Street Tacos

Our family loves to drive to downtown Salt Lake and get tacos from a street stand. They are delicious. The other night I had quite a bit of leftover pork roast and decided to try to make street tacos with it. They turned out wonderful!

Street Tacos

The day before you want to make street tacos, put a pork roast (I used a 4-5 pound pork butt roast) into a crock-pot/slow-cooker. Add water (2-3 cups or so), salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Put it on high for 6 or 8 hours. I actually ended up cooking mine on high (kept re-setting it) from about 9 am until about 7 pm. It is so tender this way. Make sure there is always some water in with the roast. Add more as needed. Once it is finished cooking, remove roast from the water, de-bone it if needed and put it in a container and into the refrigerator.

When you are ready to make street tacos, you will cut up the roast (easier to do when cold) into smallish pieces (it actually looks like shredded pork). In a heavy skillet or electric skillet, you will add a generous amount of canola oil (like 1/2 a cup or so for a 3 lb roast). Cook on medium to high heat, stirring frequently so all of the meat is heated through and some pieces get slightly crispy. Keep warm.

On a griddle, lightly brushed with canola oil, heat up corn tortillas (between 300-350 degrees). You will want to flip them after about 2-3 minutes.



To assemble: take a corn tortilla, add pork, shredded green cabbage, fresh salsa (or chopped onions), and cilantro. Squeeze a little lime juice over taco. You can also add chopped radishes and/or guacamole. Delicious!

Fish Tacos

These are our favorite fish tacos. We used to eat something similar to them at a restaurant called Rosa's in Mesa, Arizona. I tried to copy their recipe by taste, and got it close enough. I do not measure with this recipe usually, but did this last time, so I could give you all an approximation (this recipe makes a lot. And I mean A LOT).

Fish Tacos

3-4 lbs. tilapia
1 head red cabbage sliced thin
1 lb. (or so) shredded monterey jack cheese
corn tortillas
limes
sugar

Cook sliced cabbage in about 3 tbsp. of canola oil until very limp and darkish in color.

Cook tilapia in about 1/4 cup canola oil and 1-2 tbsp. butter. Sprinkle with 1-3 tbsp. McCormick's Cajun seasoning (I used 2).

In a bowl mix 1 cup sugar and the juice from 4 limes until sugar is dissolved. Pour more than half of sugar/lime mixture over tilapia, and pour the remainder on the cooking cabbage. Stir both tilapia and cabbage. The tilapia will eventually break up into bits. This is fine.

Sprinkle about a half to a full teaspoon of salt on cooked cabbage and stir well.

When the tilapia and cabbage are both cooked well, serve immediately.

Grab a corn tortilla and spoon a bit of tilapia on it. Add cabbage and monterey jack cheese on top. Squeeze lime juice on top, if desired.

This is not the greatest photo, but these are the greatest fish tacos in my humble opinion:

Tacos

All you do is brown some ground beef (when I was vegetarian, I made them with refried beans). In a pan heat up some canola oil. Then take a white corn tortilla and put a small spoon of cooked ground beef inside. Gently set it in the oil, holding it with tongs. After the bottom has fried for about 30 seconds, set it on its side and cook for a minute or two. Flip to the other side and allow to cook for another minute or two. Then with the tongs take the taco out of the oil and set to drain on a plate that has paper towel on it. For condiments we use grated cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese (Kraft--and this is KEY to a good taco), tomato sauce (straight from the can--though I personally skip this one), avocados, cilantro, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, & green onions.