Taco Triumvirate

Tacos.... just the word brings back memories of dinners when I was a kid. Taco night was always a fun night at my house. Mom made tacos, rice and beans . always using the free Lawry's seasoning mixes we got from a friend who worked for them. Tacos were fun to make, fun to eat and I cannot ever remember anyone being in a bad mood on taco night. Even now when I have tacos, it make me smile... go figure.  Even my cat likes them

OK so this isn't really her but she likes them too

One of the neat things I get to do as a Brand Ambassador for Allrecipes is try some really delicious products. Not all are wonderful, but there have been some terrific finds. A month ago we got a chance to try bison from The Bison Council I had always wanted to try it and was excited to get the chance. I really wanted to try the ground bison but I got to the recipe list too late to get one of those recipes. 

The other day I was at the store and saw ground bison... on sale!  Oh boy I grabbed a package right away and came home to think about what I could make with it. I thought about some of the other brands we had gotten to work with that I had really liked and decided to try matching some of these brands up into a yummy meal.

So here is what I started with

Bison, Herdez and Sargento

I loved the Herdez Cooking Sauces when we tried them several months ago and also loved Sargento Cheese so Bison tacos wasn't a stretch at all.

I crumbled the bison up in a skillet, sauted until brown, added about half a jar of the Herdez Guajillo Cooking Sauce and let it simmer about 10 minutes. I used La Tortilla Factory hi fiber tortillas, shredded lettuce, tomatoes... and instead of sour cream I used greek yogurt.  A truly yummy satisfying dinner..

Gone.. very quickly!

I think these brands need to discuss a partnership because my dinner was awesome. I'll use all of the products again.. and make these tacos often.

Full Metal Buffalo!

I have needs... Needs for air, water, sleep and occasionally PIZZA! In my never ending battle against my fatitude, I try to have pizza from time to time and have it not be a diet disaster.  It's a challenge and one of my never ending quests.

So for one of my assignments as an Allrecipes Allstar this month was to cook with bison. I received bison pepperoni and all I could think about was "This needs to go on a pizza."  This weekend, I had time and decided to give it a whirl.

A few weeks ago I was at Cost Plus and I ran across these pizza crusts by Pastorelli Foods

They looked good and a 160 calories each, better than regular crust and nice and thin the way I like my crust.  I've tried pita bread, and tortillas as crusts and haven't been thrilled with them.. was hoping for a winner. So I whipped up a quick pizza sauce with canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, and Italian seasonings, pureed it up, preheated the oven to 400 and was ready to go.

Here is the crust.. nice and thin, huh?

And then I topped it with some homemade sauce

Then the bison pepperoni

I wanted to get the full buffalo experience so I decided to top this with buffalo mozzarella. I've never cooked with this nor eaten it so this was another adventure

Here it is all ready to go in the oven

I baked it for about 10 minutes, right on the oven rack at 400 degrees. I topped with some chopped fresh basil and then tadaaaaaaaa



Dinner was delicious and I'll definitely make this again

 

Winner winner, Bison Dinner!

One of my assignments this month for Allrecipes was one I had really been looking forward to - BISON! I had seen this in the grocery store and always wanted to try it, but for multiple reasons kept putting it off.  This month Allrecipes partnered with The Bison Council and we got to try bison. How cool was this? I selected Bison Pepperoni Macaroni as the recipe to try.



Looks yummy, doesn't it?

This was pretty healthy to boot. I used low fat and fat free cheeses, olive oil instead of butter to make the roux and whole wheat macaroni. And how did it taste? Really delicious. The bison pepperoni has a richer taste than turkey pepperoni or even the traditional pork pepperoni. It isn't greasy and is cut thin and is tender. I really liked it a lot.  Bison itself if quite healthy - fewer calories than turkey and chicken, less fat, less cholesterol, less sodium and more iron.

I'm really happy with this month's assignments so far.. will definitely buy bison on my own again. 

Next week I plan on using some of the leftover pepperoni on PIZZA. Will post about that one next weekend.