s the recipe, which I changed a little bit from a recipe in the July issue of Parenting magazine.
1 12-oz pkg shelf-stable soft silken tofu
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted
1/2 cup ultrafine granulated sugar (the recipe called for powdered sugar, but I didn’t have any)
2 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt
Combine all ingredients in a blender and mix until creamy. Put it into small cups or bowls and put into the fridge to let it set up. Done.
I was really happy to give Miss a snack with nutritious, protein-packed tofu in it. Of course, this pudding is also sugar-packed, so it is certainly a treat. I’ll make it again, but only once in a while, and next time I’ll probably cut the amount of sugar in half. However, I am now convinced of the wonders of this soft tofu for use in puddings, smoothies, etc. I’m thinking of all sorts of other, less sugary things I can blend with it next time, like bananas, berries, orange juice, honey, and on and on.
And speaking of tofu, my next at home “Chopped” ingredients are plantains, bacon bits, and yes, tofu. It has taken me a while to get going on this one because I’ve not been able to find plantains in a store here, so I just ordered some and will get on it when they arrive. I think I know what I’m going to do. I have to redeem myself after my pickled herring failure. I’ll let you know how it goes.

So It Turns Out I’m Not a Cooking Goddess

Posted on by Amy
Damn. I was really hoping that I would be able to transform pickled herring into something delicious. If I’m honest, I was fairly confident in the plan I had come up with for using the herring, sweet pickles, and bran cereal for this week’s home “Chopped” challenge. Unfortunately the plan was no match for pickled herring. Who knew that its taste was so strong? So persistent? So… pickley? Part of the problem was probably that I didn’t even taste the herring until I was getting ready to cook it tonight. Remember how I said I wouldn’t even be able to come up with a plan for it until I tasted it, since I had no idea what the taste and texture would be like? Well, I threw that out the window and came up with a plan, sans tasting, to make a Bran-Cereal Crusted Pickled Herring Po’ Boy with Sweet Pickle and Onion Puree. I’m going to spare you the recipe, because it’s not worth typing out, but here’s what happened:
I was so confident in my plan. I thought for sure if I rinsed off the herring to get some of the pickled flavor off, and then coated it with crushed brand cereal seasoned with some strong flavors (I used chili powder and a bit of cayenne pepper), and then pan fried it to give it a nice crispy crust it would be fabulous on a nice baguette with a caramelized sweet pickle and onion puree sauce. Unfortunately, this plan was based on my expectation that the herring would be salty and maybe a little sour, rather than sweet. Imagine my surprise when I tasted it and discovered the herring tasted like sweet-pickle fish! I had sweet-pickle fish and sweet pickles to put in one dish. This gave me pause, but I decided to push ahead with my original plan and make a few seasoning changes rather than taking the time to change things entirely (two small children fussing for dinner helped with this decision).
Like I said, I pulverized the bran cereal and added chili powder and cayenne pepper, rinsed and patted the herring dry, then coated the herring in the bran powder and put it in a hot pan with some oil to get crispy. For some reason instead of getting crispy, the bran “crust” just fell off in the pan. A few pieces did get a little crunch to them where the crust stayed on, but most just ended up kind of soggy. I’m not really sure where I went wrong here. Maybe my pan wasn’t hot enough or I had a little too much oil. Maybe I should have used some egg to dip the fish into first to get the crust to stick better? If I had any desire to try this recipe again ever, I’d try that next time. . .
The sauce ended up okay. I did the usual, sliced the onions and put them in the pan with the chopped sweet pickles to get soft and caramelize a bit. I used a little bit of wine to get all the crust from the fish off the bottom of the pan. I added a diced ancho chile to try to cut the sweetness of the pickle. Then I pureed it. It was tasty by itself, but added to the still-sweet-pickley tasting herring, it was too much. Oh yeah, and I didn’t have a chance to get a nice crusty baguette for my po’ boys so I ended up using regular hot dog buns, which I didn’t even remember to toast a little. Mush on top of mush on top of mush. . . It wasn’t pretty (served with roasted Brussels sprouts).

I did have a small victory though. My husband actually ate all of his po’ boy, as did I. It wasn’t super delicious, but it wasn’t awful either, and he did say that my pickled herring was more palatable than any other he has ever had. That’s saying something, right? Right?

