Easy American Tacos Bar

Quack

possibly Gluten-free, possibly dairy free, possibly vegan, Possibly vegetarian, possibly low carb, possibly low fat

Taco bars can fit so many diets by how you dress them. Skip the shell and make it a salad, skip the cheese and sour cream and it’s dairy free, go corn shell instead of flour and it’s gluten-free. This makes a great party food.

Note: these are American tacos not Mexican tacos. They both have their own merits and share some ingredients. I recognize that these bare little to no resemblance to the street tacos many of us love.

Possible Ingredients:

Ground beef &/or chicken &/or flank steak &/or fake meat product

Taco seasoning packet (I like McCormick)

Flour tortillas, &/or soft corn tortillas, &/or crunchy corn shells, &/or tortilla chips

Shredded &/or leaf lettuce generally iceberg

Mixed shredded taco cheese

Chopped onion (you can sauté if wanted)

Chopped bell peppers (sauté if wanted)

Avocado &/or guacamole

Sour cream

Picklesd &/or fresh jalapeños

Hot sauces (whatever kind you like but if you are having a party a selection at various heats is nice)

Refried beans &/or black beans

Chopped tomato (I use roma)

Kernel corn

Rice

Instructions:

Cook your meat of choice (or skip if you don’t want meat)

Chop all the toppings to the appropriate sizes and styles you want

Put everything on a surface and assemble whatever Americanized food item you want.

Optional combinations:

Low carb taco salad- shredded lettuce, meat, cheese, onion, peppers, hot sauce, jalapeños

Vegan taco salad- lettuce, black beans, corn, chopped onion, chopped peppers, chopped tomato, avocado, if available vegan cheese &/or fake meat.

Gluten-free tacos- crunchy corn taco shells, meat product (double check spice mix has no flour), lettuce, tomato, pepper, onion, sour cream, cheese, hot sauce, jalapeños

Dairy free Burrito- flour tortillas, black beans, corn, meat, onion, hot sauce, rice

Have fun and mix up your own combos at home.

Nutritional content:

To many options to calculate. I recommend putting your options into my fitness pal or some other nutrition calculator.

Winging it Beef Stew

Quack

Gluten free, dairy free, modify to low carb

Ingredients:

1 lb stew beef

2 containers/8 cups beef stock/broth

6 golden potatoes roughly 3” sized (leave out for low carb)

12 ish baby carrots

1/2 small white onion

Spices: 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp salt

Instructions:

Cut up stew beef into bite sized pieces. (Ours store cuts them into biggish pieces to large for stew/soup)

Brown beef in a skillet. It’ll add a smidge of flavor to the beef and keep it from looking grey when boiled in the broth. (You can skip browning it and it won’t change things a lot).

Dice potatoes into bite sized pieces of roughly equal size. Don’t measure them or anything. If you want this to be lo wish carb leave out the potato.

Dice baby carrots into bite size Pieces of roughly equal size. You could use regular sized carrots but will have to peel them.

Dice onion into bite size pieces of roughly equal size.

Adjust spices based on what you like. Keep in mind some broth/stock has salt and adjust accordingly.

Put everything into a slow cooker and set on high for 4 hrs or low for 6-8 hrs. If you’re home stir it sometimes but you don’t need to. (The benefit of a slow cooker is you set it and walk away).

Rough Nutritional info: (6 servings)

Calories 296, fat 9.6g, carbs 30.9g, protein 22g, iron 10.1%

Modified for low carb: calories 186, fat 9.4g, carbs 4.9g, protein 19g, iron 10.1%

Corn chowder

Quack

Gluten-free, modifiable to vegetarian

Ingredients:

4 cups corn kernels

4 slices (ounces) bacon (or 2 Tbsp butter)

1 1/2 cups diced onion

1 cup diced carrot

1 cup diced celery

4 cups chicken (or veg) stock

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 can diced potato

1 Tbsp salt (to taste)

2 tsp pepper (to taste)

Green onion, tortillas chips, sour cream, and/or bacon bits for garnish

Instructions:

Do all the prep of dicing veggies and cutting up bacon.

I used a Dutch oven but feel free to do it in a large pot or slow cooker. If you use a large pot keep a close eye on it so nothing burns to the edges. (Milk does that)

Cook bacon, when it’s brown, toss the onion in. Cook onion until it’s translucent. Add in carrot & celery and coat it w the bacon grease.

(If you are doing the veg option skip the bacon, melt the butter in the pan, add the onions, cook until translucent, and add in celery + carrots. )

Add in the stock/broth and deglaze the bottom of the pan. This is just making sure you stir in the brown stuff from the bacon that is sticking to the bottom. It gets the tasty bacon in it.

Add milk, heavy cream, salt, & pepper. Know that at this point everything is cooked so it’s fine to taste. But you really wanna heat the milk and cream for awhile. It changes the flavor. Plus, this one is a hot soup.

