Can you even call yourself a lifestyle blogger if you don’t sprinkle in a recipe or two? I didn’t think so. If you want to get down to business and make the dish, I recommend checking out Kevin and Amanda’s recipe since that’s probably where I got it from last year and they made a video. Actually, I made them before they wrote this recipe so I guess I used someone else’s exact same recipe. Whatever. It’s delicious.
If you’re in this for the long haul you know what comes next. That’s right. Weird, rambling story time. What kind of lifestyle blog doesn’t wax poetic about their husband’s favorite dish providing third eye clarity or how making their children taco cups became a moment of togetherness no one could have foreseen despite the bickering? Exactly. I don’t have a husband or kids. Or a dog. Or anything really. So I’ll tell you about my imaginary friend growing up, Breathika.
Breathika was named after the name I wished I had at the time, Jessica. I wanted people to believe she was alive so I made sure you knew she was breathing. A wordsmith from the jump. I didn’t actually see her or think she was there, which really let me down. I thought all you had to dream it up and then BLAMMO! you had this person or creature or whatever that only you could see to weird out your parents as you poured invisible tea. Five year old me was too pragmatic, I guess. I didn’t let my mother use words like “tummy” when the word “stomach” existed so why would I trick my own damn brain into seeing someone that wasn’t there?
I let my parents think that I believed in Breathika, which was convenient for whenever I did something wrong as an only child. Classic kid maneuver, blaming the unseeable girl trapped in the ether with no way to defend herself. It was always me. I did it. My siblings didn’t come along until I was too old for things like that. Eventually I grew to resent her because the second I got grumpy, someone would inevitably ask if I was being possessed by Breathika. That’s not how imaginary friends work! I was working with amateurs and have always had anger management issues.
At this point in time I believe I’ve worked the imaginary friend angle for as long as I reasonably should. Longer, even. But I haven’t made you scroll long enough before getting to the recipe! Crap. I knew I should have picked a more interesting topic. The whole point of moving to Seattle is that I don’t have a partner or kids or a house or any of that boring crap holding me back, but I guess that boring crap is what people pretend other people want to read about before getting to the heart of the recipe. Convincing themselves it matters and that their clicks are based on genuine interest in their lives and not someone scrolling through Pinterest in the supermarket trying to juggle chips and cookies while figuring out dinner, nearly dropping the cookies as a concerned employee asks if they need a cart. No thanks, just scrolling F O R E V E R to read the ingredient list. Don’t mind me.
Finally…the Recipe
- Boil water for Unicorn-shaped mac and cheese for you and your roommate because your lack of time management means you’re STARVING and need to eat before the taco cups will be ready. It’s ok. You’re mostly making them for meal prep so you can stop eating McDonald’s for lunch every day.
- Cook ground chicken (or beef, you do you) on the next burner. The chicken should finish around the same time you need to pour in the unicorns to re-hydrate them to taste.
- Add taco seasoning, a can of diced tomatoes with chilies, stir around and let simmer. For a while. You have mac and cheese to eat.
- Watch two episodes of Lucifer, making sure to turn off the burner at some point. This allows the seasoning to really get in there and prevents you for feeling like you’re doing too many things at once after working with the public all day.
- Pre-heat the oven to something reasonable.
- Put rice in the rice cooker so something in your life will finally cook itself.
- Grease the muffin cup, placing a wonton wrapper on each cup. Spoon some taco meat as you push it down into the bottom of the tray.
- Sprinkle some cheese over the taco mix and slap another wrapper over the cheese.
- Push down with your fingers so you can add another scoop of meat mixture.
- Sprinkle with more cheese. Cheese is life.
- Assume the oven is ready for you now. Place the tray inside feeling really accomplished that you were able to meal prep for the first time in ages.
- Put the cheese back in the fridge and notice ground chicken. Ponder how odd that is since your roommate doesn’t eat ground chicken.
- At this point the realization of what you did should hit. You might feel shame and dread and annoyance, but first you must take out the taco cups you made with the ground chicken that was only in the fridge because you noticed it was expired shortly after taking out the trash and didn’t want it to ferment in the August heat.
- Make a note of the expiration date of the good chicken so you can hold a grudge at this meal and not make it for a few days. That’ll show it you mean boss.
- On the day the new chicken should expire, reluctantly throw some oil in the pan to heat up before adding the chicken.
- Realize you read the date wrong and it expired five days ago.
- Proceed to boil water for more mac and cheese.
(e)Reader 