Sure I’m on my way to becoming a master chef, but sometimes recipes just don’t turn out the way you expected them to. This weekend, I had my heart set on a chickpea taco recipe for Saturday’s lunch, a nice healthy vegetarian option that would satisfy my newfound chickpea fixation. I mixed up the chickpeas with avocado, herbs, and lime. I stuffed the tacos with lettuce and the chickpea mixture and put them in silly yellow baskets lined with heart-patterned napkins. The meal looked strange, but beautiful… until we bit into our tacos and each made a grimace. It was disgusting. It was limey and crunchy and made your tongue want to run back into your throat for safety. Derrick and I each finished one taco before throwing the chickpea mixture in the trash, brushing our teeth, and leaving the house in an attempt to erase the disgusting food memory.

But I was left with 16 Old Paso Crunchy Taco Shells that I would never ordinarily use or have in the fridge. Derrick used to make a mean beef-taco mix, but since we’ve moved away from eating beef, I didn’t want to default to an old, less-healthy recipe. So tonight, I came up with this shrimp taco recipe which turned out really nice. It’s pretty similar to how I’ve cooked shrimp in the past for quesadillas. I just happened to have fajita spice mix pre-made (Thanks Ms. Debra!), but if you don’t have it, a mixture of cumin, parsley, cilantro, oregano, garlic salt should do the trick. My point for you cooks out there is that we should never become discouraged when meals fail. Turn a bad food experience into a positive one, and work to create recipes that you want to keep in your repertoire to make over and over again!

Rachel’s Shrimp Tacos

15-20 small shrimp
1 tbl. butter
Squirt of lime juice
Serious dash fajita seasoning
Taco shells (or tortillas)
Toppings

Thaw shrimp. Remove shell and vein if necessary. Preheat skillet with butter to medium. Chop up shrimp into thirds or quarters, depending on their size. When butter is melted, slide it around to coat entire pan. Add shrimp, and squirt lime juice on top. Sprinkle seasoning over top of pan; you want each shrimp to have seasoning on top, a nice spackling of flavor. Sauté in skillet for about 7 minutes until shrimp are pink and done. Put shrimp in taco shells first. Add whatever toppings you want. We added Mexican cheese and some Wholly Salsa “Medium”. This ended up being two servings, since I ate 2 tacos, and Derrick ate 3. We served with my mexican corn dish.