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Taco Spaghetti - the kids love it! Adults love it, too! lol!
Tip: I make a giant package of Ground Beef, add the Taco Seasoning - a lot - I pour it in - lol! Then I use about 2 cups of the cooked ground beef for the first night of Taco Spaghetti, and put the rest of the meat in baggies (roughly 2 cups of meat per baggie), pop them in the freezer, for whenever you want to make this quick and delicious meal, again - super easy, make-ahead meal starter : ) Then the next time you make Taco Spaghetti, it's a great meal in about 10 minutes - yahoo! Easy and delicious!
Taco Spaghetti (or whatever pasta you have in the house!)
Ingredients:
1 pound Ground Beef (or Ground Chicken or Turkey)
1 Large Can of Tomato Spaghetti Sauce or 1 Large Can of Diced Tomatoes (or both! Yum!)
3 to 6 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning Mix or a Package or Two if you can't find the big containers at
Costco...
Directions:
1. Brown 1 pound of Ground Beef in a Skillet (You can use a lot less meat, if you like -- it'll still be good!)
2. Add Tomato Spaghetti Sauce or Diced Tomatoes. (I add a can of Diced Tomatoes to whatever sauce is left over, the next day, and is soo fresh and delicious, and a great way to have 'leftovers' - or, play it again, Sam - lol!)
3. Stir in Taco Seasoning.
4. Cover, turn the heat down to Simmer, and leave for at least 20 minutes, or until you remember you were cooking something! ha,ha,ha!
5. Go ahead and put the water on for the Spaghetti. (One large 'handful' of Spaghetti is usually enough for a family of four).
Cook Spaghetti, stirring occasionally. If you're looking for the 'Extra-Healthy' Version, try Whole Wheat Pasta...
6. Strain Spaghetti. Rinse cold water over the noodles so they don't 'stick'.
This is a 'Serve it yourself' meal at our house, so everyone takes the amount of Spaghetti and the amount of Sauce that they want. : ) Yum!
I serve this with Grated Cheddar Cheese and a nice loaf of French Bread -- Easy and delicious!
If you ever have any extra Taco Spaghetti left over, you can put it in an oven-proof dish, and pop it in the freezer. (Remember you can only do this if the meat was fresh, not frozen. If the meat was frozen, just plan to eat the left-overs the next day...) After you thaw it out for the next time, add some grated Mozzarella Cheese and bake it in the oven. Voila! Baked Spaghetti!
 Now we make the Taco Meat in a giant pot, buy the big thing of Ground Meat at the grocery store, when it's a good price, then we save it in baggies, 2 cups of cooked meat per bag - is fantastic, since then we use the first couple of cups of the cooked Taco Meat into the next pan, add the Diced Tomatoes (I like the Diced Chili Tomatoes), or you can add a can of Spaghetti Sauce, or I just like the can of Crushed Tomatoes, since, that's all nice and healthy... you're hardly adding any extra chemicals... not that I'm crazy about that, but I like to 'eat clean', wherever you can, so wherever you can use the real deal, go ahead and do that...  See how easy? Then you put the rest of the meat into baggies, use the same pot to cook your pasta : ) I added a can of the Chili Tomatoes into the big pot, then another can of Chili Tomatoes in the next pan... yum! So fresh and delicious!  See all the little bags of cooked Taco Meat - so easy for the next meals, when you want to make a good meal, really quickly. You can take them out the freezer, thaw in the microwave for a couple of minutes, cook in the pan for the next batch of Taco Spaghetti - yum! : ) And look what we figured out the last time we made our fave Taco Meat - Carefully put the baggie over the Can of Tomatoes (Crushed, Diced, or Diced Chili - they're all good!), then you can easily put 2 cups of the meat in each baggie.   That's a lot of meat to pop into the freezer for another day, right? #SoEasy!    You can make Chili sooo easily from this Taco Meat Base, too - just add another tin or two of the Chili Diced Tomatoes (or regular Diced Tomatoes) 2 cans of Kidney Beans - throw it all in, is healthy, 2 or 3 cans of Heinz Beans (yum!), a ton of chili powder (I put in a lot of Taco Seasoning, and then you can add 6 tablespoons, or more (or less! lol!) - however hot you like your Chili! : ) You can toss in some chopped green peppers, onions, whatever you like, but sometimes I just like it pretty straight-up and simple - is so good, so easy : )
You could throw in some Salsa, too, if you happen to have a bunch of Salsa around! And then you could make Salsa Chicken, too - I'll go get you the link : )
    Usually we use Spaghetti, but you can use whatever pasta you happen to have in the house - or rice, or put the meat in a really nice roll - yum!     Oh, and I had a bunch of pasta left over, the last time, and you know me (hopefully!), I just can't bring myself to waste anything, so I thought, hmmm, what if I added a couple of cans of Vegetable Soup to the pasta - I did, and that was waaay too bland, yick, so I added a LOT of Taco Seasoning, and it was so good - nice and hot and spicy, just like how I likes it! haha!  There it is - really, it was deeelish! 
