First, I would like to apologize for having not updated my blog in several weeks. As I was frantically finishing finals, I realized that I would get a break from blogging as well as school. One of the many benefits of my summer job is that I frequently get to enjoy the cooking of the skilled chefs of McAlisters, Qdoba, and the always wonderful University of Wyoming Washaike Dinning Center; hence, I will not be doing much cooking this summer. However, during finals week that thought got lost among the psychoanalytic thoughts of Edgar Allen Poe and the curious and bizarre wanderings of Walt Whitman, instead of making it into my blog.
Anyway, this past week I was able to do a bit of cooking. I have probably consumed more tacos in my life than any other single entree, but for some reason I always get random taco cravings. In one of the books I am reading, the author claims that many of our adult desires are grounded in unmet needs from childhood. However, I can guarantee that I never was lacking for tacos as a child. If I should desire anything, it would be lasagna because my mother thought the whole process a bit to putzy (see the lasagna post for the whole story).
In a rare spirit of creativity, I decided that instead of buying a taco seasoning pack, I would season the tacos from my own spices. I did, however, read the back of the seasoning pack in Wal-mart to see what it included. As the meat was simmering, I gradually began to add cumin, paprika, and a bit of oregano to the mix. I also mixed up some guacamole, and flavored it with cumin, paprika, red pepper, salt and pepper. The guacamole turned out great, and I resolved to never buy a guacamole packet again. The taco meat, however, was a different story.
Living in Wyoming, I have the benefit of having lots of acquaintances who hunt and share their meat. I thought that I had taken the "wild" out of cooking "wild game," since most of my other recipes have turned out alright. However, cooking ground game was a different story. At home, I was always raised to drain the ground beef after cooking it; but after cooking the ground elk, I was wishing I could add fat to it. Generally when I have a kitchen disaster, I simply add more cumin to the recipe because I not only love the taste of cumin, but also it's ability to overpower just about any other flavor. However, cumin met its match with my tacos. Cumin many conquer taste, but it cannot conquer dryness.
So as I sit here on night number four eating dog food rolled in a tortilla, looking at at least another two nights of tacos in my tupperware container, I wonder if the luxury of eating Panda Express at work is, at times, a hindrance. If I wouldn't have gotten free lunch all week, then I would have been done with these tacos three days ago.
