Carefree in the kitchen: Taco Salad

Usually when I think of taco salad I think of lots of cheese, lettuce, and ground beef. I love tacos but they really aren't that healthy. However, my wonderful sister Lindsay recently suggested some healthy substitutions! Will the healthy substitutions taste as good as the regular fare? LETS FIND OUT.

We have to start with a sad moment. I opened the freezer to take out my ground beef and oh no, my mom used it to make lasagna for me during her visit when I had my surgery! Rats! I almost gave up on this meal, but my roommate is the best and encouraged me to just go buy some meat. (Will he be right? Let's find out!)

The closest grocery store is Whole Foods and they have a very small selection of ground beef. LAME. Also it was $4.99 a pound. This better be friggin delicious meat. This amount cost $3:
Let's take a moment to acknowledge how disgusting beef looks and smells when it is cooking. People eat this stuff? Cows are made of this stuff? Gross.

Okay now here's the swindling part. This wasn't ground beef at all! It looooks like ground beef but its like they made cuts on the surface. The tricksters! So it didn't crumble apart when I cooked it. I had to get a knife out and cut it up myself (yes, I burned my fingers) (Will it be worth it? Let's find out!)Alright now we drain the meat because otherwise: gross! And then we follow the directions on the back of the taco seasoning pack (Let's not go into detail. That part was boring. Just follow the directions if you can. Basically just add an arbitary amount of water). So let that start simmering and then open the fridge. What vegetables have you got? We can use them all, pretty much!

Today I found a tomato, a red pepper, and an avocado! I also found broccoli but that would be weird in taco salad. What have you got? Almost anything is acceptable.

Alright, what else is healthy. Spinach! Okay, sure. On a plate I assembled lots of spinach, all my vegetables, and a bunch of cheese because cheese is delicious and very necessary for a proper taco salad.
And then on top of that I put the meat (once it's done. The vegetables are really patient and can wait for the meat to take as long as it needs. That's the nice part about this meal). Also then put salsa strategically (I'm not sure what strategy is best to employ, but choose one that works for you). (Will my strategy work? Let's find out!)

The other good part about this meal is called no forks! Just use tortilla chips instead!The only other time in my whole life that I've made taco meat like this is when my whole family went away for March Break one year, leaving just me and my sister behind. We cooked like 3 lbs of ground beef and ate various forms of tacos/nachos/burritos for two meals a day for the entire week. By the end I cried during meals. It left me with a very sad memory of cooking tacos. (Also, for some reason we thought we weren't allowed to turn the heat on. And Ontario is still freezing in March. So we spent the week huddled together for warmth but I guess it was good sister bonding. That was the week I read Ender's Game which is an amazing book. So maybe it was a good week afterall. I don't know, it's hard to say).

Neeeeeedless to say, I was nervous for my second foray into cooking tacos. With all the tumult of the ostensibly ground beef my nerves were only put closer to the edge. Also the avocado was very soft- can they go rotten?

With bated breath (not really) I took my first bite and... DELICIOUS! Oh, good one. Phew. Actually, really super delicious.

Suspicious of my review? Want to make this to see for yourself? Go for it, and be your own boss but I highly suggest the avocado and tomato because they make everything really mushy and homogenous in a heterogeneous way. Is there a word for that? Grade nine science was the worst. (It was the year that you do the reproduction unit and you're just learning about mitosis and meiosis and watching a nice video and suddenly a woman is giving birth right into your face. You know the one? Holy moly.)

Other suggestions
- Diet coke is obviously not a suggestion but a necessity
- Ground turkey instead of ground beef says my sister. But turkey is sort of gross to me.
- Go heavy on the spinach for once. It's so covered in tasty stuff that you can trick yourself into eating lots of it.