As many of you know, I lost my grandmother a few weeks ago. As promised, here is her recipe for tacos that has been a mainstay in my kitchen for as long as I can remember. An heirloom recipe binder was made for all of the grandchildren one year, and you’ll see in the image below that this is definitely a well loved page. We have met as a family for holidays and shared her tacos, and I have made them for Alexis many many times.

Now that I eat primarily by myself during the week, I find that making a batch and freezing the meat makes it easy to have them whenever I want. I prefer to make a taco salad without any chips, a carryover from having braces, and Scott likes soft flour tortillas. Grandma loved to warm her crispy shells in the oven, and my other grandfather liked to fry corn tortillas in a cast iron skillet for his tacos (that recipe is a little different, maybe I’ll share it too one day!)

The secret to Grandma’s tacos definitely lies in the toppings. The meat recipe is simple, but the cheese that really makes the tacos is good old Kraft American cheese shredded by hand. You can get the ‘deli’ style packages with each slice already unwrapped, or you can go through the painstaking process we had to as kids and unwrap every slice, stick them together into a cube, and press the cube into a cheese shredder. Either way, you won’t believe how much better they taste with American cheese. Everyone has their own opinion on taco toppings, but this one is definitely a fave along with freshly diced tomatoes from the garden. Anyone who has every tried it swears by it!

Bone apple teeth!

(FYI, I used to use dried onions and now completely omit the onions and garlic powder due to allergies. The recipe is just as good without.)

Michelle