Tacos with Spanish Rice

Buenos dias, amigos. Inspiration for todays meal comes from the infamous street taco. The typical street taco (as far as I'm concerned) is a corn tortilla with meat, salsa, cilantro, and topped with queso fresco, maybe come lettuce and tomato if you're lucky enough to get veggies. While the typical street tacos are great, I wanted to mix it up a bit and get some delicious veggies in the mix.

Tacos

Serves 12

Ingredients:
Mushroom Corn Salsa:
2 bags of sliced mushrooms
4 ears of corn with the kernels cut off
4 anaheim peppers
2 habanero peppers
1/2 onion, roughly diced
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Beef Taco Filling:
4 lbs ground beef
1 Tbs cumin
1 tsp chipotle powder
1 tsp cayenne powder
1 tsp turmeric
salt and pepper to taste

The Rest of the Taco:
1 bunch cilantro
1 package of queso fresco, broken up into small bits
1 iceberg lettuce, shredded
8 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
corn tortillas (I chose the 70 pack instead of the 30 pack because I had a sneaking suspicion that some people would have more than 2)

Preparation of Mushroom Corn Salsa:
1. Wash and pat completely dry the peppers, then rub down in a small amount of olive oil to coat the entire outside.
2. Roast the peppers over an open flame using metal tongs until the skin is fairly evenly blistered and browned, then transfer directly to being wrapped up in paper towels.
3. Use the paper towels to gently rub away the tough layer of skin, revealing delicious smoky pepper flesh. Remove stem and seeds from pepper before chopping, anaheim peppers should be about the size of the roughly diced onion pieces and the habanero should be minced.
4. In a large skillet, heat 2 Tbs olive oil over high heat and add peppers, corn, and onions. Stir often.
5. When onion is glassy around the edges, add the mushrooms. Continue stirring until the mushrooms have changed color. Remove from heat and salt & pepper to taste.

Preparation of the Beef Taco Filling:
1. Heat a large skillet over high heat, brown beef on both sides.
2. Break up the meat with wooden spatula as it cooks. Sprinkle spices over meat and stir to get even coverage.
3. When meat is no longer pink on the outside and there aren't any huge chunks, remove from heat and drain off excess fat. Salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation of the Taco:
1. Place 2 tortillas on plate, side by side. Optionally, heat tortillas in a small stack in microwave wrapped in a towel for about 15 seconds (until just warmed) or individually in a frying pan until warmed.
2. Layer ingredients using a small amount of each. From bottom to top, the order is: beef, mushrooms, lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese. For dairy free, leave off cheese. To make vegetarian, leave out beef. To make vegan, leave out beef and cheese. Optionally, serve with avocado slices.

Spanish Rice
Serves 12

Ingredients:
2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 sweet onion, diced
3 cups uncooked white rice
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups chunky salsa (I chose medium because I wanted a little kick to the dish)

Preparation:
1. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium to high heat, whatever you're comfortable with. Saute onion until tender (it will start to get glassy, which means transparent).
2. Add rice and continue stirring until rice starts to brown.
3. Stir in broth and salsa.
4. Reduce heat to low, cover, let simmer for 20 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed.
5. Fluff with fork before serving to keep it from getting too gloppy.