If only Taco Bell made their tacos with Naturally Raise Beef...

For lent D and I have decided to give up eating out for regular meals.  We are still allowed to go out if it is for a special meal with friends or family (for example, we took his mom to the Melting Pot for dinner).

One thing we really miss is our weekly "Taco Tuesday".  Since we started dating, D and I have had a standing date on Tuesdays for lunch at Taco Bell.  So I decided to make us tacos to make up for missing our regular dates.  We purchased this "Taco Kit" at Sam's Club a few months back and I found a package of (absolutely amazing) naturally raised ground beef from Northwoods Ranch.  So I decided to break into the taco kit and thaw the last batch of ground beef and make tacos!

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Our first step was unpacking this giant box of taco party!  If you've been contemplating this box at your local Sams Club, it is basically designed to feed a small frat house.  It comes with a crunchy taco kit, a soft taco kit, two cans of refried beans, and two pouches of velveeta cheese.

So after seeing the bigger box turn into two smaller boxes I made the executive decision to only make one kit for now, and save the other for later - and picked crunchy tacos, because D prefers crunchy to soft tacos, and I prefer D!  Crunchy taco kit had 12 taco shells, taco seasoning, and the BIGGEST pouch of Taco Bell mild sauce I have EVER seen.  We'll come back to that pouch of mild sauce later!  With SCIENCE!

So to the cooking!  First I browned the beef, did the whole "drain and add water & seasoning" thing, put the refried beans in a pot to warm and popped the taco shells into a lightly warm oven.  The Northwoods Ranch beef always browns up nicely with very little to drain really.

Ok, so remember that enormous package of mild sauce?  Now, don't get me wrong, I love the mild sauce, and frankly use it every time I go to Taco Bell on my quesadilla (mixed with the verde sauce!).  But this package was... bafflingly large sized.  And of course D had the perfect solution - he pulled out one of his mini glass funnels (we have 40 or so of them, don't ask!) and a really pretty bottle from some truffled oil that was AWFUL that we emptied out and cleaned about a year ago.  Finally!  A use for this bottle we'd be tripping over for a year!

 So after waiting for the sauce to drip into the bottle, pulling out all our toppings (cheese, salsa, sour cream), and serving it all up, we finally got to taste what Taco Bell would taste like if they used naturally raised meat. Let me tell you, I would absolutely pay a premium for these tacos.  Or go to Chipotle.  Yeah.  I think I'll just go to Chipotle.