I know Taco Tuesday is all the rage and I love alliterations more than the average bear but today it’s Taco Monday. Literally, we’re meeting friends out for Mexican food tonight.

Robert and I eat a lot of Mexican. It is hands down our go to when we want to eat out during the work week. It’s fast, cheap and delicious. Have you ever noticed how all cheap Mexican restaurants have the same menu. And I don’t just mean in the sense that the food is all the same, although that is pretty accurate too. I think most Mexican dishes are the same 10 ingredients just rearranged differently, but I mean they literally have the EXACT same menus. The dishes are called the same thing, the pictures are the same, they even have the same typos! The only change is the name of the restaurant on the front. I’ve noticed this in TN too but we frequent three Mexican restaurants in Hilton Head/Bluffton and they all have the exact same menu, this amuses me to no end every time we eat. Where do these menus come from? Is there a company who makes generic Mexican food menus and literally every restaurant at a certain price point uses them? When you open a Mexican restaurant do you just order the menus first and then decide your cooks will make whatever is on them? Such a mystery.

As much as we love to go out for Mexican, I rarely make anything Mexican at home. That changed a few weeks ago when I discovered the unique and tasty pairing that is radish, avocado and ground beef. I know, I know, radishes? Sounds so weird but tastes oh so right, trust me. You may be wondering how I stumbled upon this deliciousness and of course I want to give credit where credit is due and the answer to that is Hello Fresh.

I’ve gone back and forth about trying a meal delivery service for a while now. On the one hand, they sure do look convenient and the recipes seem interesting. On the other, they are expensive (I can make our grocery money go further), and I truly enjoy meal planning and grocery shopping. Also there’s the whole automatic billing aspect. That was always the final turn off for me when I thought about trying one. I once made the mistake of ordering facewash at a too good to be true price and got suckered into an automatic billing/shipping cycle from hell that took forever to get out of. NEVER AGAIN I vowed, and I meant it. Then my Aunt Vanessa gave me a good Hello Fresh review and a completely free week. She assured me that it was easy to go on and pause all your deliveries right after your freebie until you decided whether or not you liked it. If you did, you could check out the upcoming menu’s and unfreeze. If I wasn’t a fan I could keep freezing…or cancel the service all together.  I decided this was sound advice and since I’d been on the fence, I’d give it a try.

This isn’t a Hello Fresh review so in a nutshell I thought that two of the meals were mediocre and one was delicious. The delicious meal, beef tacos with guacamole and radishes.

Not only were the tacos really tasty, but I would never in a million years have thought to put radishes on top of a taco. I mean come on, that is definitely not a taco topping listed on the generic Mexican food menu I know and love.

If I’m going to spend the money on a meal delivery service I’d like to be inspired by the recipes; a new ingredient, a new technique, something to justify the extra expense. Since only 1/3 of my free meals hit the mark I decided that I wasn’t going to cancel my service, but I also wasn’t going to order another box until I saw at least 2 meals that I thought looked interesting.

I have repeated the radish taco meal several times since my box, tweaking it slightly, most notably by swapping the tortillas for lettuce wraps because healthy. I think lettuce wrapped tacos are yummy but I won’t lie to you and say it’s the same. Real Talk: If you could care less, use the tortillas because when they are warm, there is really no way even the crispest lettuce leaf can compare.

I’m glad to add a new Mexican recipe to my at home arsenal. And even more glad to ‘healthify’ it enough that I can still justify frequent visits to our favorite Mexican restaurants, generic cheap menus and all 🙂

Beef Tacos with Radish and Avocado

Slightly Adapted from Hello Fresh

Ingredients:

1 lb Lean Ground Beef

1/2 Red, Yellow or Orange Bell Pepper, seeded and diced

1 small Onion, diced

2 Cloves Garlic, minced

Low Sodium Taco Seasoning (If you prefer to make your own, I like this recipe)

1 Avocado

1 Lime, sliced in wedges

3-4 Radishes, thinly sliced (I found matchstick radishes at Wal Mart which I bought for convenience but I prefer the sliced radishes for taste and presentation)

Sour Cream

Scallion Greens (optional)

Tortillas or Leaf Lettuce

Directions:

1. Heat skillet over medium heat. Drizzle 1/2 tsp of olive oil and add onions and bell pepper. Saute for 1-2 minutes then add garlic. Saute for an additional minute and then add ground beef and taco seasoning. Cook until beef is no longer pink.
2. While beef cooks, Mash your avocado in a small bowl and squeeze half of your lime into it. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Once beef is cooked through, assemble your tacos. Spread guacamole on tortillas or lettuce wraps, top with ground beef and top with sour cream, radish slices, sliced scallions and additional lime wedges. Enjoy!