cook: taco bell-style mexican pizza

I had stopped at Taco Bell when I traveled to Pasadena and ate a Mexican pizza. It wasn’t as tasty as I remembered from my youth though I liked the sauce which was basically like the hot sauce in their packets. Surely I thought I could make this menu item better, and so tonight I made Mexican pizza for dinner. I think I had been intending to cook tlayudas because I'd been seeing this chorizo in my fridge and enchilada sauce in my cupboard for over a month. I also remembered to cook refried beans last week. And so I started by cooking the ground beef and the chorizo with sprinklings of onion and garlic powders, cumin, and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.       

 

Instead of microwaving my frijoles refritos, I reheated the beans and peppers and onion in a pot and used my potato masher to break them down further. 

My seasoned meat was looking and smelling scrumptious. And since we had tomatoes from our garden, I decided to puree them with the enchilada sauce.

 

After pureeing the pizza sauce, I simmered it to thicken and started frying two flour tortillas in canola oil and used a skewer to pop the holes in them.

 

After frying the tortillas, let the layering begin.

Spread refried beans on top of the tortilla followed by a layer of the seasoned meat. Add a sprinkling of Mexican cheeses next to act as a glue between the two tortillas. Then put the other fried tortilla atop. And then a thin layer of the tomato and enchilada sauce. I refrigerated the rest of this sauce for the carnitas enchiladas I'll cook on another night.

 

Next I added a generous layer of cheese. Shredded Monterey Jack, cheddar, cotilla, queso fresco melt well. And then pop the pizza into the oven on a low broil until melted and golden brown.

 

I had prepped before broiling the pizza more toppings by chopping scallions, tomatoes, cilantro and opening a can of sliced olives. I had also made myself a margarita with sparkling lemonade and tequila to sip while the pizza broiled.

 

Add the chopped greens, tomatoes and olives on top and then slice the pizza to make it easier to portion and eat with a fork.

I wished I had made the fried tortillas crispier and more golden because the texture of my Mexican pizza was more like a burrito than a pizza, but the flavors were great.