Do You Know the Muffin Pan? - Tacos

In my last post I mentioned that I found some new recipes on Brit+Co. This was one of the recipes that I found interesting and definitely wanted to try! The post was on five new ways to use a muffin pan. Cool, huh? By the way, the title they had was too cute and I just had to steal it! Full credit goes to them for the title idea.

On another note, I got a concussion last Saturday in my soccer game. In case you were wondering (probably because you play soccer), it was in the last ten minutes and I was marking a girl from behind because that's just what defenders do. I'm not totally sure how it all went down, but other people said she hit me with her elbow. No matter what, it was a total foul and two of the three refs were within fifteen feet, meaning they should have called it, but they didn't. Even if they wouldn't call a foul, they should have at least stopped the play. After all, head injuries are not to mess with. The other team's coach helped me more than the refs. Not cool. I went to the doctor and sure enough, I had a concussion. I have only been able to go to school  for half of my classes each day.

Anyway, I told this story to get the point across that I have a lot of time on my hands. If I'm not sleeping or doing homework, I need things that don't involve screens to give my eyes and brain a break., so I thought I would make a recipe that took a little bit more time and effort to make. As it turns out, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be or take as much time. It was a win-win!

Because of my head 'issues', my mom decided that she would help me out. My sister even helped out a little bit, too. It was a nice mother-daughter bonding time that had an AWESOME reward.

Our friends from Oregon are in town, too. The adults went out to dinner with some friends, so we were watching seven-year-old Georgia and nine-year-old Evelyn for the night and we thought this would be the perfect dinner to make for them!

Here's how to make these out-of-the-ordinary, yet scrumptious, tacos!

Chipotle Chicken Tacos

(Muffin Pan Edition)

You will need:

a whole roasted chicken

corn tortillas

1-3 canned chipotle peppers in abodo sauce

1/4 cup tomatillo salsa
1/4 cup lime juice

avocado, sour cream, cilantro, tomato, etc. for garnish

jumbo muffin pan

The first step is super simple. Turn your muffin pan(s) upside-down. The original recipe said to do this with a regular-sized muffin pan, but I found that the jumbo ones worked better for this step, so ignore the regular-sized muffin pan in the picture. Brush olive oil on your tortillas and drape them over the cups of the muffin pan. Bake them in the oven at 400ºF for around five minutes. remove them from the oven and pinch them so they fit inside the jumbo muffin cups and set them all aside.

Separate your roasted chicken. My mom did this for me. She does it all the time and offered to do it, so I thought "why not?" I'm actually really glad she did. While she was working with the chicken, I got the other ingredients together. 

Chop up how ever many chipotle peppers you want to use. They are pretty spicy, so be cautious. We used one and a half so it wouldn't be too spicy for the little girls (and me!). It's kind of hard to even mix the peppers in, so some tacos ended up being spicier than the others. Keep this in mind when choosing how many to use. Mix the peppers, along with the tomatillo salsa and lime juice, into the chicken.

Once everything looks evenly spread throughout, take a large spoonful of chicken and put it in each taco cup. We had a little bit extra after filling twelve tacos. Put those back in the oven for two to three minutes to warm it up. 

As soon as you take the tacos out of the oven, if you want, sprinkle some cheese on each taco. The cheese will melt on top. Yum! I would recommend serving the tacos while they're hot. Warm tacos are yummier! Add anything else you want to add before eating your tacos. I added chopped lettuce, sour cream, avocado cubes, and mini tomatoes. 

There were a hit with my parents, my sister, and the girls! Oh, and I loved them too!

If you didn't already notice, this is the first non-dessert recipe I have posted on this blog. However, if you are feeling sweet deprived, stay tuned for another muffin pan recipe!