Vegan, vegetarian, meat-eating…tacos can work for everyone! My favorite thing about taco night at our house is that we just put an array of ingredients on the table, and everyone makes their taco their way.
I like flour tortilla for tacos at home, although I would shun any Mexican eatery who served them this way. This is really because I don’t have ready access to a flat top or a short order cook to stand there making the corn tortillas hot and fresh. My husband is an avid corn tortilla eater, regardless of the fact that we haven’t found a way to warm and keep them warm and ready to eat at the table. And yes, I know they make tortilla warmers, and it is on my list to eventually add to my kitchen. But for now, let me have my easy to wrap flour tortillas at home. The girls like them better anyway.
We put the usual taco toppings out, such as diced onions, diced tomatoes, salsa, shredded cheese, sour cream, sometimes lettuce (though this is one of those things we don’t really eat much of, so buying an entire head of lettuce for the cup we’ll use on taco night seems a waste). We usually buy pico de gallo and guacamole from the local market, though sometimes I’ll make them myself. Harvest Time makes all things Mexican well, so it saves a lot of time and effort. But I do make my Jen’s Queso Blanco Dip.
For the meat eaters, I make my homemade taco meat, generally from ground beef. We did recently make pork enchilada filling, so I might try putting that out for a taco night sometime. For the veggie eaters, we add sautéed mushrooms, raw mushrooms, sliced red, yellow or orange bell peppers, and sometimes some sauteed tempeh.
Of course, one could question if it is a taco when the 9-year-old wraps tomatoes in a tortilla and eats it without any sauce or other ingredients. We tried arguing that it has to have at least two fillings to be a taco, but you cannot reason with a 9-year-old on things like this. But, the addition of mushrooms to the menu has been a huge success.
You can add almost any ingredient to the table for taco night. Tacos are like pizza. You can pretty much put anything in them. You may not be able to market them as being anything derivative of Mexican food if you go too crazy, but the idea is that everyone enjoys a fantastic meal together. My favorite is taco night on the deck when it’s warm and sunny!
Foodie's Delimma 