Oven baked chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

Its fun staying with family and a different kind of fun when its that side of the family that you haven’t had a chance to spend much time with.

My mom’s parents and her brother and his family stay in Toronto and these days I am staying with them. Since Canada was never much in our holiday destinations, I hardly got to meet my uncle or his family much while growing up. Now, I will be with them for more or less two months, while my course is going on.

My uncle is a fun person. Being the youngest of the three children, and having two elder sisters to pamper him, he is still a kid in many respects and loves pulling everybody’s legs and making everyone laugh. My mom’s sister’s daughter also stays close by and when she comes home, its a laughing riot in the house. Each family member is goofier than the other, messing up normal things and giving others some fodder to laugh about. Well, what would you expect from a family of Sardars, but this.

I do miss home and V and my friends back in Arizona, but I like the change that comes with this place. I especially like that I am with family and have this time to bond with my mom’s side of the family, which I never could growing up.

Oven baked chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

I also enjoy all the stories that my grandmother and uncle share with me about my mom and how she was as a child. My uncle tells me my mom hardly ever got angry and was generally a very calm person, but on the one or two occasions that she did lose her temper she could be really bad. My brother is like that. Or well, used to be like that. He hardly ever lost patience with me, even though I would test him a lot by irritating him, but when I would finally manage to tip him over there was hell to pay for it. And that is when I would feel really bad about myself and apologize for days for being such a prick.

My grandmother tells me even though my mom was intelligent, she was slow in writing her paper, and thus even when she knew the answers, she couldn’t complete the paper and thus lost out ona lot of good opportunities. Her brother tells me how mom was amazing at mental maths. While her elder sister would count on fingers a math problem, my mom would have already solved the problem in her head and given my grandmother an answer. Today, too, if you ask her something, she will quickly solve it mentally and tell us the answer. No wonder she is a champ at Sudoku. Maths has always been her friend.

Oven baked chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

I also got to know that my grandmother can be very feisty if she needs to be. She is very protective of her two daughters and son. My uncle told me how once a guy in the neighborhood troubled my mother once. But my mother being a quiet person did not tell anybody about it. The same day, the same guy troubled my aunt as well, and my aunt being more bold made sure she told my grandmother about it. My grandmother then went with a stick to beat the boy up and warned him that if ever he troubled her daughters again she would beat the heck out of him. It’s nice to know behind that sweet face is someone who would stand up for you when the need arises.

I am enjoying all these little tidbits from my mom’s past. I don’t know if you are interested in hearing about it, but this space has always been my place to document things, and I really do not want to lose these memories and hence all this gibber gabber. But since this space is also my place to document recipes, here’s another one for you today.

Oven baked chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

I took this recipe from a friend’s facebook wall. She hadn’t personally tried this but they sounded good so I thought of trying them out. I used ground chicken instead of the ground beef called in the original recipe. To make the dish healthier, I used wheat and black bean blend tortillas instead of flour or corn tortillas. These were really simple to put together, and they tasted great as well.

A quick weeknight meal or in fact great for the weekends when you want to spend maximum time talking to your family rather than cooking in the kitchen. Plus, there is hardly any clean up with these. A little salsa and lettuce on top of these baked tacos gives a crunch and tang to the dish. And even though not required, it’s difficult to say no to sour cream! So add that too, if you like.

chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

Oven Baked Chicken Tacos
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Refried beans, ground chicken and tomato sauce go into these cheese topped oven baked chicken tacos. Add a little salsa, lettuce and sour cream on top to add crunch and tang to the dish
Recipe type: dinner, main
Cuisine: Mexican
Serves: 8 tacos
Ingredients
  • 1.2 lbs ground chicken
  • 1 (16 oz) can refried beans
  • 1 (1.25 oz) packet taco seasoning
  • 1 (8 oz) small can tomato sauce
  • 8 tortillas ( I used artisan's wheat and black bean blend)
  • Shredded mexican cheese, to top
  • Sour cream, lettuce, salsa, sriracha (optional, to top later)
Instructions
  1. Brown the ground chicken making sure the water dries up and the chicken is cooked.
  2. Add refried beans, taco seasoning and tomato sauce. Mix together and scoop into taco shells. Stand each taco shell up in a casserole dish.
  3. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake at 375 for 10 minutes.
  4. Serve with salsa and sour cream. Add some lettuce and sriracha, if you want.

Oven baked chicken tacos The Novice Housewife

 

13 Thoughts on “Oven Baked Chicken Tacos

  1. great memoir of your family Shumi 🙂 and I am drooling at the tacos. I can eat Mexican food anytime.
    dixya| food, pleasure, and health recently posted..One Waffle Maker Many PossibilitiesMy Profile

  2. I can’t live without Mexican food — to be precise, tacos! This looks so delish!!
    Kiran @ KiranTarun.com recently posted..Triple Berry Oat SmoothieMy Profile

  3. such a nice reflection.
    mex food is my favorite.. this looks insane. chicken tacos are the best!!!
    + cheese.
    Honey, What’s Cooking recently posted..Sightseeing in Montreal | Quebec, CanadaMy Profile

  4. Oh my…these look so delicious, and such a great recipe to have on hand for those busy weeknights. I wish I had all the ingredients right now, but headed to the grocery store in the morning and will fix that problem! Lovely photos and prose as well…enjoyed hearing about your lovely family! And, yes, definitely the sour cream!!! 😉
    LuvnSpoonfuls recently posted..Roasted Tomatoes and PastaMy Profile

  5. Pingback: Oven-Baked Chicken Tacos Recipe | Things To Do Yourself - DIY

  6. Stacey on 12 March, 2014 at 10:01 am said:

    I made these two weekends ago for my boyfriend and I and they were absolutely delicious and so easy! I got nine tacos out of the recipe so we had dinner for the next night as well and they were just as tasty – if not more so – the second time around! 🙂

  7. Gwennie on 5 December, 2014 at 10:18 am said:

    Thanks for the twist on a old recipe, pictures make it a must-try!

  8. Adrienne on 9 December, 2015 at 6:55 am said:

    I made these last night and maybe it’s just my pregnant self, but I did not care for the tomato sauce in them. My husband loved them though!

    • Firstly congratulations on the pregnancy! Umm..well you could omit the sauce next time if you did not like it so much and see if it makes a difference. Thanks for the feedback though.

  9. These look seriously good. Just posted an oven baked chicken tacos on my blog as well. Mexican is ruling the day, I guess!
    Даша Ниженко recently posted..SUBJ1These look seriously good. Just posted an oven baked chicken tacos on my blog as well. Mexican is ruling the day, I guess!My Profile

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