DIY Taco Sauce

During my brief life as a camp counselor, lunch on Tuesdays was pretty awful. It was tacos. And they were awful.

But the worst part of the experience was the song. Oh, god, the song! Kids would run up to the front of the cafeteria to sing the damned taco song:

Tacos, burritos

What's coming out of your speedo?

You got trouble (uh oh)

You got bubbles (uh oh)

 Every week. For months.

Anyway, this recipe is about taco sauce. This taco sauce I'm presenting to you is easily customized. I'm making it here as mild as humanly tolerable as it will be served to children who have told me at least once that chocolate is too spicy. You should add cayenne. Probably Sriracha. I'm biased.

DIY Taco Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 6oz. can of tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons of cornstarch
• 1/3 cup of white vinegar
• 4 teaspoons of chili powder
• 2-3 teaspoons of salt
• 3 cups of cold water

1. First, in a sauce pan, add the cornstarch to the water and make sure it's all dissolved. Goopy cornstarch is the worst. Not your friend.

2. Then add all the other ingredients, bring to a boil then lower the heat. Simmer.

3. The sauce will be done after about 10 minutes. You can let it go longer if you want a thicker sauce. Three cups of sauce is a lot of sauce. 

Vegetarian Peanut Crack Sauce

My friend Madeline originally turned me onto this recipe a few years ago. I think when I read it, it was relegated to "stir-fry sauce" and not much more. But then I adopted it like a stray kitten, nursing it on a steady diet of encouragement steroids so it could be so much more than just stir-fry sauce. Now it's crack sauce. It's the sauce you bust out when you want to impress people. It's the sauce you give away on Christmas and people throw aside their iPads and Pokemon cards, grabbing the jar with sparkles in their eyes while saying, "God bless you, Holly. God bless you! May your womb be ever fertile" Yeah. That's how good this fucking sauce is.  I'm not even remotely exaggerating.People get weird when they receive awesomesauce. 

Vegetarian Peanut Crack Sauce

1 cup unsalted, unsweetened peanut butter (all-natural)
1.5 tbs. minced garlic
2 tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs. brown sugar
2 tbs. red curry paste
1 tbs. ground ginger
Sriracha sauce to taste
1 cup very hot water

Blend all these ingredients together using an immersion blender. Store in the fridge. It won't last long, but it gets better with a few days of sitting sassy in your fridge. 

USE ON EVERYTHING. Tofu, peppers, whole-wheat noodles, buckwheat noodles, udon, brown rice, chickpeas, beans, shhhhh people tell me they eat this on English muffins in the morning. Try it. You'll figure it out.