Amazing Taco Salad

Can I just say yum?

Dinner last night was actually amazing. A combination of healthy, and not so healthy as that's how I'm going to try to run my life for a while.

We make fabulous, scrummy, delicious, rich, creamy, did I say scrummy? Oh yes I did...well we make homemade ranch dressing at the restaurant that is slurrrrrpalicious. I brought home 2 small (OK not so small as they're 2oz cups so that's 4T)containers of the heavenly sludge. I drizzled a bit of one of them on my salad. A total improvement for me as last week I'd have used both containers on just my salad!

OK, so here's what I did. No pics...sorry but trust me, it looked fantabulous!

Ground chicken. Yep, 97% extra lean Butterball ground chicken. Ya, Wal-Mart quit selling Jennie-O...I liked the Extra Lean 99% FF...will find it somewhere later. This worked for last night. Ground chicken can be a bit bland as some of you know...but I'm trying to get away from eating red meat all the time. I'm trying to embrace the bird, ya know?

OK, so now, really, here's what I did.

Ground chicken (think it was 19.5 oz)
1 perfect unblemished jalapeno pepper (meticulously diced into teeny, tiny, perfect little square pieces)
4 cloves of garlic - peeled and diced this . size. This * size if you're feeling spicy.
1/2 red bell pepper- diced into pea sized pieces.
1/4 cup Taco seasoning mix
1 Vadalia onion, diced however you like your onion diced. I like mine small.

I put a bit of safflower oil into the sauce pan. Yes, I use a 3 quart saucepan when browning ground meat. Keeps the splatter down and is perfect for adding the rest of the junk to the ground meat without overflowing the frying pan.

To the hot oil I added the onion and stirred. Looked at it a while, inhaled the gorgeous vapor. Poked at it with my favorite wooden spoon. I like to poke.

I now added the red pepper. More inhaling and poking.

Now add the garlic and jalapeno. Careful inhaling must now ensue. Don't ask how I know this.

After the chicken loses it's pinkness, and the onion, garlic, pepper, and jalapeno have permeated the meat, add the taco seasoning mix and about 1/2 cup of water. Poke it around a bit more with the spoon and cover and turn heat to low.

Move on to the taco chips. I picked up my favorite low fat whole wheat tortillas. Read the ingredient package past the whole grain part and holy shit they had hydrogenated oil!!!! You have freaking got to be kidding me! I then picked up the low carb Mission....the list of ingredients were long and scary. Not really even sure it was whole grain. I then picked up a package of corn tortillas. Whole ground corn and 2 other ingredients. Ah, ya. Let's have those! I heated safflower oil in the pan, sliced the tortillas into strips and fried the daylights out of them. Yep, I fried. Next time I want to slice them, toss them in a bowl with 1 teaspoon of oil and bake them in the oven. Hey, I'm learning! After they were golden and crispy, I turned them out onto paper towel and hit them with salt. I did measure the oil in the pan before and after and there was only 2 teaspoons missing and some of that was left on the paper towels. Not too bad, but not how I'll do it next time even if it is a healthy oil.

Let's move on the the accouterments shall we?

Lettuce - I like mine shredded small
Tomatoes- diced small of course
Vadalia onions- you know the drill
Avocado- yum!
Cheese if you need it. I find that the strong flavors of everything else drowns out the cheese anyway so I usually prefer to skip it. Last night I diced up (ya I know, I have a dicing fetish!) up about an ounce of 2% Velveeta. It was totally YUM!

I took a large dinner plate (yep, I usually eat on a lunch plate. Screw that last night!) and I put a small serving of the meat. Smelled and looked fabulous. On top of the hot meat, I put the little diced Velveeta. Got all melty and yummy. Now the onions...a buffer between the hot and cold stuff you know? Now the lettuce and then the avocado and tomato. Looked like a pretty little rainbow! I then drizzled some of my ranch dressing over it and then some chips. HOLY SHIT IT WAS FABULOUS! In place of ranch dressing I usually mix fat free sour cream with taco sauce or salsa...didn't want to do that last night.

So, dinner had veg. Yay!
Dinner had lean meat. Yay!
Dinner had crunch. Double Yay!
Dinner had flavor. Triple Yay!
Dinner would have had beans had I remembered to soak and cook any. Oops!

Just had to share.

Chef's note: Do NOT rub any private, tender part with your hands after meticulously dicing jalapeno peppers. Either yours, or those of anyone else.

:-)