When I learned that hubby and my son had made Taquito Pie while my daughter and I were at a vendor show sharing about Norwex and greener cleaning, I was very eager to have it for dinner! Just over a year ago, my hubby came up with this recipe for Beef Taquitos. They were immediately a hit in our family and they make a great freezable meal too! As delicious as they are – preparing them can be a wee bit time consuming with all of the rolling of tech taquito, so his latest version, instead of calling Taquito Pie, I will call it Beef Taquitos for lazy people. I’m kidding – it makes a great casserole for the family and as is all of hubby’s cooking, it is super yummy!

Generally, my wife does the majority of the cooking in our house because I work outside the home, and if I were responsible for dinner, sometimes dinner would not get served until the children were in bed. However, I enjoy cooking, so on weekends I try to get working in the kitchen as much as I can. And since happy wife equals happy life I don’t want to die being smothered in my sleep I like being a good husband and partner, I also try to make things in bulk that can be frozen and thawed for a quick and easy dinner during the week. Which is how I found myself making up a recipe on my drive into work last Thursday.

Now, before we continue, I have to caution you, dear reader, about how I cook. I rarely follow a recipe. I will read a recipe, but it’s taken with about as much weight as my eleven year old daughter takes my opinion; which is to say, as a suggestion to be ignored when convenient. So, what follows is more of a guide than a recipe. I apologize in advance to those rule followers out there.

What you’ll need:

• ground meat (I used equal parts lean ground pork and lean ground beef; I recommend you do the same since: one, lean meat is more flavourful than extra lean, and you’re going to drain the fat anyways; and two, the mixture of pork and beef tastes fantastic)
• finely chopped sweet onion
• garlic cloves (rasped/finely grated)
• cooking oil
• tomato paste
• chicken (or beef) stock
• cumin
• salt
• white pepper
• smoked paprika
• large tortillas
• shredded cheese

The more observant readers will notice the absence of numbers above. That’s because I don’t live in your house, so I don’t know what everyone likes. Maybe little Timmy is a picky little snot won’t eat anything with onions in it; maybe your mother-in-law doesn’t like too much cumin. My father used to say (in broken english with a thick italian accent), “Me, I make-a it like dis. You, you make-a it how you family like. Is all da same food.”

Some of you are probably all like, Well that’s just great… no weights, no amounts, no measurements. Thanks for nothing. So fine. For three casseroles, I used about 4lbs meat, 2 medium onions, 3 cloves garlic, and a 369ml (really big) can of tomato paste. The rest? Season to taste.

What you’ll need to do:

1. Chop the onion into small pieces and rasp the garlic.
2. Cook in oil over medium heat in a skillet until onion is translucent.
   
3. Add ground meat to skillet and continue cooking.
4. Season with cumin (liberally; cumin will give it the distinctive flavour), salt, and white pepper.
   
5. If you want to be exactly like me, cook meat partway, then say, “Crap, I forgot to add the smoked paprika!” and add the smoked paprika.
   
6. Cook until no trace of pink remains in the meat.
7. Drain most of the fat from the pan. I left a little for flavour and to add some liquid for the next steps.
8. Add tomato paste and stock, and mix well. You want a little liquid, but not a soupy mixture.
   
9. Let the meat simmer for at least 10 minutes to allow flavours to penetrate.
   
10. Grease your casserole dish with cooking oil. (Or don’t, you know, if you like chipping away burnt crusty pieces off the dish when cleaning.)
11. Cut tortillas into pieces and put a layer on the bottom of the dish.
12. Add a layer of the meat mixture.
    
13. Add a layer of shredded cheese (note that in this image I let an almost eight year old decide how much cheese was “enough”; you may find less cheese works equally well)
    
14. Repeat with layers of tortilla, meat, and cheese, finishing with a tortilla and a little cheese on top.
15. Bake covered in the oven at 350F until hot. (Ours was refrigerated and took a little over 90 minutes to heat.)

Serve with corn, and/or salad, and/or bread, and/or bacon. Whatever you and your family like as a side dish.

Amanda here again…..I dragged some more specific measurements out of hubby for when I try to make this dish you, but I did promise that I would keep his recipe post as is and them in as an editor’s note.

• 4 lbs meat
• 2 medium chopped onions
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp white pepper
• 4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 6-8 tsp cumin
• 2 cups chicken stock

This post was written by my hubby! He says he is “A husband, a father, and an engineer. In that order.”