Yum! It really is soo delicious!
Everyone loves Taco Spaghetti : )
All of my recipes are 'tried and true'. I don't have a lot of extra time to cook, so many of the recipes are fast and easy, but the results are delicious! Send us your favorite recipes, too! Before long, we'll have a nice big selection! If you're Vegetarian, just eliminate the meat in any recipe that calls for it. More Recipes (and some Great Tips!)
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Anyway, I'm standing in the kitchen, trying to think of something to have with the Taco Meat, and thought of this - and it was sooo good - yum! Light, delicious, did I already say light? haha! So good!
I just heated up the Taco Meat, put that in the center of the plate, then sliced the cucumber to put around the meat - all very lovely, then used the cucumber slices like little nacho chips - which would also have been delicious, just not as super-healthy! lol! Cucumber - it's Nacho usual chip - haha! I know, I'm sorry! haha! But it is good! Deelish!
Now I think I'm gonna add everything to little cucumber slices! lol! And perfect for a KETO or Paleo Diet, in case you're trying that out... : )
The Chili Diet
Sooo, here's my new idea - last night, I happened to make soo much Chili, from the Taco Sauce Base, and then, much later that night (let's say, oh, 1 am - lol!), I thought, well, I'll just have a little bit of the Chili, so I got out a small blue bowl (really, you can use any color bowl - bah'haha!)
I put in a little bit of Chili - and it was really good, but then I remembered the BBQ Beans we used to get at El Pollo Loco, when we lived in Los Angeles (have I mentioned how much we miss living in Los Angeles - LA - AND all the great food - omg, I looove the Loco Salad from El Pollo Loco, and they used to give me the Loco Salad Dressing, alongside their giant salads - they were soo nice and sweet to me! Thanks, El Poll Loco! You're just the right amount of Loco for me - haha!)
Oh, and I love the chili it's regular way, but when I had remembered about the El Pollo Loco BBQ Beans, I added a little bit of BBQ Sauce to my little bowl of Chili - and, omg, is deeeelicious! Soo good!
Anyhoooo, it occurred to me that this small amount of Chili might be ideal for one of those 'one food only - ish' diets... my lovely, smartie daughter, Cara, was telling me about the Eggs Only Diet, while we were at the gym, yesterday - a good place to talk about cool new diets - lol! And Healthy Diets, o' course!
I don't think I could do an All Eggs Diet - maybe... could I have French Toast with that? haha! Lots of eggs in that - lol!
And, well, me no good at the Keto Diet - too restrictive for me - and by 'restrictive', I mean, I didn't hear anything about sweeties on that diet - bah'hahaha! I DO love mah' sweeties (not just friends, any more! lol!)
But I think, especialy now that I've added in the BBQ Sauce to the Chili, which is beyond delicious - maybe I could do that - Jimmy Kimmel does something like that - he cuts waaaay back, for 2 days out of the week, and look at the weight he's lost - wow! I wanna be like Jimmy Kimmel (maybe not as masculine - haha!)(I'll skip the beard, but those suits are nice - hahaha!)(and the job is great! hahaha!)
Wel, now I'm just amusing mah'self, but, I dunno - this might be worth a shot - I want to lose about 30 pounds, by Christmas... so, I'll let you know if it works...
It's a giant pan of Chili - that just happened to be the pan I was cooking the Taco Sauce in, earlier.. and I added
Ingredients for the Taco Chili:
A can of Black Beans
Can of a mix of 5 Beans
1 can of Kidney Beans (I couldn't fit them in this batch)
2 cans of Heinz Beans (I thought I had some - must buy more! lol!)
Chili Powder
Taco Seasoning
A tin of Chili Diced Tomatoes,
The Tomato sauce from the Taco Sauce (I just use straight-up Tomato Sauce, Crushed Tomatoes and Diced Tomatoes - the fewer ingredients in the can, the better : )
Oh, and a Red Onion - whole thing (but cut up - lol!)
But you can throw all sorts of delicious things in your own Chili - whatever you like!
Let me know if you try the Chili Diet, too - it seems pretty reasonable to me - lots of healthy ingredients, seems like that would be an okay way to get through 2 days a week, right?
As long as I can still go ahead and have mah' fave Apple Crumble for Breakfast! lol! (Okay, and maybe later, too! Yum!) (I really love the Apple Crumble, and it's sooo good for you!)
Good Luck!! And Happy Eating!! Your Little (and getting littler? haha!) Friend, Ailsa! : )
And, don't forget your regular Tacos! Ah'Yum! If you hang your tortillas over something in the oven, maybe the oven rack, now that I think of it, it'll bake in the form of a Taco shell, too, if you want to try that, too!
Cut your lettuce in strips, kids looove that, and I put the Cheese in first, then the Taco Meat, then the Salsa and the Lettuce - soo good!
