Middle-School Tacos

Make your own hard shells by draping corn tortillas upside down over two wires in your oven rack at 275 degrees for 10-15 minutes depending on how crunchy you want them. Healthier than frying but more flavorful than the pre-shaped ones.

I just got back from Mexico and I must say I admire your defense of the "middle school" taco. The title reminds us it not only ok but is necessary to occasionally put aside our pretensions of seeking only "authentic" this or that. Would we really know any way? It's a good recipe.

These are not "middle school tacos." They're tacos. I live in Guanajuato, Mexico. (The dead center of Mexico.) My mother-in-law, about as Mexican as you can get, makes these all the time. (To make the shells, she fills a tortilla with meat, folds the tortilla over, and then fries it. Probably not super healthy, but delicious). We like to marinate tomatoes and onions in lime juice, and top the tacos with those, lettuce, and sour cream.

I am Mexican American born in Central Texas. I grew up eating these. I still eat them. It's something my nonethnic husband can make for dinner without help. We eat them as flat tostadas too, so you can pile on the lettuce and avocado. Yum.

This was the only Mexican food I ever knew, as a Canadian, until I moved to LA; and married a chef, born and raised in Mexico, who's more likely to wrap a pig in banana leaves than open a kit.

This recipe, though, has me craving that taste of childhood, that crazy contrast of iceburg lettuce, "insta-chorizo", and sour cream.

I make these, using 1lb of beef and a can of refried beans added to the meat mixture. We like the flavor and ups the healthy factor. Also, corn is a popular topping at my house.

Skip the vegetables and seasonings and just pour in about a half bottle of Pace Picante sauce into the browned ground meat - just enough to make the mixture a tad soupy. Perfectly seasoned, great texture and a significant time-saver.

Prepared as written, we enjoyed the memories! In Texas we call these "fragmentation" tacos, the delicious enemies of hot weather white outfits. Provide sturdy napkins and caution guests to lean over their plates.

A few notes about loading... Your grated cheese should be in contact with the hot meat to get the best ooze/crunch ratio. Put a little cheese in the bottom of the shell to create a drip shield, (useless but you tried!) add meat, more cheese, then everything else up top.

I concur with the sentiment in this article. I was an '80s latchkey kid and my working mom would fix a variety 'cultural' foods that now in retrospect were inauthentic but they were 'gateway drugs' to growing up and in to eating culturally diverse foods and being culinary-adventurous, desiring the heated-pulse of asian street-food or branching out towards the house-hold pet turned national dish in ecuador (cuy aka sparkles the guinea pig). short story long, mom primed me

seems like the term "picadillo" contradicts the article "in defense of middle school tacos." you can just call it seasoned ground beef - in this recipe at least it's just homemade taco mix and beef anyway. no one will be upset. you don't have to "elevate" every recipe, esp by calling it something it isn't. i understood picadillo to involve stewed tomatoes, olives, raisins, and maybe potatoes, but perhaps i misunderstood the definition or the writeup?

I consider canned black olives, sliced, an essential topping.

Are we eating children? "Here is a taste of a time when Mexican food was not as widely available in the United States as it is today, when parents and sports bars looked for food to serve children and those who eat like them,"

Trader Joe's has great ones!

The boxed shells from T-Joes are great, and the key to this kind of taco night (for us, at least) is ease of preparation.

Next up: pizza muffins! Brush split English muffins with olive oil, toast on a cookie sheet in a 350 oven. Top with jarred tomato sauce (Rao’s Is great and comes in small jars), dried oregano and basil, and pre-shredded mozzarella. Bake until cheese melts. In all honestly, i’m a great cook (and we have excellent pizza a few blocks away) but I still make a batch of these every few years just for the nostalgia, plus my kids loved them.