Sneakily delicious dishes that bring all the omnivores to the yard! Look for the cookbook in 2010!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Spaghetti Tacos



Okay, so this is really embarrassing, but the one show on TV that me, the Supertoddler, and the Ninjahusband can agree on is iCarly. Don't look at me like that! How often can you find a show that makes you laugh so hard you almost pee, but that is also clean enough for your 2-year-old to watch? Anyway, suffice it to say that we are big iCarly fans in our family.

On iCarly, Carly's older brother Spencer is famous for his "spaghetti tacos". They never explain what they are, and when I went looking for a recipe, all I could find was the following "recipe" from the iCarly site:

Get taco shells.
Get spaghetti (with meat sauce).
Get a BIG spoon.
Use the BIG spoon to put spaghetti into taco shells.
Eat.
Burp.

That didn't really sound like the most delicious thing to me. After bouncing some ideas off the Ninjahusband, we decided to make spaghetti tacos of our own, likely a little more elaborate than the above "recipe". We made them today for lunch, and they came out deliciously. Once we got over the slight weirdness of the texture of the spaghetti in the taco shells, we couldn't get enough of them. Supertoddler loved them too!


Spaghetti Tacos are serious business.


Mmm delicious!

We deliberated as to whether to go the Italian spaghetti route, or whether to stick with the Mexican/taco theme. We decided ultimately that Mexican-flavored spaghetti would be more fitting, plus afforded us the opportunity to add yummy tacolicious toppings. Here is our "recipe":

Spaghetti Tacos
{Makes 12 tacos.}

1 12oz package Smart Ground Mexican-Style Crumbles {or equal quantity of your other favorite crumbles}
1 14oz can tomato sauce
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1/3 lb spaghetti noodles, broken into 2 - 3" pieces
12 taco shells
your favorite taco toppings {we used Tofutti Better-Than-Sour-Cream, guacamole, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes}

1. Stir fry the crumbles on medium heat until browned and heated through. Add tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and oregano. Turn the heat to medium low and let the sauce simmer while you cook the spaghetti.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and cook until tender, about 9 minutes. Drain. Mix noodles with sauce.

3. To construct the tacos, fill about 1/2 way with spaghetti mixture. Top with sour cream, guacamole, or whatever toppings you've chosen. Eat! {Burping optional.}

3 comments:

  1. haha, i've been eagerly awaiting this recipe. tempting to try this tonight, but i don't have half the toppings. i still haven't caught iCarly yet, but this looks surprisingly good. also appears as though Oliver highly approves!

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  2. I gotta say if I'm flipping channels for something and iCarly is on, I pause to watch. And this idea is pure gold. That looks fantastic; so glad you made it! Food nerdiness is yes! Glad to know I'm not the only one that instantly wants to make/eat stuff I see in shows/books I like.

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  3. I TOTALLY love iCarly, mainly because I have a secret crush on Spencer. He's like, 36 I think, which is much older than I thought.... My 10-year-old loves it too, fortunately, (so I don't look too foolish tuning in all by myself). My daughter asked me to try making Spaghetti Tacos last year and they're a pretty regular menu item now!!

    GREAT blog by the way, just ran across it tonight...

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