Tacos Become Me

Lunch Tunes:
Tom Waits
Blue Valentine

The Menu

Chicken Taco Soup
Pepper Jack Quesadilla
Simple Salad with Salsa Vinagrette

We had chicken tacos last night so I used the left over grated cheese, a flour tortilla, and the seasoned meat to make myself this lunch.

Today my husband called me around 11 and asked if I wanted to go grocery shopping with him over his lunch break rather than waiting for him to get home from work. We only have the one car right now so I'm at the mercy of his schedule and by 5 when he comes home I generally don't want to go anywhere. It's winter so 5 is cold and dark and I'm just not a cold and dark kind of a girl. Plus there was a big World of Warcraft patch today and the servers won't be up until later and grocery shopping could potentially cut into my game time and we can't have that. Today's meal was going to have to be simple and quick. I almost didn't make it out of the grocery store without eating candy in the check out aisle. But because it was my first blog on my lunches it still had to be pretty so I could try to photograph it.

In today's lunch I used packaged croutons but I often make my own and these are really popular with the family because I can season them any way I want to. If I had a leftover roll I would have made them with chili powder, cumin, onion and garlic powder to go with my southwestern theme. I also used canned corn. It was on a really good sale today but I usually only use frozen vegetables. I have to say though that the vacuum packed shoepeg corn was really tasty in this soup. I got the little 8.5 oz cans and I only used half so tomorrow I'm going to have to work the rest into my meal tomorrow or the next day. For the soup if I had used ground beef or steak for my taco meat I would have used beef instead of chicken stock and if I was to go vegetarian with the meal I would have used mushroom broth and added a little chili powder and cumin and added green beans and some chopped red onion in place of the meat.

So I was thinking about posting format what I settled on was to include the tunes I listened to with my lunch (ambience to set the scene) a menu and a description of what leftovers went into the meal. Then a little chit chat about my thought process on what to make and why. As well as some of my thoughts on the ingredients I used and possible substitutions. And at the end I'll include the recipes for what I made.

Chicken Taco Soup

About a 1/2 a cup leftover seasoned chicken meat
A couple of heaping tablespoons of chunky style salsa
A couple of heaping tablespoons of canned shoepeg corn
Chicken broth (enoughto cover and make it soupy)
A pinch colby cheese

Put the meat, salsa, corn and broth in a small pan and simmer until heated through. Pour into a mug and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Pepper Jack Quesadilla

Grated Pepper Jack Cheese
Grated Colby Cheese
8 inch Flour Tortilla

Put the grated cheese onto half of the tortilla. Fold in half and put into a warmed skillet and cook about 2 minutes on each side until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is golden brown. Cut into quarters.

Simple Salad with Salsa Vinagrette

Salad
Chopped romaine lettuce
Diced cucumber
Croutons

Vinagrette
1 T Salsa
1 T Red Wine Vinegar
1 1/2 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Put the salad ingredients on your plate. Mix the vinagrette ingredients in a small bowl and mix. Spoon over the salad.