Thinking Outside the Prepackaged Box: Hasta Luego Old El Paso!

It’s been a goal of mine for a long time to completely obliterate pre-packaged and processed food from my diet. On those days when I find myself in tears because all I want is a piece of frickin’ cake, I have to think of the silver lining of the celiac’s storm cloud. In a sense, my food allergy means I can’t willingly gorge on junky processed foods because in most cases these foods are rife with gluten. Let’s just say I have a leg up in this whole conundrum – but it doesn’t necessarily mean I get away with a clean break. And you know who is to blame? Mexicans!

I love Mexican food. I almost love Mexican food more than my sweet cat. And just look at her?? How can you not love this little sleeping baby tiger?

Mexican food is extremely gluten friendly – probably the most gluten free friendly food in the world. Other than the flour tortilla, most Mexican food I’ve eaten is based around the two loves of my life; rice and corn. Plus, it’s so simple! The flavors are super fresh and just so darn tasty. Tomatoes, avocados, cheese? Yummy! To sum it up, I get a burrito bowl at Boloco at least once a week and am totally content on eating nachos for dinner for the rest of my life. Mexican food es la bomba!

La La La La La La Bamba!

Since Mexican food is rather simple, making it from scratch should not be that hard. However, I think most of us out there rely heavily on brands like Old El Paso and Ortega when they want to have Taco Night at home. But is this really necessary? Can a delicious Taco Tuesday be had without an envelope of processed taco seasoning?? I say si!

From a gluten free stand-point, you certainly can get a taco making kit that is gluten free. Actually for this challenge I bought hard taco shells, which are made from corn. They give me a certain nostalgia for Taco Day at good old Eastham Elementary School! A quick perusal of the Mexican section at Shaw’s turned up several packets of taco seasoning mix that were in fact gluten free. However stay away from the Taco Bell brand as that does contain wheat flour. Actually stay away from Taco Bell in general. That place is muy gross.

Yet, the point of all this was to make my own tacos, from scratch! Even with this lofty goal, I didn’t see the harm in sneaking a peak at what the heavy hitters used in their mixes. Here’s the back of a packet of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix.

A few interesting things here:

1. The first ingredient is a food additive! Today’s fun fact: Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide aka a complex sugar. It usually appears in the form of a white powder (the anthrax of cuisine!) and is easily digestible.

2. Since this is a powder – the ingredients are all in powder format. Garlic powder, onion powder, cornstarch, etc. Yum….powder?

3. I once read somewhere that if you can’t pronounce the ingredients on a food label, you should not buy that food. Case in point: Ethoxyquin. On the bright side, that would be an excellent word to use in Scrabble!

4. It looks like they reduced the sodium. It used to be 370 mg. Now it's 270 mg. Hot dog! Still – this is per serving and I think there were 6 servings in this whole packet. So that’s about 1600 mg of sodium for the whole batch. I am a huge lover of salt – and am constantly dousing my food in it. But using table salt is usually not the culprit when you are talking about your sodium levels, it's food like this!

5. It sort of freaks me out when ingredients on a label get too general. For instance – “Spice” is listed. To me, you can't really general spices like you can milk or butter. There are about 20,000 different spices out there. So tell me Old El Paso, WHICH ONE IS IT?!!

6. My manicure is sweeeeeeeeet.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve used this brand many of times, and despite my qualms with it, it’s mighty tasty. It’s good for what it is, but it makes me wonder why I can’t make own version without all the weird chemicals? Let the challenge begin!

Here’s what I assembled from my pantry to make my from scratch taco mix.

1. 1/4 cup onion, diced

2. 3 cloves of garlic chopped

3. 2 T chili powder

4. 2 T cumin

5. a few dashes of Worcestershire

6. cornstarch

7. a few dashes of Tabasco

The reason for using most of these ingredients is pretty obvious. I took everything that Old El Paso dried, and used the non-dried version. Chili powder is a staple in Mexican cuisine, as is cumin. I chose Tabasco for the heat. Cornstarch, in case I needed a thickening agent. Why the Worcestershire you ask? While at Shaw’s I saw Rick Bayless, a well known chef who cooks amazing Mexican cuisine, has his own brand of taco seasoning mixes out. Interestingly enough, his were not in powder form but were delivered sauce-like in these little pouches. I took a quick look at his ingredients and saw Worcestershire. Interesting, I thought. Worcestershire is a great addition to any meat based meal – it adds a great level of umami and overall deliciousness without really adding any specific tastes that would throw your flavors off.

I started with a nice hot pan and threw in a little bit of olive oil. Next, went the onion and garlic and after a few minutes, I added the ground beef. Once all the meat was nice and browned, I added the chili powder, cumin, Worcestershire, and the Tabasco. (I would say use your judgement when you are adding these spices. Depending on what level of heat you can tolerate, I would use more than the measurements I gave above. Truthfully, I probably did. Cooking is not an exact science.) After a few good stirs and a few moments of simmering, I started to taste. Something was definitely missing. I decided not to use the cornstarch since I didn’t think there was enough liquid to need thickening up. I feared that if I did use the cornstarch we would have had taco paste. But I did come to the conclusion that I needed things to be saucier. What did I have that could do the trick without disturbing the Mexican flavors?

Well much to my chagrin, my secret ingredient ended up being as American as it gets. Ketchup! I also threw in some salsa, so basically more tomatoes. It did the trick though! Here is my final product as it simmered on the stove.

And here it is in taco format! Now I know this looks like a taco shell filled with guacamole (what can I say? I love my guac!) but trust me, there is taco meat in there. For the most part, my think outside the pre-packaged box challenge was a success! Maybe next time, I would add a can of diced tomatoes and simmer everything down, to really achieve that saucy consistency. Other than than that, I think I have Old El Paso beat. Hit the Rio Grande Senor!