I am not a food snob. I think I proved that yesterday by cooking with Coca-Cola. I will try anything at least once and more if I like it. Sure, I was forcibly held down in a teppanyaki place by my two best friends (Hi Kayla and Kat!) and forced to try sushi while I literally cried. But I was only 18 and when I tasted it I could only think, "Hey! Delicious!" but I've come a long way since then. I've learned to appreciate many different flavors and textures. Heck, I'll even eat raw tomatoes now thanks to working one summer in a Lebanese restaurant (Hi Milad and Rosie!) and I wouldn't touch them when I was a kid.
But today I was forced to confront my one area of food superiority complex... today I was forced to make genuine Mexican food and stuff it in a Pillsbury crescent roll. My husband had found this recipe online and wanted me to make it.
Let that sink in, will you? I lovingly prepared homemade taco meat only to have it desecrated by being wrapped in the whitest of all white breads. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard insane high pitched giggling as if from an unbaked demon being repeatedly poked in the belly. Surely all of my Mexican ancestors were looking down on me in horror and confusion!
I have cooked with crescent rolls before, in fact they are excellent wrapped around some good chocolate and a dash of cinnamon and then baked; makes a fast and impressive dessert or even breakfast pastry. Or my favorite hearty appetizer "Beggar's Purses" where you take the triangles of dough and press them together into a rectangle and then stuff them with a Mini-Babybel cheese a dab of grainy mustard and a few chopped walnuts. Pull the dough together to close and bake according to package directions. Fabulous! See? Not a snob. But this recipe called for me to take ground beef and mix it with taco seasoning. Blasphemy! I made my own taco meat recipe, simply sautee together a small onion, 1 pound of ground beef, 1/4 of a green pepper (chopped) and season it all with ground cumin, adobo seasoning and a bit of chili powder. I drained it well and added it to the croissants. The croissant dough itself had to be made to stretch to fit all of the meat. I had read the recipe wrong and only gotten 1 can of dough, it required 2. You basically take two triangles and lay them together with long points facing away from each other, then you pinch the seam well so the two parts don't fall apart. Add the taco meat and the cheese to the center, close and bake. Well, the other thing was the recipe called for me to add everything you would put on a taco... including lettuce. Yeah, no dice. I just added meat and cheese and served the lettuce, salsa, and sour cream on the side. Not all of the meat fit, but that could also be served on the side or even on top. The taco-croissants or croissantos as we took to calling them were done in 15 minutes.
My husband and kids devoured them and I have to admit they were very tasty, but I don't think I will be giving up tamales any time soon! :)
Beggar's purses sound good...do you dip them in anything? The croissantos sound weird, especially if you add lettuce first, sorry!
ReplyDeleteDang, that's a good idea! But you're right. Putting everything inside (lettuce, etc) will be too hard and might just make the seams pop. I HAVE TO try this recipe soon. Taco night is coming up! :-)) Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteI usually serve the beggar's purses with the soup course, Gigi so no dip. And yeah, I flat out refuse to bake lettuce, I mean, that's just not going to happen, haha.
ReplyDeleteJoy, they really were tasty and very, very kid-friendly. My little monsters just devoured them. And you can serve the lettuce on the side like a salad. Or even make a side of beans and rice.