All you need is a bag of your favorite tortilla chips, 1 pound of lean ground beef, package of taco seasoning, half cup of chili con queso, and some chopped lettuce and tomatoes for topping.

Cook the ground beef until done. Add in the taco seasoning and continue to cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Now here’s my secret ingredient…… corn meal. I add in a scant 1/4 cup of corn meal per pound of meat along with an extra 1/2 cup water to give the ground meat a nice smooth texture. I don’t like grainy hamburger meat and the corn meal – while some might say makes it look mushy – gives it a nice smooth texture so you don’t have all those little tiny balls of meat going everywhere and falling off the chip when you pick it up to eat it.

Spread the chips around on a plate (warming them up makes it even better) and then evenly sprinkle about 3 heaping Tablespoons of meat over them. Garnish with the lettuce, tomatoes and then drizzle the warm queso cheese over everything!

If you like taco sauce, serve some on the side. For even more flavor add in a little cilantro. I love cilantro – David HATES it. I had always kept  it in the crisper – but it would go ‘south’ in less than a week. Now when I buy cilantro it will last me 1-2 weeks because I found out how to keep it fresh longer. When you get it home from the store, cut off the bottoms of the stems about 1/2 inch up,  place the whole bunch into a glass half full of water and then put  it on a shelf in the fridge. The cilantro I used today was bought 2 weeks ago and it was still just as fresh as the day I put it into the water.