Taco Glop

Author: Keri Schwab

For birthdays, holidays, and special nights at home, we always requested our favorite meal—Taco Glop. True, it’s an unappetizing name, but it’s a delicious, warm meal with all the FDA recommended food groups. In the eighth grade, I loved this dinner so much that I wrote a poem about my family preparing it the night before.

The preparation was memorable because while my two sisters and I tried to help mom cook, the kitchen light went out. With the glop bubbling on the stove, three young girls and mom hustling around the narrow kitchen, and my baby brother crawling around the floor, we needed light. So dad climbed on a stool in the center of the kitchen to change the light in the ceiling fan. By the time he finished, the kitchen windows had fogged up from all our heat. As soon as dad walked away from changing the light, mom rang the dinner bell: "It's time. It's time for dinner." The next day I titled my poem, "It's Time," and wrote about the hustle and bustle of our kitchen at dinnertime. (The poem made it to the class bulletin board for everyone to read.)

Taco glop is made of ground turkey (because it’s lower in fat than red meat), kidney beans, and stewed tomatoes. It is then spread out on tortilla chips and topped with cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce. In preparing the meal I, being the oldest, would help brown the ground turkey. I liked breaking up the meat and watching the pink turn dark brown. My sister, Katy, would stir in the stewed tomatoes and kidney beans, while I grated cheese. (Once, I scraped my knuckle on the grater and was scared of it for months.) My sister, Anna, would set the table, putting out the chopped lettuce and tomatoes that mom prepared. Anna always made sure to put the bottom-of-the-bag crushed tortilla chips next to dad because he liked the broken ones.

When eating our taco glop, each of us had our own special way of preparing it and placing it on our plates. Dad would add onions, peppers, hot sauce, and crushed chips because he liked to eat it with a fork. I would add extra cheese, skip the lettuce, and eat mine nacho-style. Anna would serve herself last because she took her time picking out the kidney beans. She also separated the food on her plate as she did not want it to touch. And since Katy hated tomatoes she would leave those off her plate. But I would often torture her by playing “Open Your Mouth, Close Your Eyes and You Will Have a Big Surprise”—the surprise being tomatoes.

After crunching away on dinner, mom would bring out fresh sliced oranges or grapefruit for dessert. We would all gather our dishes and help clean up while dad piled all the leftovers into one plastic container to take to work. With our bellies full, it was off for a bath and bed.

It truly was a wonderful way to share a meal with the ones we love.

Taco Glop Recipe

Ingredients

2 pounds ground turkey
2- 16 ounce cans kidney beans
2- 16 ounce cans stewed tomatoes
1 large bag tortilla chips
8 ounces grated cheddar cheese
2 chopped tomatoes
1 head chopped lettuce or fresh spinach
1 large chopped onion
8 ounce container sour cream
chopped hot peppers
1- 16 ounce can black olives (optional)
side of sliced mandarin oranges or grapefruit

Instructions

Brown the ground turkey and drain, if desired.
Drain half the juice from the kidney beans and add to cooked ground turkey.
Add stewed tomatoes.
Simmer together until some of the juices of have evaporated.
Grate the cheese, chop the tomatoes, and chop the lettuce.
Spread the tortilla chips on the bottom of a plate and spread the taco glop and toppings over the chips.

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