#Upcycled Leftovers #Taco Pizza Recipe

This week has been kinda rough! I’ve been sick for days & so has my guy. Unfortunately when a mom is home sick, she doesn’t really get the day off. It’s ok though because let’s face it guys are babies when not feeling good… mine’s pretty much been hibernating for days. I mean honestly no matter how society views men as the strong figure in a household, we women know the truth or reality of the situation…

Truth!!

Now I’m not men bashing… they have so many wonderful qualities & I am so blessed to have a wonderful supportive, caring one in my life… just NOT when they are sick lol. Women just function better under-the-weather. Anyways, thankfully I only had some sort of virus & have been blessed to never have had a serious health problem like many of the women I love & admire have had to overcome… and as always, I’ve got a great family support system, who helped with the kids on my worse days, picked us up some KFC (Don’t worry we only have this once or twice a year at the most!) one night, etc. So this week to keep the kids from revolting, we did a little leftover upcycling. I love upcycling projects… I have a whole board of projects I WILL do one day, once we are finally able to  purchase our own home. I, as I have gotten older & had to budget my money, sometimes less than I’d prefer, have learned that we can’t always afford to make a gourmet meal every day or let leftovers go to waste. So I’m beginning to use my love for upcycling in the food department. Whether serving leftover chili over baked potatoes with cheese or making a nice salad with leftover crockpot pulled pork, I’ve learning to keep life & leftovers interesting. Having felt like poop this week, grocery shopping or cooking a big meal might as well have been climbing Mount Everest, it just wasn’t happening! So that leftover fried chicken became a…

Fried Chicken Salad!

We had tacos on Thursday so instead of just serving the kids the same exact thing, those taco supplies got a quick makeover. Introducing…

Tasty Taco Pizzas!

In my teenage days, I used to love Taco Bell’s Taco Pizzas & I figured I could make those at home… guess what they were better and, I’m sure, healthier. Here’s the recipe I used… though this is a very customizable recipe & open to so many variations…

Taco Pizza

Supplies:

• flour tortillas (2 per pizza – we used taco size)
• refried beans
• ground beef prepared with taco seasoning according to package directions
• lettuce (though my 8 year-old is anti-lettuce & requested this item skipped on hers)
• diced tomatoes
• mexican blend shredded cheese
• sour cream
• hot sauce (optional – made one with & one without… both good, just depends on preference)
• olive oil

Steps:

• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• brush both sides of each tortilla with oil with a pastry brush & “fry” in a frying pan until crispy & brown
• lay one tortilla on a baking sheet (line with foil for easy clean-up)
• spread tortilla with refried beans
• add the second tortilla
• spread a thin layer of hot sauce on this tortilla if you choose
• top with taco meat & cheese
• bake for about 10 minutes
• use pizza cutter to cut your pizza into quarters (I add this step because I cut it after putting the veggies on for my first one & it got a little messy, learning as I go.)
• add your veggies… lettuce, tomato, or whatever you’d like, maybe sliced olives (gag) if that’s your thing
• last but not least, add the sour cream… Instead of just dropping a dollop on it, I put some in a ziploc bag, snipped the corner, & drizzled it on. Not only was it decorative, but it spread it out evenly for a little bit of creamy goodness in every bite!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little upcycling project… grab those leftovers out of the fridge & see what you can come up with!! I’m always looking for new ideas on how to re-purpose mine! 🙂