Add in corn. Frozen, canned, fresh off the cob. Use whatever you have. If you use canned i’d drain them and rinse. We get several dozen ears of corn once a yr and process it so we can have close to fresh corn all yr. it’s a tiring day and I don’t expect everyone to do it but I like having it.

About 15-30 min before you pull the soup off the stove add in potatoes to get hot. If you use fresh potatoes I’d add them right after the corn but I like canned potatoes cause lazy. Canned ones are almost done being cooked cause of the canning process.

Rough Nutrition:

394 calories, 42.g carbs, 18g fat, 12g protein, 5.3% daily iron.

Thank you to natashaskitchen.com thechunkychef.com foodandwine.com simplyrecipes.com whose recipes I read to put together what I liked and avoid what I didn’t.

Cheesy chicken and peas risotto

Quack

Gluten-free & can be vegetarian

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup Arborio Rice

3 Tbsp butter

Small onion

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth/stock

2 or 3 boiled & cubed chicken or ham or leave it out

Frozen peas

1 1/2 cups shredded mixed cheeses

Salt and pepper to taste

Instruction:

Take pre cooked chicken out of freezer and defrost (I precook chicken whenever I buy it because it is cheaper to buy 6-8 chicken breasts than 2-3. I boil it, cube it, divide it into per meal sizes, & freeze it.)

If you don’t have pre cooked chicken feel free to either leave it out or cook some. If you want a vegetarian meal leave out the chicken & use veg broth.

In a large pan melt the 3 tablespoons of butter. Add in the onion and cook until translucent. When butter is melted, & onions are ready, add the rice to the pan. Toast the rice. It will still be hard at this point and that’s as it should be.

Start adding chicken or vegetable broth 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time. stir constantly until you can part the rice and almost no liquid oozes out. Add until the rice is just about done. Add salt and pepper sometime during this slow adding of broth.

When you are adding the last bit of broth add the chicken and peas so they heat. When the liquid is cooked off and the chicken and peas are hot/warm take it off the heat.

(I use peas because they cook fast and easy. If you don’t want peas feel free to leave out or add a different veggie but if using something else you might need to pre cook them.) (you could add cubes of ham, or some other meat product (nothing to greasy) or leave it out all together).

Add the cheese and stir until melted in. Notice I didn’t specify what kind. That’s because it barely matters. Basically if you can shred it you can use it. Probably not great to use goat cheese or feta but I haven’t tried it maybe it’s awesome. Risotto purists say you can’t use pre shredded cheese but I have done this with pre shredded cheddar and Parmesan cheese and was just as happy as when I hand shredded it.

Enjoy!

Nutrition ish:

4 servings

Calories 690, fat 22.2g, carbs 67g, protein 51.7g

Dill Pickle Soup

Quack

Gluten free, vegetarian

Psst… there are only 2 of us so I usually make a half batch.

Psst psst wash your veggies.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 seeded and rough chopped English cucumbers

1 seeded and diced English cucumber

1/4 cup White vinegar

3/4 cup chopped dill

1 3/4 cup sour cream

2 tsp salt

2 tsp black pepper

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 bunch Green onion (40 grams roughly)

Instructions:

Purée the rough chopped cucumber and vinegar until smooth and transfer to a large bowl

Whisk or blend in sour cream, heavy cream, dill, salt, & pepper.

Stir in diced (pretty cucumber) and scallions.

Cover and chill overnight. I like to store this soup in canning jars. serve cold

Inspiration:

original recipe from Zingerman’s bake house. Changes have been made.

Nutrition: (makes 6-8 bowls)

Calories – 272, carbs – 11.9g, fat – 23.3g, protein – 3.8g, dietary fiber – 1.4g

Freezing corn for later

Quack

Quick guide: shuck, clean, boil, vacuum seal, & freeze.

More details below.

Step 1 – get corn in season for cheap in bulk. I go to a local farm that has a small store but you might go to a market or grow your own.

Step 2 – shuck corn (remove the green outside and as many of those little hairs you can) we like to do this outside when the weather is nice cause those hairs get everywhere.

Step 3 – get your biggest stock pot and start heating the water.

Step 4 – while you wait for that to heat rinse corn.

Step 5 – cut cobs to manageable pieces and cut off icky bits.

Step 6 – boil corn for 4 min.

Step 7 – put boiled corn into an ice bath to cool.

Step 8 – sort corn for vacuum sealing . I put them on this cookie sheet w a grid thing so that it dries. I sort by size so we can vacuum seal better.

Step 9 – vacuum seal

Step 10 – freeze

Broccoli salad

Quack

Gluten-free

Ingredients:

8 cups of broccoli

1/3 cup of real hormel bacon bits

1/2 cup red onion minced

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup golden raisins

Dressing:

1 1/2 cup mayo

1/3 cup sugar

3 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

Instructions:

Mix chopped broccoli, chopped onion, sunflower seeds, chopped bacon, & raisins.

