Taco Night

Taco Night!!

Ok, so this post isn't so much a recipe as a guideline for making what is one of my family's favorite dinners into something that is also fairly healthy.  Definitely not perfect, but when I see how much my daughter and son eat and how excited they are about "Taco Night!" it is totally worth it.  My silly daughter has even come up with the quirky routine of needing to make and wear a "taco hat" or "taco crown" for this meal and last night declared that she was the "Taco King!"  So how can I resist not making this meal at least once a month and possibly even more now that I found an even healthier brand of taco shells to use.  Here are the basics of what I did last night and the ingredients that I used.

Fresh Ingredients
organic romaine lettuce
5 organic tomatoes
organic cilantro
avocado
jalapeno

Taco shells, chilies and vegan taco filling
This is the new brand of taco shells that I found this week for the first time.  They are a brand that I often buy when purchasing corn chips since they use only organic, non GMO blue or yellow corn.  It also comes with a taco sauce and seasoning packet that unlike other brands, contains only natural, real ingredients. I also bought some whole wheat flour tortillas because my daughter loves those.  The vegan filling I used is a brand I have bought and liked before and it really does taste like beef (my meat eating husband agrees). It uses non GMO whole soy beans which is the main reason I chose it, but unfortunately, some of the other ingredients are not so ideal.  It contains caramel color, which I had just heard on the Dr. Oz show hours before making this meal, is a known carcinogen. As the woman on the show mentioned, why do we need to put potentially dangerous unnatural chemicals into our food to color it brown?!?  I think I may send an email to the company to express my concern because otherwise the product is great.  Obviously you could use organic beef, chicken, pork or shrimp for your tacos as I have done in the past.  This is just what I happened to use yesterday.

taco "meat"
 cooked with green chilies, taco sauce,
taco seasoning and three chopped fresh tomatoes

Quick Guacamole
one fresh avocado, two chopped tomatoes,
one chopped jalapeno, fresh cilantro and Adobo seasoning

Dinner
toppings include:
organic romaine lettuce
extra sharp cheddar cheese
2% Greek yogurt
homemade guacamole


(my 100th post!!!!)