An absolute favourite at our house with the small kids AND the big kids 🙂  Yup, Thursday nights have become “tortilla night”.  Sometimes we change it up and substitute the ground meat for chicken breast, which makes for a delicious fajita.  The more toppings the better, because the fun part is making it your own.

We usually use a pound of lean ground beef, which we season with salt, ground black pepper, garlic, ginger, cumin, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.  Then we add olive oil to a frying pan and start cooking.  We add diced onions, tomato paste and a tablespoon or two of sugar, which cuts the vinegary edge of the tomato paste.  You can certainly use fresh garlic, ginger and cumin, but if you’re rushing to prepare a meal after a long day at work, powdered works just as well.  And you can spice things up by adding chili powder, chili peppers or crushed red pepper flakes.  Another tip is to prepare the meat the night before. Then you only have to worry about your toppings the day of.

When it comes to the toppings, we go crazy!  Our kids love raw vegetables, so we dice baby carrots, red and green bell peppers, green onions & shallots, and we chop up bite-sized morsels of cucumber and tomato.  Other toppings include sour cream, shredded cheese, corn niblets, lettuce and salsa.  We place each topping in a separate bowl which makes it easier to customize your tortilla.

For the chicken fajitas, it’s essentially the same principle.  1 pound of boneless chicken breast cut into strips, and seasoned with the same spices. We ditch the tomato paste and diced onions, instead opting for large chunks of red onion, and sliced red and green bell peppers.  You can sauté the onions and peppers with the chicken or you can leave them raw and add them as a topping later.

The end result is a delicious meal that even the kids get excited about!

Chicken Fajitas – the non-sizzling kind

Yummy beef tortillas!