The Cyclist's Wife: Tasty Turkey Taco Towers

Alright. To start, I promise all of my recipe's won't have foods that all begin with the same letter (remember Penne Portabella and Prosciutto?). I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it.

As a kid, taco night was my favorite. Now, I tend to make taco's with ground turkey instead of ground beef, just to keep them a bit healthier.

Let's meet the suspects:

1/2 pound ground turkey, your tortilla of choice, black beans, red onion, avocado, bell pepper (any color will do), salt & pepper, chili powder, ground cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, salsa of your choice and:

Oh yeah, and the most important ingredient:

CHEESE!

I should just go ahead and admit now that I'm a little bit Urkel-ish when it comes to cheese.

Being allergic to dairy until I was about 10 created an abnormal love of cheese; proof that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

OK! Moving on to Tasty Turkey Taco Towers. When I pulled out what I needed to make this I realized I was out of taco seasoning. Normally I would use a store bought low-sodium seasoning packet. But, I was out, so I mocked up my own seasoning using the chili powder, ground cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper and (oh yeah) garlic salt. I actually liked it better than the packet.

Start off by browning the turkey meat....

....turkey meat normally produces very little grease (like almost none), so I don't typically drain anything from the pan. Also, we only use 1/2 of a 1 pound package - we usually can't finish the left-overs if we cook it all, so splitting it gives us two meals.

Once the turkey is getting brown, throw in some chopped red onion....

...after I added the onion, I started my made up seasoning. I added about 5 shakes of each spice, 2-3 turns on the salt grinder, 3-5 turns on the pepper grinder & about two shakes of garlic salt....

...stir it up and add in some chopped bell pepper....

...and also, drain the can of black beans and add them in....

--(I forgot to take a photo so please insert your imagination here)--

Now, tower time.

Heat a non-stick pan and don't grease it with anything, just get it hot.

Put in your first tortilla and put some shredded cheese on top...

...on top of the first layer of cheese, add some of the meat mixture and some sliced avocado, then more cheese!

Then put tortilla number 2 on top and repeat. At the end your stack should have 3 tortilla's...

...let it heat for a bit, then flip it & let it heat some more....

take it out and top it with, of course, more cheese, some sliced avocado and salsa...

....Viola!

We have never made the tower format before, we usually do just regular old taco's, but Mr. O and I came up with this on the fly. It was good and the presentation was more interesting than plain old tacos.

I've posted the whole recipe on Tasty Kitchen - Tasty Turkey Taco Towers

Before I go, a note about the tortillas....