Cooking for Me

Taco Salad in a Shell + Spanish Rice + Wild Berry Muffins

• 1 pound hamburger meat
• 1 pkg Taco Seasoning
• 1 large Tomato Chopped
• Cheese-Shredded
• 1 onion Chopped
• Taco sauce-optional
• Sour Cream-Optional
• Salsa-Optional
• 6 Tortillas
• Cooking spray
• Lettuce-Shredded

1.  Cook the hamburger meat in a skillet until it is brown and cooked through.  Break it up into crumbles.  If ther eis a lot of fat in the pan, drain the meat.*  Return the meat to the pan and fallow the taco seasoning directions on the package.
2. preheat the oven to 425.  Coat a 6 cup jumbo muffin pan with cooking spray*  press a tortilla into each cup and spray the tortillas lightly with cooking spray.  Season to taste*
3. Bake the cups for 8 to 10 minutes until they are golden in color.  Place the muffin pan on a rack and let the tortillas cool completely.
4. Now assemble your taco cups.  Add the meat, cheese, sour cream, on ion, slsa or anything else you would enjoy.

*If you don’t have a jumbo muffin pan, use small oven proof bowls.  Regular muffin pans are too small.

Spanish Rice

• 1 box Rice-A-Roni Spanish Rice Mix
• 2  Tablespoons of butter
• 2 Cups of water
• 14 0z can of diced tomatoes.

1.  Combine the Rice-A-Roni mix and the butter in a large skillet
2. Sute over medium heat until the vermicelli is golden.  Stir this frequently or it will burn.
3. Slowly add the water and the seasoning package and the tomatoes, and bring to a boil.*
4. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low, Simmer*U for 15-20 minutes or until the rice is tender, Serve.

You might enjoy adding some corn to the spanish rice, also cooked sausage or cooked green bell pepper might be nice also

Wild Berry Muffins–Makes 6 small muffins

• 1 Martha White Wild Berry Muffin Mix
• 1/2 cup milk
• 6 Cupcake papers

1. Preheat oven to 425
2.  Using a small bowl, stir the mild and mix together–Don’t overmix.  STir just until the dry mix is all mixed up.
3. Divide the batter into the six-paper cups using a muffin pan
4. Bake 14-18 Minutes or until golden brown.

Of course, there are many kinds of muffins mixes.  Choose one that is easy to make and only makes a few muffins.

*Words to know

Optional–This work means, it is up to you.  if you want to add that ingredient, do it!  If you don’t want that ingredient, leave it out.  It’s your choice.

Drain the Meat–It’s not good to eat a lot of fat/grease, so if you are cooking meat, like hamburger, drain the meat by doing this.  Put a colander in a large bowl, put eh meat in the colander, and allow a few minutes for the fat to fall into the bowl.  Go ahead and use the cooked hamburger.  Allow the bowl to sit on the counter for awhile so the fat will solidify-to harden.  While you are cleaning up, put the fat into the garbage can and wipe the bowl with a paper towel.

• NEVER EVER PUT FAT/GREASE DOWN THE DRAIN!!!
• *Season to taste--This means add seasoning until it’s just right for you.
• *Boil–This means to heat a liquid until large bubbles rise to the top and break
• *Simmer–This means to heat a liquid just under the boiling point.  Small bubbles will come to the top.
• Rice-A-Roni--This is one of many brands of seasoned cooked rice products.  It’s rice and vermicelli.  Vermicelli is a very thin type of spaghetti noodle.  Rice-A-Roni comes in many flavors.  Each box makes about 4 small servings.

Safety Tips Good to Know:

1.  Simmering and boiling liquids are very hot, so be careful not to burn yourself.  Boiling bubbles often pop out of the pan and may burn your skin.
2. Steam also burns.  Steam is a liquid that has been heated so hot that it turns into a vapor or gas.  It is just like boiling water but in a cloud form so when lifting a lid from a hot skillet, turn the lid away from you iso that the hot steam doesn’t go up in your face.

What is a convenience food?

It is a food that has labor already added.  Canned foods are easy to use and so are frozen foods.  People are busy and looking for ways to make good food for their families, so easy to make foods are helpful.  Caution should be taken.  Don’t use too many premade or ready-made foods.  They might have too much salt, sugar, fat or calories.  The first cake mix was invented in 1933 by Duff & Sons of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  They made a gingerbread mix and only needed water.  The military uses convenience foods.  MRE–means Meals Ready to Eat.