i wish i had been keeping count

of all the times i've had eggs with casey. the first time i can find his presence in this blog is here and it's totally egg-centric. but there must have been hundreds of times.

and so, this weekend, at casey's house: breakfast tacos with FLOUR tortillas (yes!), eggs (obviously), spinach, onions, and garlic. topped with cheddar and purple radishes. with roasted sweet potatoes. and coffee (because of course).

of the year.

the first tacos. i can't believe it took A WHOLE WEEK into 2013 to make tacos. seriously, what is happening?

i've decided to be better about eating the greens on the things, instead of tossing them into the compost. so, i sauteed some beet greens and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil and sea salt. i scrambled the egg separately in the pan and then cooked it all together. as always, i heated the tortillas on the stove (like, actually on the stove, no pan). i threw some hoop cheese on first, then piled in the egg-greens-mushroom mixture, and topped with sriracha. those greens were not bad. not bad at all.

but truthfully, everything is good with olive oil and some salt.

multiple.

why yes, i am eating tacos multiple times per week.

sunday morning: corn tortillas with spinach, eggs, tomatoes, onions. and garlicky-salty roasted potatoes (on the side, because the tortillas can't hold so much).

but, ma.

i just wanna eat tacos all the time. they are delicious.

thankfully, i've got bon appetit and the CSA keeping me out of a food rut. today, we picked up 2 kinds of lettuce, rapini (which is some kind of broccoli rabe), spring onions, beets, kohlrabi, and peas. a short bike ride to the farmers' market yielded radishes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. the refrigerator is packed with goodness.

and tonight, a variation on this recipe.

taco night.

it was all i wanted. all i could think about. and on the bike ride home, i passed don jose, the only place i know that sells homemade tortillas in carrboro.

yes. taco night: freshly-made, still-hot, corn tortillas. black beans with onions. jalapenos. tomatoes. avocado. monterey jack cheese.
and a genuine, overpriced mexican coke. with real sugar.
always the best.
(with many more tacos to come in the remainder of the week.)

all week.

all breakfast tacos this week, kids. delicious. more to come. i am in school hell.

torchy's tacos.

on tuesday, november 23rd, i went to work with blake. it was very "take your hermana to work day," as i stood in the back of terra burger and drank double strength organic coffee (yes, FROM terra burger) and watched blake do things like play with meat. did i learn much? that's debatable. but the coffee was delicious.
ok, so he wasn't really playing with it, just taking it out of packages. he also cut lettuce. (is his hair in a ponytail? YES.)
i was really excited about all the labels they had for sandwiches and things. they were just so specific. lots of vegetarian-related ones. surprising for a burger joint, huh?
but then, courtney retrieved me and took me to torchy's tacos. torchy's started out as a food truck and now has brick-and-mortar shops all over austin. courtney told me that these tacos were big and not to order too much, especially because we were going to have chips and queso, a lovely part of every healthy breakfast.
the queso was incredible. what did they do it? no idea. but i put in on my taco (egg-potato-cheese) and ate mouthfuls of chips and drank more coffee.

and they gave me 4 sauces for my taco. for one taco! i don't know which ones they were but i ate them. seriously, i could eat tacos all the time. for every meal. i am not sure i would get tired.

i would be a very round girl if i lived in austin with all those tasty food trucks and tacos and sometimes tacos in food trucks. holy hell.

joe's bakery.

austin adventure, day two.
(yes, i realize that i have yet to discuss day one.)
blake took me to joe's bakery for breakfast tacos. and mexican pastries. i had two tacos: potato, egg, and cheese & miga taco con todo (migas, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and cheese). i am pretty sure that most people in the place were regulars. LOVED it.

can't stop, won't stop

still breakfast tacos over here. fresh corn tortillas as well.

ready for thanksgiving, when blake provides me with tacos every day i am in austin.

better late than never.

the nytimes published an article this morning about breakfast tacos in austin. it was like the author went down there, *discovered* them, and came back and wrote an article about this indigenous food that austinites eat, never realizing that transplants like myself have been cooking them at home for YEARS, because no one here makes them. or makes them well.

my brother is actually an excellent taco maker, though his are more like burritos.

coincidentally, tracy and i ate tacos last saturday morning before i made jordan's cupcakes. flour tortillas filled with scrambled eggs, cayenne black beans, onion, avocado, tomato, monterey jack, and salsa. with a side of grilled garlic potatoes in a variety of colors. take that, new york. maybe it's time i start my own breakfast taco spot.

texas, our texas.

the don juan at juan in a million.

kids, this taco dish was a major part of the reasoning i had for visiting austin when i am otherwise insanely busy. adam richman attempted to eat 8 don juans on man v food. when i questioned blake about the validity of this place, he agreed that it was spectacular. and that richman was crazy when he attempted the challenge.

i love a good eating challenge, but i could barely finish the mess of taco paragon on my plate. (or make it to the wall of fame.) the don juan is eggs, cheese, and potatoes. the omnivores eat it with bacon, too. it's more than 3 heaping tacos. because, of course, this perfection goes in a tortilla with salsa. people line up around the store to eat this on the weekends. yes, i saw the line on sunday.

and! juan shakes everyone's hand when they come through the door. a solid handshake. i love a good handshake. texans excel at handshakes.