Full

Posted on by Amy

Starting swimming lessons and gymnastics class and three forensic cases to do and trying to get in my 20 days of exercise this month and watching Chopped last night. . . and this week is quickly getting away from me. So I realized, “What happened to my Independence Day post?” Well, it got combined with my Wednesday July 6th post, that’s what. Here you go!
As I predicted, our 4th of July celebration consisted of more of the same festivities that filled the rest of our holiday weekend.

Well hello there Hunk.


Celebrating the birth of our country with my sunscreened babies, splashing and loving the water. Cherishing family. Perfect.


That and great outdoor food. We had grilled kielbasa, veggie kabobs, potato salad, the works. Even ice cream!
Miss loves her “Chocolate ice cream on a stick” – otherwise known as a Dove Bar.
And this little one had her first taste of the sweet stuff.
The brat making continued. Here’s my hubby making sausage.
My hubby after I pointed out to him that he’s wearing his “Wiener Shop” T Shirt.
Wieners.
We ate some for dinner tonight. Fantastic. There’s nothing like fresh, homemade sausage. He also made chorizo, which I love to cook with. I can’t wait to try out a new recipe using it.
Speaking of new recipes, my “Chopped” ingredients this week are cherry tomatoes and raisins. I wasn’t able to get to the grocery store until today, but I got my ingredients and have something of a plan for my dish. I need to refine it in my head before I dive in to make it, so it’ll be Friday or so before I do it. Stay tuned.
I think I’ve written about how I have ordered some new big girl outdoor toys for Miss so that the push-behind lion can be passed down to Lass now. We are still waiting for her trike, but her roller skates arrived yesterday. And so did these:
We had to try them on today to make sure they fit. I ordered them with the intention that they would fit her now and also be gear she can grow into, so they look a little big but they do fit. Naturally she didn’t want to take them off and had to dance around in them until I had to nearly pry them off her for nap time.

Soon to come will be photos of this ensemble, outside, with little Barbie roller skates. I love it.
Right now we’re busy in a great way. Miss loves her gymnastics class and seems to be enjoying her new swimming class so far. We’re having play dates.
I’m enjoying work. Being a professional. Sorting out the intricacies of psychiatric diagnosis when a case is a little unusual. It helps me to be well-rounded. To be challenged and stretch my brain in a different grown up way. Then I come home and get back to my real job. And it’s good. My life is full. In the best possible way.

Rock Soup or Flank Steak?

Posted on by Amy
While we waited for our dinner to braise this afternoon, the girls and I went outside, where Miss proceeded to make her own dinner of Rock Soup. It all started with puddles this morning, which we used to “paint” the driveway with sticks and grass, and then sponges and sponge brushes. This afternoon, however, the puddles were all dried up, so I got Miss a bucket of water and she proceeded to “paint” some more.





Who knew that a bucket of water and some sponges could provide such entertainment?? Lass just loved being in the grass.





After a while, the painting stopped and Miss said, “I stiwing (stirring!)” so I asked her what she was making. “Wock soup!” was her answer.

