Taco Muffins are amazing

view full image

"Taco muffins"

Last night we tried out one of the billion recipes circulating around Pinterest, Taco Muffins. They were amazing.

Take your flour tortillas (we make our own lately) and cut out circles to fit in your muffin tins.

Fill with seasoned ground beef and cheese.

Bake at 400* until cheese is melted and tortilla edges are browned.

Remove from tray and top with sour cream, salsa, lettuce and tomato.

Devour instantly.

Iced coffee

In the summer when its already hot and sticky when you roll out of bed, an iced coffee is just what you need to get you going without altering your morning routine too much. Iced Coffee is refreshing and still packs a kick like a super strong cup of coffee. Pioneer Woman posted her Perfect Iced Coffee recipe today but it's pretty complicated. This is how we've been doing iced coffee for the past couple months.

This takes a little more preparation than our iced tea recipe and costs more but not as much as one from a coffee shop or convenience store. McDonalds has iced coffee for $1 right now and that would be a cheaper option.

Ingredients:
Coffee
Whole milk, Vanilla Soy or cream
Simple Syrup
Ice

Directions:
Start by brewing some double strength coffee. We use a coffee press and use 10 scoops of fresh ground coffee and fill the pot with boiled water. If you use a coffee maker just double the usual amount of grounds.
Let it steep all day and cool completely before pouring it into a carafe or pitcher and keep it in the fridge.

To make a glass of iced coffee: fill a glass with ice and add a few tablespoons of simple syrup. Add 1/3 to 1/2 the glass of the chilled coffee base. Fill the rest of the glass with Milk/Soy/Cream. Add chocolate syrup if you have it.
Stir and enjoy.

 

Pita chips (or tortilla chips)

I will not pay $4.99 for a small bag of pita chips! Not when I can get a 6 pack of pitas for $0.89 or sometimes 2/$1.00 from almost any of the Asian or Polish markets around here! We only ever use 2 at a time so we usually make the rest into chips instead of letting the bag sit in the freezer forever. You can also make tortilla chips exactly the same way.

Here's what you need and how you do it!

Brew your own iced tea for just $0.15

[post by Jon]

I feel kind of silly even typing this out. This recipe is so simple any explanation will just be meandering so I'll just get right to it.

1. Combine boiling water with 3 teabags in a large cup (8-10oz)
2. Let this cup sit overnight.
3. In the morning pour this super strong tea into a 2L pitcher.
4. Fill with cold filtered water.
5. Stir and remove teabags.
6. Optional - squeeze half a lemon into the tea.
7. Add a few teaspoons of simple syrup to each glass you pour.

There are a few things great about this recipe.

• You can use any kind of tea. Your favorite green, herbal, black etc.
• Inexpensive. Tea is very cheap especially when bought in large boxes. 3 teabags makes it cost only $0.15 per jug.
• If you regularly drink hot tea as we do in the morning or after dinner, the tea bags can go in the iced tea pitcher instead of straight to the garbage. Add water each time you do.
• Make it a sweet as you like. Holly likes her tea way sweeter than I do, the simple syrup allows us to make each glass just how we like and there are no granules.

I don't like to add the lemon to the jug because it gets more bitter after a few days in the fridge and can't refill the jug as consistently.