I was cleaning out my big freezer and found this tube of croissants in it. I defrosted it and then rolled it out to spread some melted butter, ground cinnamon, and white sugar all over one side before cutting and rolling this into eight small cinnabuns.
Also, I am so old, I had to take a picture of the packaging instructions so I can zoom in the text to know at what temp to bake these suckers.
I found a solution to my drink spilling problem. Behold!
The blowup mermaid tail was stuffed inside the cup when I bought it. It’s cute. Too bad we don’t have a pool. Oh, well. But, no more tip-overs for me. 🙂
The other night I cooked a pizza for dinner, and as we were sitting down to enjoy a few slices with some soda, my fat sausage fingers got me into trouble again. *le sigh*
As I was reaching for another slice, my knuckle knocked the full glass of Fresca that was in front of the pizza on the cutting board, and this caused it to fall over and hit the hard wood board. It smashed and spilled my drink all over, under, and around the pizza slices, along with a bunch of big and small glass pieces.
I had to throw those slices (mine with the black olives) into the trash and work as fast as possible to mop up the drink that was now flowing all over the dining table as well as the cutting board. *le sigh*
“Would you like a some pizza with your broken glass?” asked the husband.
Yet another Tik-Tok I recreated before a video caught my eye. I have all of the equipment and all of the materials, and we love all of these foods, so why not, right?
This one I’m calling The Threefer Breakfast. It’s a waffle that’s been pan fried in some pancake batter on one side, and pan fried again in an omelette mixture on the other side. It sounds complicated and a lot of work, but it’s not. It went faster than I thought it would, and I used the waffle batter for the pancakes after I thinned it out a bit with milk.
That’s all that is involved. I was working on this creation and didn’t get time to take pics of the process but it’s not unlike a battering station as you bread and fry foods. Pick up, dip, drip off excess, drop over the oil. Bing-bang-boom.
Serve with syrup and whipped cream. If you remember and liked the McD’s full breakfast that came in a white Styrofoam container with baby butters and an OJ, you will like this throwback feeling as you eat your Threefer. Makes two.
If you want to make my waffle batter, you can search for the recipe on this blog, and double it.
I watched a few Tik-Tok videos on these little Smash Taco hybrids since it’s all the rage this week, and they looked easy enough. Of course these videos tend to skip a lot of helpful information for the platform format that gets them the most view. Views = impressions, impressions = reach, and reach = virality. And somewhere a long that string is a spot for monetizing the content. But, fear not – I’ve got you covered.
On my journey to make some at home, I quickly discovered the content creators either use extra lean ground meat, resulting in far less grease (but also far less flavour) than my preferred medium ground beef. I don’t understand anyone eating lean and extra lean beef. Why not eat cardboard instead? It would taste about the same IMO.
Anyway, if you made these smash tacos from start to finish without stopping or resting the food, you will end up with a soggy, greasy, unpleasant final product. But, by cooking and then resting the meat on the tortilla, AND wiping out the grease of out your pan, you will notice the meat and tortilla will feel less moist/soggy as you eat it. The other side of the tortilla will them crisp up nicely in the pan better. I burned a few of these tacos in my first test run, but I nailed them in the second test run by keeping the pan clean and at a slightly lower temp in the last stage.
TIP: Season your meat well before you mix it up and divide them into the ~2 oz balls.
TIP: Use a square of parchment over top of the ball when smashing them down with whatever tamping instrument you have on hand all over one side of the tortilla. (I have the tamper that came with my slider pan.) I like to pick up the paper square and move it where I wanted to flatten the meat, and keep doing that until the meat is thin and evenly spread out.
TIP: Put the taco in the bare pan smashed out meat side down. I gave each one about three mins with me pushing them down into the pan for some lovely charred edges.
TIP: Let each taco REST on a wire rack face up for about 3-5 mins while you cook the meat side of any other smash tacos you’re making. REST that damn meat, people!
After you finish cooking the last smash taco on the meat side down, lay the first rested taco one back down into the pan, meat side up. Lay a slice or two of cheese on top at this point, drop the heat a bit, and cover it. Trust me.
It only needs about 1-2 mins to get gooey. Rest the smash tacos back on the wire rack for another 3-5 mins as you top them all with things like pickle slices, special sauce, caramelized onions, lettuce, etc. Whatever you like.
Resist the urge to fold them too early to serve them. The liquids will leak out of the corners instead of redistributing themselves in the meat, the cheese, the toppings, and tortilla. Patience will reward you when you wait to dig in.
I didn’t wait long enough, and there was grease and special sauce left on my plate, whereas the husband’s was made first and rested longer, and well, his plate was practically spotless when we finished eating.
We were going to smoke some ribs on the BBQ but time got away from us today and it’s about to rain, so switch of plans for dinner tonight.
I have been thinking about these small tortilla smash burger tacos, but I only have one large tortilla left, so I’m planning to make a quesadilla version for two. I bought some medium ground beef that I’ll season with S&P, garlic powder, and mince some onion into the mix.
Here is the classic Big Mac sauce I’ll be using. I’m renaming it for this meal idea.
Smash Mac Sauce:
1 C Hellman’s Mayo (I have no idea why this makes it taste better but it does)
2 Tbsp: Vlasic’s Relish / White Wine Vinegar
1 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
1 Tea: Regular Paprika / Garlic Powder / Onion Powder