After The Chew Table (Sampling The Chew Dishes)

Michael's Tasty Turkey Tacos. 
We put Michael's Turkey Tacos to the Test!

This recipe was quick and easy. Featured on Monday October 17th's show, Michael showed us how to put a lot of food on the table for very little money.

Ingredients:
I purchased ingredients for this meal as well as Carla's Pot Roast. The total bill came to $21 and change. I believe the ingredients for this meal alone came to about $6. I did already have ground turkey, garlic and olive oil at home and I opted against the cumin seeds that the recipe calls for. They were $8 for an ounce...ouch. If I'd bought those items the total would have run me roughly $20 for this meal alone. You can barely pull out of a Starbucks parking lot for $20! Hubby had 3 tacos, I had 2 and we have enough for dinner tomorrow. Nice!

Meal Review
This meal is a quick go-to seeing that most of the ingredients are items we all carry in our pantries.

Meal Challenge
The meal came along nicely, my biggest challenge had nothing at all to do with the meal itself, but in keeping my 7 month old son occupied as I cooked. Hubby walked through the door just as the onions hit my eyes and my son hit his limit.

I ran into a challenge caramelizing the onions for the tomato and bean mixture. I do think this was operator error however, I've never gotten along much with caramelizing, too easily undercooked, too easily burned.

Special Tip

For ground turkey  I let the turkey brown for quite a while until I have brown bits at bottom then add a tsp more oil, trick to make it taste like beef. I also added seasoning salt and garlic salt to the dish. I notice that professional chefs usually don't add these, but I feel a little naked without them. Especially seeing that I didn't have the cumin the dish called for, this was necessary for the finished product.

Suggestions

The recipe calls for a lot of chili powder. Use a heavy hand if you like spice, if you are a wimp like me, use it sparingly. I used 1/2 of what the recipe called for and still found my eyes watering. The lime over the cabbage slaw was a very nice balance however. 

Complete Dish

Lastly in bringing the cabbage slaw together I added coarsely ground pepper to the lime juice. I will definitely use this again, it was almost good enough to be a stand alone salad...who knew!!? I also don't have one of those rind thingies, (the tool that grates lime, lemon and orange rind,) so I just used the juice of a lime.

I also added a little Pace Extra Chunky, Medium. Not that the meal needed it, I just put the stuff on everything. And I will definitely use flour tortillas next time instead of corn. The corn tortillas feel apart and we had to consume with forks. Half the fun of a taco is eating with your hands. But that didn't change how tasty they were. 

Total Cooking Time: 35 minutes

Approximate Cost Per Serving: $5.


Scroll down and view The Chew Down for Monday 10/17 to view Michael's recipe or go to The Chew website at  Michael's Turkey Tacos


After The Chew 
Tiffany Lane-Crane (TLC)