Mix mayo, sugar, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and salt.

Pour dressing over broccoli mix. Let sit refrigerated for a day stirring occasionally. Enjoy.

Inspired by:

Themodernproper.com

Rough Nutritional Guide:

12 servings, 354 calories, 16.2 carbs, 2.6g fiber, 19.6g fat, 11.3g protein.

Nectarine Cobbler

Quack

Gluten-free, vegetarian

Ingredients:

Fruit filling:

2 cups nectarines sliced

1Tbsp sugar

1tsp King Arthur gf flour

Squeeze of lemon juice

Topping:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 brown sugar

1/3 cup King Arthur gf flour

1/3 cup oats

1/4 tsp baking powder

Healthy dash salt

3 Tbsp soft butter

3/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 egg

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix the sliced nectarines, lemon juice, & sugar in a sauce pan and heat until they get wet but not until they’re mush. Remove from heat and add flour.

Mix all the dry ingredients for the topping. Then add the wet ingredients.

Grease pan, add filling, put on topping by the spoonful.

Cook for 25-35 minutes until topping is lightly browned.

Great with vanilla ice cream.

Inspired by:

Spicysouthernkitchen.com

Rough Nutritional information: 185 calories, 6.5g fat, 32g carbs, 2g protein

Cheesy grits and eggs

Quack

Gluten Free, Vegetarian, low carb

Ingredients:

2 cups 2% milk

2 cups water

1 1/2 tsp salt (if using a salty cheddar skip)

1 cup quacker old fashioned grits (I use 5 min oats cause I’m lazy)

1 tsp fresh cracked pepper

4 tsp butter

4 oz shredded cheddar (I use Cabot)

4 eggs

Bacon fat or butter (depending on diet) to grease pan

Green onion for garnish

Instructions:

Bring milk, water, & salt to boil. whisk frequently and make sure to get the corners

Add grits. Whisk frequently making sure to get the corners. Whisk until creamy. Add water or milk if needed.

Melt bacon grease or smidge of butter in a skillet or pan. (not the 4 tsp those go in grits). Start scrambled eggs.

Add butter to grits as they get creamy, take off heat and stir in cheese.

Make sure you’re scrambling the eggs.

Dish out 4 bowls of grits, put 1 egg on top, and garnish.

Rough Nutritional Info:

Calories- 399, Carbs- 13.1g, Fat- 30.8g, Protein- 17.9g,

Inspired By: Alton Brown on foodnetwork.com

Beef roast

Quack

Gluten free, Dairy free , low carb optional

Rough Ingredients:

One beef roast (that fits in your slow cooker)

Celery (enough to cover the bottom of your slow cooker)

One onion

Water

5 ish carrots full size or 1 cup baby carrots

1.5 lbs potatoes of your choice (or whatever fits

1-2 tsp garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Line the bottom of your slow cooker with celery stalks like a raft

Put the roast on top of celery w the fat cap side up. It is important to get a roast with fat marbled throughout.

Put some water in the bottom. Do not put enough that it is touching the roast. You don’t want to boil the meat. You just want to keep the veg that is touching the sides from burning.

Add seasonings. Do not replace dried garlic w fresh. It will burn and make things gross. If you need a low sodium diet leave off the salt.

Cut carrots and place them around the roast if using baby carrots. If you are using big carrots move this step up and add the carrots as part of the raft. Do not put to many carrots in or you may end up with a very carrot flavored roast.

Cut potatoes to a reasonable and consistent size. If you get russet potatoes you will want to peel them too. Add around the roast.

Cut up one onion and place on top. I’d avoid red onions for this usage.

I have a slow cooker w a probe and cook it on slow until it reaches 165F on low. I know some people like their roast rarer and if that’s you just lower the temp. Cook roast for roughly 6-8 hrs on low or 4-8 on high although a roast cooked on high will probably be tougher and better suited to be turned into stew later. (Psst if you find your roast is tougher than you’d like don’t toss it but turn it into tomorrow’s stew. ;))

Inspired by:

Probably Betty crocker. My mom cooks a lot w Betty Crocker but I wanted to do mine without soup mix so it’s been modified.

*non of the veggies are vegetarian cause they were cooked w the meat.

** skip potatoes if you want it to be low carb

Rough Nutritional Information:

Roast beef – 4oz- 223 calories, 11g fat, 315 mg sodium, 1.2g carbs, 39.1g protein

Steamed potato – 100g- 132 calories, 23g carbs, 2.3g protein, 2.6g fat

Steamed carrots – 1oz- 10 calories, 2.2g carbs, .2g fat, .2g protein