Lunchroom Nostalgia: Baked Beef Crispitos

Sigh. Thank goodness for spring breaks. I’m finally getting caught up on all the cleaning, organizing, baking and blogging I planned to do weeks ago! 🙂

The spring photos (flowers, new gardening endeavors, etc.) will have to wait until tomorrow. Today’s topic: lunchroom nostalgia. Yes, at first glance that phrase seems paradoxical, but…when I was a kid, there was one particular hot lunch that had every child begging their parents to not pack them a sack lunch that day: Chili Crispitos. Basically, two beef-and-cheese-filled tortillas deep-fat-fried to perfection. Of course, they were served with the usual corn, tossed salad, and choice of milk, but on really good days, the menu included strawberry shortcake. Hot lunch heaven!

Last night, and ironically, the second weekday since spring break started that I haven’t smelled the lunchroom food from the classroom, I began to crave those ever-coveted chili crispitos! The more I sifted through online recipes, the more I realized I didn’t want to fry the crispitos. Yes, “Crispitos” implies fried, but I wasn’t feeling greasy food. Finally, I just decided to throw my own recipe together and bake it!

I was skeptical at first, but they turned out just as crisp! (It’s amazing what a little olive oil will do…) Here’s the recipe! Enjoy with memories of lunchtimes past.

Baked Beef Crispitos

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. ground beef

1 Tbsp. taco seasoning or 1 tsp. of paprika and

chili powder each

8 flour tortillas

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup mild, chunky salsa

2 Tbsp. olive oil

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cook the ground beef with seasoning. I liberally used a mixture of paprika and chili powder.

2. While ground beef is cooking, stir together sour cream and salsa in a small bowl and line a 9 x 13 in. pan with tin foil.

3. Drain the ground beef. To assemble crispitos, fill each tortilla with about 1 1/2 Tbsp. of ground beef, 1 Tbsp. of sour cream/salsa mixture, and sprinkle liberally with cheese. (Leave a little bit of cheese for the tops of the finished crispitos.) Roll up each tortilla and set into pan.

4. Brush the top and sides of each assembled crispito with olive oil. This gives it the perfect faux-fried crunch on the outside! Sprinkle the crispitos with remaining cheese. Bake for 15 minutes.

5. Serve and enjoy! I actually had a lot of the sour cream/salsa mix left over, so we used it for dipping sauce!

Serving with corn and tossed salad was not optional. 🙂