Beef and pepper tacos

I know what you're thinking. "How could you possibly have crispy tacos at work? Do you work at Google?!" The answer is "No, but I do work in a place that has a toaster!" There's a trick to making tacos at work, which I will reveal later on this post. But first, the filling.

Ingredients
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 red onion, peeled and sliced into strips
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 steak (or any other meat)
1 tbsp chili powder
salt to taste
hot sauce to taste

taco shells

Optional: Sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, avocados, etc. I am extremely lazy so I had none of these.

Let's do it!
Heat a non-stick pan (I use a seasoned wok, no teflon) with oil on medium high and throw in the peppers. Fry for about 10 minutes to soften. While this is happening, pound the steak with a meat mallet (heh) to soften it up. Cut into thin slices. Toss in the onion and garlic (these burn easily, which is why you see these black bits in my taco filling) and fry until soft. Add the chili powder and sautee for another minute or so. Add the beef and cook for about 5 minutes, or until done. Season with salt and hot sauce.

Lunch it up!
Throw in a container and bring some taco shells to work. We're going to do this!

If you have a toaster at work, then you can have some nice, crispy tacos. If not, bring some flour tortillas. Turn the toaster to the very lowest setting. Put one taco, open side down so that the two sides go into each slot. Watch this carefully, when it starts to turn colour, pop it out. Do the same with the other taco (I'm assuming you're eating two.)

When that one's finished, put them both into each slot, fold side down. Again, watch carefully. When it's done, it might be tricky to get them out. Use a wooden chopstick if you can, or a knife, but BE CAREFUL. Apparently people get electrocuted by putting metal things into toasters. I've never seen it happen in real life, but there were a few PSAs about it when I was a kid.

Next step: fill taco and consume.

Chicken and bean tacos/rice

No exaggeration, I got a phone call from my coworker, demanding that I tell her what I was having for lunch, since it smelled so delicious. Let me tell you, it tastes as good as it smells.

Ingredients
1 chicken leg (or big chicken breast, whatever), skin separated and reserved, meat diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeno pepper, diced
3 garlic cloves chopped
1/2 cup pinto beans
2 tbsp chili powder
3 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tbsp oil
1/4 cup tomato sauce

cooked rice and/or tortillas

Let's do it!
Mix the meat, chili powder, cilantro, oil and a bit of salt in a bowl and set aside to marinate (in the fridge, preferably)

Heat a pan on medium and put the chicken skin in it. Cook until the fat renders out and you have some oil for frying everything else. (If you're thinking "ew", perhaps you should know that the key to making things delicious is salt and fat. Because you're getting some fat in you, your body will probably register as fuller earlier and for longer.) Throw in the onion, green pepper and jalapeno. Stir fry until soft. At this point, you can take the skin out and toss it. Unless you're a disgusting person like me, in which case you will keep it in to keep the fatty goodness in the meal.

Add the garlic and beans and saute for another few minutes, until the garlic takes on a goldish hue. Apparently cooking the beans longer takes the gassiness out of them. I don't know if this is true, but beans don't seem to result in hilarious gas with me as they seem to do in popular culture.

Add tomato sauce and chicken mixture and saute until the chicken is cooked.

Lunch it up!
If you're me, then you will pour this mixture over some cooked wild and brown rice. If you're my husband, you will wrap it up in a flour tortilla (mixed with rice, maybe? For fibre? Who am I kidding? It's probably going to be processed cheese slices.). Either way, this is a great way to get a ton of veggies in you with the delicious savouriness of meat, without going meat crazy. I had mine with some field greens in balsamic vinegar and oil, just to get the dark leafy green content in.

Fish Tacos

If you were able to read that title without giggling, then you are a better person than I am.

This is one of my favourite recipes ever because it's easy, it's tasty and I just plain love Mexican food. This recipe is based on this recipe on Epicurious. It's totally worth it to the full Epicurious recipe, but this one has less steps and less going on.

Working time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes


Ingredients:
2 white fish filets. (I used frozen basa from the Asian grocery store because it was $2.99 for two large filets! Enough for three meals!!)
1 cup roughly chopped cilantro
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp chili powder
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped (omit if you're not a spicy food fan, though jalapeno is really not that spicy. Maybe this is a good place to start?)
salt
tortillas

Note: Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with soap after handling the jalapeno. I have a friend who didn't do this after making stuffed peppers and had to endure burning hands for hours. Luckily he didn't touch any other parts of his body.

Let's do it!
Mix the cilantro, two tbsp of oil and garlic in a large bowl. Place the fish in this mixture and let marinate for about 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir it around so it's evenly marinating.

Heat up a pan with some olive oil on medium/high. Stir in red onion, green pepper and jalapeno for about 10 minutes, until everything is soft and browned. Put this mixture aside.

Fry each filet in this pan for about 3 minutes each side. The fish is cooked when it flakes easily. When both the filets are cooked through, toss everything back in the pan, including the marinade and break up the fish with the spatula. Mix and sautee for another two minutes. Taste and season with salt if needed. That's it!

A delicious topping (found on the original recipe) is finely sliced red onion with diced jalapenos in red wine vinegar. Super delicious. I have it on mine above there. In my opinion, it totally makes the dish, but it's up to you if you want it.

Pack it up
Obviously, pack the fish separately from your tortillas. You can also chop up some lettuce and tomatoes if you're into that. I like to have some fresh lime to squeeze over this. Also, be prepared to eat this cold if your workplace is dead set against microwaving fish.