cinco de mayo.

we ate thai food to celebrate. not very festive i suppose, but family dinner at thai village was bliss. my belly is full of curry and pad thai, and a little bit of shrek twinkie with ogre green filling, which I'm now thinking was probably a mistake. our conversation at dinner ranged from how much we hate the lakers and wish Gasol was not so tall, to politics...., to adam complaining about taking humanities and having to go to a van gogh museum while he was in the netherlands and hating it, which kind of throws the oh....last 41/2-5 years of my college career down the toilet. but oh well. he thinks wax museums are art... so I guess I shouldn't take him too seriously.

anyways, being cinco de mayo and all, not really sure what it celebrates but its a wonderful excuse to celebrate mexican food. Lately I've been organizing my many many recipes and came across one that instantly became one of my favorites, i would have made it for cinco de mayo but the thai intervened. This recipe is super simple, and great if you want to use up a bunch of cans in your pantry. I'll be honest I originally tried this recipe because it has ranch in it, which intrigued me. everything is made better with ranch dressing and such was the case with this recipe. we feasted on this for about a week. so to celebrate cinco de mayo:

Taco Soup
from fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com (an all time favorite food blog)

Taco Seasoning:
1 tsp each of cumin, oregano, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, coriander
salt and pepper to taste ~ We didn't have onion powder and corainder and it still tasted great

Soup:
1 lb of lean ground beef
1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup of frozen corn
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 4.5 oz can of diced green chilies
1/2 a packet of ranch salad dressing mix
~ our soup was a little thick so I added tomato sauce until it got the "soupiness" we wanted. I also added a litte more than half the ranch dressing packed, just cuz i had to.

Heat a dutch oven over medium heat then add the ground beef. add the taco seasonings and mix into the ground beef, making sure to break it up into crumbles. add the diced onion and garlic then mix thoroughly for 4-5 minutes.

add the beans, corn, tomatoes, green chilies and ranch dressing packet, mix well then cover and simmer on low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. taste and re-season with salt and pepper if needed.

thats it! so easy and so yummy :) we also added things like grated cheese, diced avocado, baked tortilla strips, and sour cream on top.