Mexican Seasoning.

[Cynic]

I'm looking for a recipe to give ground beef some mexican flavor, as you would taco meat.

I have 8lbs of 93% lean beef and I'm looking to make taco lettuce wraps.

[Lost Dog]

Per pound of meat...

1 lbs ground beef
1 tbsp olive or canola oil (optional)
1 white onion, chopped (yellow will work, too. No Wala Walas, though!)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground mild chili or chili flakes (you can use Chili Powder, but most contain all sorts of seasonings)
1 small can of chopped or diced tomatos
1 tbsp dried oregano
salt to taste

Brown the meat over medium-high heat. Spoon into a bowl and set aside.

Leave the fat in the pan or drain it and use 1/2 the optional oil. Over medium-high heat, saute the onion and garlic until translucent. Don't let that garlic burn!

Make a hole in the center of the garlic and onions and add another bit of fat from the meat or the rest of the oil. When hat, add the cumin to the oil. Fry it up a bit until it's fragrant.

Toss that meat back in the pan and stir it up. Stir in the tomatos, juice and all. Bring to a simmer, then let it cook down a bit. When the liquid is almost gone, put the oregano between your palms and grind the herbs to a powder over the pan. Stir, once again. Taste it and add your salt.

Eat.

[Cynic]

Comment on this:

McCormick Taco Seasoning:

per 2 tsp dry mix

Calories: 20
Total Fat: 0
Sodium: 430mg (obviously going to be high) which is 18%
Carbs: 3g (sugars 1g)

Ingredients: Spices (including chili pepper, cumin, oregeno and red pepper), onion, whey solids (milk), salt, sugar, paprika, garlic, potato starch and citric acid.

Oviously, not the cleanest compared to your recipe, but this isn't so bad, is it?

[Lost Dog]

Is that one of those packets, like the gravies?

Those are actually pretty tasty. My kids love it.

I'd eat that. The non clean-ness is trivial. There are bigger fish to fry.

[Cynic]

Yes, it is a packet. I assumed up front that they would be massively unclean (HFCS, hydrogenated something). It turned out the uncleanest was Old ElPaso. Pace and McCormick were actually pretty decent.

[RobLL]

I could never do a cheese pasta for my kids they likes as well as box macaroni and cheese - fortunately it only made me laugh.

[Lost Dog]

Yeah. I gave up on the homemade mac & cheese.

Whole Foods has one that's decent. Whole grain pasta and all natural cheese powder. Just have to make sure to really cook that pasta to get it soft enough.

My kids like tuna casserole and they can't tell the difference between low carb/whole grain macaroni the regular stuff. Getting tougher now that they can read, though.