Off the top of my head

The other day at work, I found myself slurping up leftover spaghetti noodles, thinking "I love food." Naturally, it would only make sense that I devote a portion of my blog to that subject. While my old Cooking & Crafting blog featured a lot of recipes I tried to tailor to meet specific dietary needs, My diet is not vegan, nor paleo, nor gluten-free, nor clean, by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, I believe that food should be closer to nature than to a factory, that if it can be easily made by hand, it should be, that salt is for people without any sense of taste and that the better stuff you put into your body, the better stuff you'll be able to do with your body. That being said, I will never be one to turn down a trip to McDonalds, store-bought Mac and Cheese, a fifth piece of bacon, or an Eggo waffle. After all, I let my taste buds make the decisions!

Over a year ago, I went to a potluck where I planned on bringing lemon meringue pie. That day, I also told Scott I'd bring his supper to work, since he was working late. Unfortunately, this was in the days before I got a little crazy about organization and didn't have menu plans for the week. As the pie was cooling, I looked around the mess of the kitchen, saw nothing but egg yolks and pastry scraps. Out of nowhere, I got an idea for taco pie. It was delicious and filling, but I never made it again. After all, how often do I have extra pie crusts kicking around?

This Christmas I bought pie shells anticipating doing some Christmas baking (a guilty secret, I usually make my pie crust from scratch), and it never happened. Instead, they've sat in my freezer until this weekend, when I remembered about Taco Pie. Of course, I have made a few changes - creating my own taco seasoning rather than the chemical laden one, and choosing to use whole eggs, rather than just the cholesterol-laden yolks I had kicking around that day - but it still was just as good. It's somewhere between a quiche and a meat pie.

Our taco seasoning recipe
(it lives in our spice cupboard!)

Recipe
1/2-2/3 pound ground beef
taco seasoning
water
1/2 pepper, chopped
2 eggs
1-2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
9" pie crust (raw)

1. Brown ground beef.
2. When cooked, mix in taco seasoning and water, according to package instructions (if following my seasoning recipe, use 1/2 c water). Continue cooking until water has mostly evaporated.
3. Mix two eggs, pepper, cheese and meat. Pour into pie crust.
4. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.