...

post-juan, blake and i visited the lbj presidential library. my first presidential library! (for the record, i was so full that i had to walk around or i thought i might explode.)

there was an animatronic lbj! he spoke about his great society from the confines of his ranch, it seems. it was truly a sight to behold.

blake watches him. and is mesmerized. and happy.
here he is up close. frightening. i am in awe.
but i am so very content with the entire adventure.

yellow rose of texas.

mmm... curra's. more mexican food. for breakfast. with oaxacan coffee (which means it has vanilla!).
huevos al albanil: eggs with pasilla and borracho sauce. so, pasilla is a chile pepper; the name means "little raisin." and borracho sauce is the kind with beer in it. yes. and onions and tortillas. and chips and salsa.
what do you do after a meal like this one? go swimming at krause springs with lori. and then?

ice cream at amy's. i had cinnamon. it's like ambrosia.

hole in the wall.

it was an actual hole-in-the-wall. on manor road. (pronounced may-nor. why? no idea.) there was no door to this taco stand. just a window. a walk-up window.
across the street, there was a bus stop with painting of longhorns. and it was over 90 degrees out.
also: a church and a laundromat and hair salon.
a girl of indiscriminate age took our order. i got two tacos: one with migas and cheese (which means tacos in my taco) and another of potato, egg, and cheese.
we walked into some east austin neighborhood to find a random bench in a sort-of park. and we ate the tacos. with a green sauce. jamie says that it is from a different kind of pepper every time and that you never know what the color will be. and it was an impressive sauce.
and they were the best tacos of the trip.

oh, yeah.
the other kids eating their tacos:
blake.
jamie.don't fret. there's more.

how long?

it was only going to be a bit before i started writing about eggs again. ladies and gentlemen, my breakfast-dinner was so tasty; i wish i was still eating it.

we still seem to only buy burrito-size tortillas, so i broke it in half and heated it over the stove. i cooked jalapeno, onion, bell pepper, and garlic in a little olive oil and butter. (yes, that IS insanity.) i then poured in the eggs and scrambled it all together. i placed some shredded jalapeno monterey jack in the tortilla and put the egg mixture on top with some salsa. i then cooked spinach in the pan where the eggs had been and put it in the tortilla, too.

oh my. incredible.

you wish you were kim.

kim is the most regular recipient of my cooking. we have fallen into a ritual where she comes in my room on saturday mornings and we watch tv shows on my computer and then i make breakfast. my mother is visiting this weekend and we are off work today, so today was like saturday to us.

i was in the mood for breakfast tacos. i wanted them enough to go to the grocery store and buy jalapenos and monterey jack cheese. we only had burrito-size tortillas at home so they soon became breakfast burritos.

key parts to this breakfast:
1. eggs scrambled with garlic, onion, jalapeno, and spinach.
2. roasted potatoes with oregano, salt, and pepper. ( i boiled them first so the process would move along faster.)
3. black beans with garlic and red pepper.

we put all of the above in the tortilla (heated over the burner, never in the microwave) with much salsa and shredded cheese.

oh my. everything i ever wanted.
you know you wish were kim. you want it, too.

yes. breakfast. i know.

it's like i want to eat breakfast all of the time. especially breakfast tacos.

i typically buy corn tortillas, because the flour ones (which i actually enjoy more) tend to have all sorts of processed and inexplicable ingredients. i also love potatoes, but never make them. there are certain lovely food products that i love and rarely cook and just eat them in restaurants, or when someone makes them for me. potatoes, for sure. in any capacity.

but i made some last weekend. i boiled them for a little while first so that when i put them in the oven, it wouldn't take very long. i cooked them on high heat with olive oil, rosemary, and a bit of salt and pepper.

i am sure you have noticed that i mostly fry my eggs, but breakfast tacos warrant scrambled eggs. so i scrambled these onions, and sprinkled shredded havarti over them. i am obsessed with havarti; it's like butter. so creamy. i want to eat it on everything.

and salsa. what's a taco without salsa? or a meal, for that matter?
i hope my goddaughter-to-be likes spicy food.

hey, hermano.

blake makes great mexican food, which is awesome because new york does not do the same. as far as we are concerned, the best things to eat in the morning are breakfast tacos. blake's are a bit like burritos, overfilled and hard to close, but certainly tasty.

the most incredible thing is that a person can make breakfast tacos with just about any random vegetable you have in the fridge, as long as you have some eggs and something spicy. and hopefully cheese, but you could survive without it. you would just be sad.

a short recipe: put some oil or butter in the skillet. cook your onions and other harder veggies first. add spinach and tomatoes. pour in your already-whisked eggs, and cook to scrambley goodness. heat your tortilla (could be in the microwave. boo! or over the range, turning if over and over a flame until hot and not hard). put some salsa and shredded cheese on the tortilla and scoop the egg mixture over it. voila! it's the best.

as we ate our way through the refrigerator, one of our last attempts at cooking while packing was breatfast tacos: spinach, eggs, onion, maybe some tomato. it's hard to remember at this point, but we set the timer on the camera to record the moment for posterity. (we had packed the plates, so we are eating over the sink here.) the pictures aren't pretty, but i know blake is probably crying in austin about no longer being the star of the blog, so this is really for him.