Everyone had to taste some and we “oohed” and “aahed” over how delicious it was.
Lass especially enjoyed it.
Shortly after filling up on Rock Soup, I had to come inside to finish fixing our real dinner. Tonight was the night I used our most recent “Chopped” ingredient, flank steak. I decided to use what I learned in my cooking class on braising to make the flank steak, since it is a pretty tough cut of meat. The dish? Braised Flank Steak Stew with Fennel and Leeks. It was delicious. Even Miss gobbled it up. Here’s the recipe:
Braised Flank Steak Stew with Fennel and Leeks
Ingredients:
1.5 lb (approx) flank steak, cut into 1 inch pieces
Olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp minced fresh lemon thyme (or regular thyme)
Salt and Pepper
Flour
1 cup chopped carrots (about two handfuls of baby carrots)
2 celery ribs chopped
1 medium onion chopped
1/2 cup red wine
zest from one lemon
beef stock
1.5 lbs Dutch baby potatoes
1/2 stick butter
vegetable oil
2 fennel bulbs, sliced
1 large leek, halved, rinsed, and sliced
4 tsp sugar
Put the cut up steak, thyme, and garlic in a bowl and add a few tablespoons of olive oil (enough to wet all the steak) and some salt and pepper. Mix to get the meat well coated. Put in refrigerator overnight.
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat. While your pan is heating, start flouring your meat (make sure you shake off the excess flour). Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and let it get hot, then add your meat in batches.
Get the meat pieces nicely browned. Then remove to a plate, add more oil, and do the next batch. Repeat if necessary.
I had to cook the meat in three batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. Lass woke up from her nap after the second batch and decided to help me out.
Once all the meat is browned, add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and put in the carrots, celery, and onion. Cook until they start to soften and brown.
Then pour in the red wine. Let it cook for a minute or two to reduce a bit. Then put the meat back in the pan, making sure to also get any accumulated juices on the plate poured into the pan. Add the lemon zest and enough beef stock to cover the meat half to two-thirds of the way. Cover the pan and put it in the oven for about 2 hours.
About a half hour before your meat is done, start cooking the rest of the stew. Cut the larger baby potatoes in half. Put them in a sauce pan with enough cold water to cover them. Bring to a boil and boil until tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain off water and add butter and salt to taste. Smash up the potatoes as you stir in the butter.
Once your potatoes start to cook, put another skillet or saute pan over medium high heat. Slice your fennel and leek. Blot them dry with a paper towel. Put about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in once your pan is hot. When the oil is hot, put in the fennel and leek and stir to coat. Stir them occasionally. You want them to start to brown and caramelize. Add sugar during this process (fennel has very little natural sugar in it, so adding sugar helps it to caramelize nicely). Cook until softened and browned.
Pull the meat out of the oven. Taste the sauce and check the consistency. When I took mine out the consistency was perfect, but the sauce needed more salt. Add S&P as necessary and adjust thickness of sauce as needed (to thicken whisk some cornstarch and beef stock together and add, or add more stock to thin). Put some potatoes in a bowl and top with beef mixture and then fennel/leek mixture. Makes about 4 servings.
I would not have done anything differently with this dish other than maybe skipping the leek and adding a third fennel bulb. The fennel added a delicious sweetness and crunchy texture, but the leek didn’t really seem to bring anything to the dish. My husband was wishing for more fennel, though I thought the ratio of fennel to the rest of the dish was okay, so maybe I would add more fennel, maybe not. I guess since the elements are put together after they’re cooked and each person can choose how much fennel to add on top, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to cook another bulb and then each person can add as much as they want. Otherwise, I was extremely happy with the dish! Next week, two ingredients (in one dish)!

Lots of Love and Lobsters

Posted on by Amy
Miss has been overflowing with love these past few days. She’s always a pretty loving girl, but these past few days she has been extra affectionate. Example: A couple of days ago we spent 10-15 minutes sitting on her bed, during which time she said over and over again, “Momma, I wub you Momma!” and “I wub you so much Momma” and “Momma, I so pwoud of you!” and “Awww, I wub my Mommy!” She gave hugs and kisses and patted my back and snuggled up to me. I was soaking it up.
These days she’s giving extra love to me, to her baby doll “Big Baby,” and all her other special toys that she sleeps with (Elmo, Bear, and Teddy Bear). She does this funny little wiggle and scrunches her face up when she is saying how much she “wubs” something or someone. It is enough to make me turn to mush.

Of course Miss doles out the love to her sister too. “I wub my Lass” (she uses Lass’s real name though), “Weew (we’re) best fweinds.”

Sometimes she gives love to her sister a little too much. . .

