Everything But the Taco, Taco Cups

Hi. How was your weekend? Mine was nice.

See that’s a stalling technique because I didn’t get as much done on my blog to-do list as I usually do over the weekends.

We had a great weekend with our borrowed pup and knowing that we’d be giving him back today I wanted to spend as much time with him and as little time in my kitchen. But when I finally did cook last night, I realized I didn’t quite have all the ingredients or the focus I needed to follow a recipe. So I did something I NEVER do. I cooked on the fly. I started pulling ingredients from the fridge, freezer, and pantry. And it worked. I found chopped meat, onion, tomatoes, half an avocado, cilantro, canned black beans, taco seasoning, cheese, fat free sour cream. That seemed like an obvious taco night to me except for the tiny little fact that I didn’t have tortillas or tacos. I dug to the bottom of my freezer (mental note: time to clean that bad boy out) and found frozen dough (empanada discs) and voila the Sunday night taco cup was born.

Recipe is a bit haphazard and you can change any of it based on what you find in your kitchen.

Preheat over to 350. Spray muffin tin and form  a cup in tin with empanada disc (wonton wrappers would be great for this or anything that can act as a taco. I was going to use whole wheat wraps that I had, but knew my husband would be happier with the empanada dough) Use a fork to prick tiny holes in bottom of dough. Bake until lightly golden.

Cook onions, add chopped meat and brown it. I added black beans to the mixture.

Stir in  taco seasoning with water, as needed. I like the lower-sodium Garden of Eden taco seasoning.

When taco cups are done, sprinkle cheese in the bottom. Then add meat mixture. Sprinkle cheese on top and return to the oven until cheese is melted. Remove from the oven.

Add chopped avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, and anything else you can find. Top with sour cream and put it on a pretty plate so you can pretend this was all planned out. Enjoy!