Tex-Mex Tostada Salad

As you can see from this website, our family loves to cook and my brother and I (Victoria) are no exceptions. We posted a blog of a dessert disaster that was diverted (thanks to the great advice of our Mom) earlier this summer but I thought it was about time we posted one of our favourite dishes. Let’s start this off by stating that both my brother and I love Tex-mex flavours, whether it is tacos, burritos, nachos, or this recipe, the spices and combination of flavours is great.
So, last night, before my soccer game (which we won 5-0 ) we decided to make a Tex-Mex Tostada Salad!! While it is a simple and quick dish, as you are all aware we come from a family that loves to cook and improvise, and my brother and I are no exception so we changed up the recipe a little.
So let’s get started! (This makes 4)

Recipe

4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic-minced
6tsp chilli powder
1tsp ground coriander
2 lbs ground beef
3/4c tomato juice
10c Iceberg lettuce, shredded
8 tostadas
1 c Salsa (we like the hot variety – it was fantastic)
4-5c old cheddar cheese (shredded)
1 avocado (peeled, pitted, and chopped)
1 vine ripened tomato chopped
2 green onions, sliced
1 c sour cream

Before we started, we needed to prepare our kitchen and ingredients because in the end it makes things a lot easier. First, we diced our onion, mince our garlic, shredded the cheese, peeled and pitted our avocado, chopped our vine ripened tomato, and sliced our green onion. (We recommend that you leave the lettuce until the cooking is almost done, to make sure it doesn’t go brown on you)

We preheated our skillet over a medium high heat, added 1 tbsp of oil and 1 lbs of the ground beef (only one 1 lbs right now so the meat doesn’t boil in its own grease). We broke up the meat with wooden or plastic spoon. While the meat browned we warmed our oven to 200F. Once the meat is cooked until there is no longer any pink, we removed it from the heat, placed it into a bowl and put the meat into the oven to keep warm. We repeated with the second pound of meat.
While browning the last of beef, in another skillet over a medium heat we added 1 tbsp of vegetable oil and the red onion. We sautéed until the onion become translucent (about 3-5 mins) and then added the garlic, stirring and cooking for another minute. At this point it was time to kick it up a notch so we added the 1 tsp of chilli powder and half the coriander and continued to sauté until onions were soft.

At this point, our last batch of beef was cooked with no pink, so we combined it with the beef keeping warm in the over and added it to the onion mixture. While stirring, we added the rest of our chilli powder and coriander (5tsp chilli powder, 1/2stp coriander) and the tomato juice and simmered for 5 minutes to let the flavours blend. When completed, we skimmed any remaining grease from the beef into the can and popped the beef back into oven on a plate to keep warm.
Now it was time to cut up the iceberg lettuce into small stripes and prepare the salad. On each plate we started with a handful of lettuce, then layered 1 tostada, more lettuce, then another tostada then more lettuce, some beef, salsa, cheese, avocado, tomatoes, and green onions. We finished it off with a spoonful of sour cream on the top.

When it was all said and done, the dish was nice and simple yet delicious…and of course just what I needed to go out and win my soccer game. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!