At just over 24 hours left in the Taco Smack Down, there’s been a flurry of recent activity. Don’t stop now, cook it and post up. The judges are looking for some amazing tacos from this group.
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With just over 12 hours left in the first ever Taco Smack Down, activity seems to have peaked and is possibly trending down. Will we have any last-minute, dark horse entries to shake things up?
Be the Taco!Comment
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And we cannot forget breakfast tacos with our weeklong celebration! A great way to start the day, with some green chile scrambled eggs topped with queso fresco, salsa roja and green onion.
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At your urging WayneT I thought I'd throw down. Honestly I wasn't going to, I really just wanted to sit back and enjoy what others have to offer. I will say that some of the entries were pretty amazing. Hard choice since I have personally never met a taco I didn't like.
So that said, got up this morning and whipped together my favorite breakfast taco, The Real Deal Holyfield. It's really a meal in a taco consisting of;
Base of Rancho Gordo re-fired black beans
Covered with cubed up fried new potatoes
A strip of Texas pepper bacon
A slice of leftover Akaushi brisket
Topped off with a fried egg
Some cotija cheese
And an avocado pepper sauce
Last edited by Troutman; July 30, 2023, 02:22 PM.Comment
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Deer camp breakfast tacos. We call these deer camp tacos cause I make them up typically the night before, then warm them in a Dutch oven, or oven if we are hunting near the house, and toss a few in everyone's pack. Portable, quick, easy, good, and stay warm for a surprising amount of time in a pack. Usually either bacon or sausage, egg and cheese. Sometimes some onion or pepper or tater or even chorizo added in. Also great for road trips that start at the buttcrack of dawn with the kids.Attached FilesComment
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A very humble offering, no way in contention. The weekend got away from me, but I thawed some shrimp earlier (for something else) and decided to throw together few tacos. Shrimp dried, coated in avocado oil, and covered in Tajin. Grilled, layered with some shredded cabbage (with a bit of vinegar and mango juice) and some green tomatillo sauce with a mashed avocado thrown in. Was going to add some Oaxaca, but they were already overfilled. Look a mess, but tasty.Attached FilesComment
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Strip steak tacos with sour cream, Mexican rice with homegrown tomatoes, homegrown pickled peppers, topped with Melinda’s green sauce (a winner!).
I am surprised nobody uses my sour cream first trick to ensure the rest of the ingredients hold together when eating.Attached FilesComment
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Okay this is my last offering for the Taco Smackdown. We had a potluck at church today with a Mexican theme. I really don’t cooking Mexican unless the tortilla used for fish or shrimp makes it Mexican. So, I found some Mexican rub for my Boston Butt smoking it at 225 to an internal temp of 200, and then put in the crock pot with 1 1/2 cup of Mojo Criollo at warm until I was ready to pull it. We also made a recipe for taco slaw that I fund using the Paprika search engine. We rushed to church leaving the slaw at home - go figure. But, the pork must have been a success because the picture is all we had left to sample along with the slaw we left at home. I wish we had remembered to bring the slaw, because it was a nice addition to the pork.
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With just hours to go in this Taco Smack Down, there's been another flurry of activity as lurkers have come out of the wood-work to strut their stuff-ed tortillas. Please don't forget, this competition ends at 12:00 am local time so, as the sun slowly traverses the heavens towards its inevitable plunge into the Pacific, y'all better be singing Elton John's 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me', although we know sunset precedes midnight by a few hours so you can sing Mari Maldaur's 'Midnight at the Oasis', instead. Whatever time sunset is, whatever you sing, midnight or 12:00 am local time is the deadline. Get those last entries in, please!Comment
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I don’t stand a chance in hell from what I’ve seen so far, but here goes. Reverse seared a ribeye crusted with Michael_in_TX ‘s Tex-Mex Seasoning/Rub recipe he posted today. Good stuff folks, let me tell ya! Forget using it just for tacos, I’ll use this stuff again just for a regular steak cook. Sliced the ribeye up for the taco fillings. Grilled some jalapeños, onions and tomatoes for the toppings. The grilled tomatoes didn’t “fit” in the taco cook to me, won’t be doing that again. Anyway, it still turned out pretty good, despite my displeasure with using grilled tomatoes for this cook.
There’s meat in there, trust me!
Pretty good stuff here!
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Well, this is not what I had planned for my finale. My plan…that I set up a week ago…was to end with lamb barbacoa tacos. Had the list of ingredients ready to go for shopping this morning and then…..the washer decides to go kaput….so, that took precedent and ended up taking most of the day, so no lamb barbacoa tacos to celebrate the finale of our taco celebration.
but…..to show just how versatile these wonderful love boats of goodness can be - why not some Thai inspired tacos! I give you my day thrown upside down version of tacos are love….tacos are life:
Crying Tiger Thai Tacos
Like I’ve said before, the fusion of flavors with the tortilla being the vessel for this goodness….if we can do Korean Street Tacos, why not Thai Inspired Tacos. This is flank steak marinated in soy, fish sauce, garlic and chile pepper that is finished in the wok with chile de arbol. Then, topped with a Thai cucumber and red onion salad along with a roasted tomato and chile salsa that balances everything perfectly.
I sliced the flank up for a wok finish, which was great. But I wish I would have left the flank steak whole and cooked it on the grill. I wonder if the flavor would have been a bit more intensified from the flame. Regardless, I really enjoyed these tacos tonight. This is a recipe I have not cooked before, but will be one that I do again, and may look to add this to a wide rice noodle as well.
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I’ve gotta say - what a week this has been. I don’t know that I’ve really had the true opportunity to participate in other “cook offs” or “smackdowns” before, either, mainly because the weekend just didn’t work with the schedule.
but this week, the celebration of tacos are love, tacos are life, this truly showed what this place is about. Doesn’t matter what kind of tacos or what kind of cook it was, it was about sharing our love and joy for food with each other.
It’s been a great week of cooks and tacos and I thank WayneT for hosting this Tacos are Love, Tacos are Life celebration of goodness!
so much here that provided ideas and inspiration for future cooks. I can’t wait to continue to do up some more tacos…because we all know…Taco Tuesday Everyday!!!!!!!!
I hope you all had as much fun as I did seeing everyone’s cooks for the week. This week truly showed what this place is about!
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Thanks to you guys, my taco game is on par, and I wanted to do something simple and tasty for the family. This Carne Asada started early in the day with prepping a mango salsa for the tacos and a marinade for the steak. I placed a 1.5-pound skirt steak into the marinade for about four hours.
When it was time for dinner, I got a fire burning hot in the Weber. I grilled eggplant with olive oil, chili powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Then I toasted a bunch of tortillas over the coals. I let the fire breathe to heat up and seared the steak.
When everything was cooked, I assembled the tacos with a bit of onion, cilantro, radish, jalapeno, and the mango salsa.
Big-time thumbs up at the table from the family!
Last edited by DTro; July 30, 2023, 08:10 PM. Reason: Forgot to add the cheese- no Cotija so had to use fetaComment
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This 2023 Taco Smack Down is now over!
Some important announcements will be coming soon. Please stay tuned.Comment
It's got a nice earthiness that goes well with the Mexican oregano. And I am going to pick up that Cholula salsa.....I've got something this weekend that I think it will go perfect with! 
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