Taco night!

Every now and then we have taco night at our house. You can make tacos as plain or dressed up as you'd like. Last night we had beef tacos with refried beans, corn, and rice as sides. Typically, even if it's just myself and my boyfriend, we'll have a bunch of little bowls of this and that to use as taco toppings. The trouble is when it's just the two of us we'll often try to balance all these toppings while hovering over our coffee table watching TV. We're both adventurous eaters (and television fiends) and this causes a huge mess. More toppings land outside the taco than inside.

Last night, however, we invited some friends over, and were forced to sit at our dining room table like proper adults. We doubled up on the meat for the extra people , had hard and soft taco shells, and didn't feel so gluttonous for having 10 or more bowls of toppings on the table. Add some Mexican beer and good conversation and presto: Taco Night!

To have an easy and diverse taco night experience, simply choose your meat (or go veggie with beans), have a sidedish or two and stock up on the toppings. We had: lettuce, tomato, onions, sour cream, rasins (sounds odd but typically Mexican), salsa, pickled jalapeno peppers, Monteray Jack cheese, lime wedges to squeeze on the tacos and (my favorite topping) avocado. We had so many toppings I realized after everyone went home that I forgot to put out the hot sauce. No one seemed to notice.

Taco night is s a casual way to entertain and fairly cheap considering most of the stuff is in your pantry already. It can even be kind of healthy if you use lots of veggies and lean meats. Just supply plenty of napkins!