Beef & Chicken Sausage Taconi

Taco: "[tah-KOH] A Mexican-style "sandwich" consisting of a folded corn tortilla filled with various ingredients such as beef, pork, chicken, chorizo sausage, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, onion, guacamole, refried beans and salsa. Most tacos in the United States are made with crisp (fried) tortilla shells, but there are also "soft" (pliable) versions. The latter are more likely to be found in the Southwest and California. Tacos may be eaten as an entrée or snack."

Taconi: [tah-KOH-nee] Abby's Italian twist on the traditional Mexican taco using slightly-altered standard ingredients

I was chided once for calling a dish a "tuna taco" when it was more like a wrap as far as the fillings went. So maybe I should have called it a "Tacwich". Or a "Sando". Just like I once learned that you can make a sandwich out of everything - which invariably makes it better - I have discovered that you can make anything in taco form. Just take my Tortizzas, for example...

But that's for another time.

Ingredients:

• corn tortillas
• ground beef
• spicy Italian chicken sausage (Trader Joe's)
• fresh garlic, chopped
• Italian seasonings
• *hardboiled egg, grated
• shredded iceberg or other lettuce (a head of iceberg is just so darn cheap)
• fresh avocado
• salt & pepper
• sandwich bag

1. in a sandwich bag, mix the ground beef with Italian seasonings, salt, pepper, and chopped garlic (push most of the air out and massage the meat in the bag - it's therapeutic and keeps the hands clean)
2. let meat stand while it gets all savory, and prep all other ingredients: slice the sausage, grate the egg, shred the iceberg, and dice the avocado. heat the tortillas over open burners now if you don't think you can multitask with the meat cooking later.
3. saute the beef mixture. let it brown a bit before adding the sliced sausage.
4. layer strategy: bed of lettuce, juicy juicy meat, egg (optional), cooool avocado

*Fool-proof hard-boiled eggs:

1. place eggs in a pot, cover with cool/cold water to about 1" above eggs
2. bring to a boil on high
3. as soon as water reaches a roiling boil, remove pot from heat, cover, and let stand for 15 min. (large eggs)
4. run cool water over eggs for a min., let sit in cool water for couple more minutes.