Every now and then someone says “I don’t have time to….” To which I reply: yeah, I say that too. But is it that I don’t have time, or that I don’t want to be bothered? Is the real question: “Is the payoff worth it?”
So I decided to check just how long it takes, start to finish. This is a leftover roast beef taco, with fresh pico de gallo, some cheese, and an avocado. (I probably could have just made a fancy guac, but the girls don’t like the onions and tomatoes in theirs.) The photos are time stamped. I worked SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY. I just got up, for freaks’ sake. Allow 5 minutes before the time stamp on the first photo to start the coffee pot and collect the ingredients.
7:03AM. I got some leftover roast beef (isn’t that freakin’ gorgeous?), an avocado, lime, cilantro, tomato, onion, a serrano, and some queso fresco. Oh, and a tortilla. Right in front of my face. Didn’t see it there.
Chop all that stuff up. I went back and got a little more onion. 7:14AM.
Not pictured: I melted some cheese in a small non stick skillet, and wiped it off with the tortilla; then turned the burner off, and let the residual heat warm the beef without drying it out or cooking it. It’s early, I forget stuff, and I don’t want to waste a tortilla and cheese by faking doing it again, and anyhow the time stamp would give it away.
Oh yeah, I forgot: bacon. It IS breakfast, after all. That went into the skillet to warm with the beef. 7:21AM.
Things move fast from here, even though I’m going slow. Cheesy tortilla, 7:22AM:
Let the beef warm a minute or so. Pile the rest of the stuff on top, wipe up the edges and make it look pretty, etc; 7:25AM.
This was a damn good taco. It was worth the 25-30 minutes.
I didn’t try to see how fast I could do this. I did what I usually do, which is try to make sure I didn’t cut myself. Nor forget anything, like bacon or the Colby Jack cheese that both didn’t make it into the first photo and that I had to go back and fish from the refrigerator, all in that 22 minutes. Which includes setting up the photos, because yeah, I take a few of each; I check them and move stuff out of the frame, move the plate under better light, etc. If I worked at a reasonable pace and skipped the pictures this would be 10-15 minutes. Shrug. If I made toast and eggs and coffee, that would take 10 minutes just for the coffee to brew.
Oh: some left over pico de gallo. That means that tomorrow’s breakfast will be a hell of a lot faster, and I still get to move slowly to do it!
So I decided to check just how long it takes, start to finish. This is a leftover roast beef taco, with fresh pico de gallo, some cheese, and an avocado. (I probably could have just made a fancy guac, but the girls don’t like the onions and tomatoes in theirs.) The photos are time stamped. I worked SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY. I just got up, for freaks’ sake. Allow 5 minutes before the time stamp on the first photo to start the coffee pot and collect the ingredients.
7:03AM. I got some leftover roast beef (isn’t that freakin’ gorgeous?), an avocado, lime, cilantro, tomato, onion, a serrano, and some queso fresco. Oh, and a tortilla. Right in front of my face. Didn’t see it there.
Chop all that stuff up. I went back and got a little more onion. 7:14AM.
Not pictured: I melted some cheese in a small non stick skillet, and wiped it off with the tortilla; then turned the burner off, and let the residual heat warm the beef without drying it out or cooking it. It’s early, I forget stuff, and I don’t want to waste a tortilla and cheese by faking doing it again, and anyhow the time stamp would give it away.
Oh yeah, I forgot: bacon. It IS breakfast, after all. That went into the skillet to warm with the beef. 7:21AM.
Things move fast from here, even though I’m going slow. Cheesy tortilla, 7:22AM:
Let the beef warm a minute or so. Pile the rest of the stuff on top, wipe up the edges and make it look pretty, etc; 7:25AM.
This was a damn good taco. It was worth the 25-30 minutes.
I didn’t try to see how fast I could do this. I did what I usually do, which is try to make sure I didn’t cut myself. Nor forget anything, like bacon or the Colby Jack cheese that both didn’t make it into the first photo and that I had to go back and fish from the refrigerator, all in that 22 minutes. Which includes setting up the photos, because yeah, I take a few of each; I check them and move stuff out of the frame, move the plate under better light, etc. If I worked at a reasonable pace and skipped the pictures this would be 10-15 minutes. Shrug. If I made toast and eggs and coffee, that would take 10 minutes just for the coffee to brew.
Oh: some left over pico de gallo. That means that tomorrow’s breakfast will be a hell of a lot faster, and I still get to move slowly to do it!
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