She’s also giving extra love to our dogs. “I wub my Tessa,” she says. We recently found out our older dog has liver cancer and I have explained to Miss that she’s sick. Yesterday Miss took one of her play pots and put some toy food in it and kept trying to give it to the poor dog. I asked her what she had made for Tessa and she said “I made chicken soup for Tessa to feew betteh!”
I don’t know what has prompted this outpouring of extra love from my big girl, but I’ll take it. I am trying to burn into my brain the feel of her little squeezes and the sound of her voice saying, “I wub you Momma.” I never want to forget her little wiggle as she nestles up to me and coos “Ooo-hoo-hoo, you so pwetty Momma.” The love from my girls. It’s like a drug and I can’t get enough of it. It’s a salve for the moments when I am tired and crabby and snap at Miss more than I’d like to admit. Today has been a day with too many of those not-so-lovely moments, which is probably why I’ve chosen to write about these, my little loving girls. This is the stuff I need to think about when I’m feeling frayed, worn out, frazzled, from the stuff of being stay-at-home Mommy. I need to think about it because it lifts my spirits instantly, but also because I need to remind myself that if I wasn’t stay-at-home Mommy, I might not get these moments, or maybe not as many of them. And I wouldn’t miss them for anything.
And now on to my “Chopped” adventure and recipes for the week. This was my third week of our home version of Chopped. The ingredient this week was lobster. I have never cooked lobster before, and only rarely ever eaten it, so yesterday I splurged at the grocery store and bought five lobster tails. My idea was to use the lobster in two ways. I wanted to make it into a salad and use it as a kind of stuffing for an open-face halved avocado, and then make a stuffing to put into a split lobster tail. I used mostly the same flavors in the two stuffings. It went very well and the finished meal was delicious, if I do say so myself.
Here’s the recipe:
I used 5 lobster tails (though you could probably use 6, or even 7; see below). Three of them I boiled for 8 minutes, as instructed, and the other two I took out after about 6 minutes, since I was going to use them as the stuffed lobsters and didn’t want them to get overcooked when putting them into the oven with the stuffing. However, in retrospect, I would cook all of the lobster tails for the full 8 minutes. See my comments at the end of the recipe for how and why I would do this part differently.
Lobster Salad
3 boiled lobster tails, broken into small pieces (I’m sure you could also use lump crab meat)
1 stick melted butter
1 Tbsp minced capers (rinse capers before chopping them)
1/2 tsp dried dill
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Mix all ingredients together and put in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes, just to let it thicken up a little. Don’t chill too long or the butter will solidify and the salad with be very thick and dense (if it does get too cold, you can just mix it well to break it up again and it will be fine). Cut 3 avocados in half (I used 2, but there was enough salad to do 3, I think), remove the pit, and spoon the lobster salad on top. You could also serve this salad on a bed of spinach, or maybe in a wrap or sandwich or with crackers.
Stuffed Lobster Tail
3 Lobster tails, cooked and split down middle (I used 2, but there was enough stuffing for 3, maybe even 4)
3 pieces white bread
2 scallions, minced
1/2 Tbsp minced capers
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 stick melted butter
1/2 tsp dried dill
Combine all ingredients but lobster to make stuffing. When I made this, I took two lobster tails out of the boiling water a little early for this part of the meal. As mentioned above, in retrospect, I would do this differently and go ahead and cook all the lobster tails for the full 8 minutes. I took the two tails out early to try to prevent over cooking the lobster, since I planned to stuff the tails and then put them in the oven. However, one of the tails I took out early was not cooked enough to even be able to get it out of the shell (it was still mushy). So I put it in the microwave to finish cooking the meat and used it as one of the three lobster tails in the lobster salad. I used the other tail that I took out early (not sure why this one wasn’t as undercooked and came out of the shell easily) and one that I cooked the full 8 minutes to do the stuffed lobster tails, and they both ended up being a little bit overcooked after baking them with the stuffing inside. So, bake the stuffing separately at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Then stuff it in the split lobster tails, as shown below.

While you’re stuffing the tails, preheat the broiler. Put the stuffed lobster tails under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the top of the stuffing and warm the lobster a bit. Plate it with a stuffed avocado and serve. I probably should have prepared another vegetable to complete the meal a bit better, and I know the way I served it makes it look kind of like a goofy face. I couldn’t resist.

I’m really proud of how these recipes turned out. I got a little bit of inspiration for the stuffed avocados from a novel I was reading (the main characters ate crab-stuffed avocados that were steamed), but other than the beginnings of an idea, I came up with these recipes on my own, using an ingredient that I was not familiar with cooking at all. And other than changing the process of cooking a little, I would not change the recipe at all. This week was really fun, as my husband was very impressed. I think pretty soon we’ll be switching to two ingredients each week (to be used in the same meal). Happy eating!

Taco Seasoning Recipe

Posted on by Amy

In my efforts over the past few years to eat more whole foods, buy more locally and avoid packaged/processed foods, I started a while ago seasoning my taco/burrito meat with spices from my spice rack rather than buying taco seasoning packets from the store. This not only allows me to know and be able to pronounce exactly what’s in the seasoning, but it’s much cheaper than the packets and has better flavor too! I typically don’t measure what I put in the mix and it never comes out quite the same. But in an effort to come up with a recipe for the seasoning, even if I never use this exact amount and combination again, I decided to try measuring what I put into the mix to come up with perfectly seasoned meat. It took a couple of tries, but here’s what I mixed up yesterday that my hubby and I thought was especially yummy:

Start with one pound of ground meat (we use venison, but beef would be fine of course) and add the following:
1.5 Tbsp Ground cumin
1 Tbsp Chile powder
1-2 tsp Garlic salt
Just a bit of Cayenne pepper (or more if you like it spicy hot)
Add in 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water, stir and let simmer for a few minutes. Serve with tortillas and your favorite fixins. Mine are cheddar cheese, sour cream, spinach, tomatoes, cilantro, and guacamole (recipe here). Voila!