Day 1: Taco Ring

I decided to start with something that I thought would be simple. My Grandma's Taco Ring Recipe sounds simple enough: Ground beef, taco seasoning, and cheese rolled into croissants and arranged in a ring. I made 2 mistakes while attempting this recipe. Mistake#1: Buying cheap store brand croissants. The Kroger brand croissants I used were the most mis-shapen croissants I've ever seen. The dough was much closer to rectangular than triangular, and at the end of the roll, I was left with a very long, thin strip of dough. Somehow I managed to mold it into a shape that I could fill with meat, but this Taco Ring was quite possibly the ugliest Taco Ring my family has yet seen. The recipe also said to garnish the Taco Ring with diced tomatoes and olives, but when I went grocery shopping, I could not locate any olives. You would think that they would be with the rest of the canned vegetables, but not at Fry's. They are in some hidden location which I have not yet discovered. Mistake#2: Not reading the directions on my pizza stone before using it. I have used my mom's Pampered Chef pizza stone several times and I've never used anything to keep food from sticking to it, and I never had a problem. After I chiseled the Taco Ring off the pizza stone, I read the directions. It turns out, I was supposed to sprinkle corn meal on the stone before putting any dough on it.

Despite the problems I faced in removing the Ring from the stone, and the naked un-garnished ugliness of the Ring, it still tasted really good. My Grandma's cookbook says that this is my cousin ,JR's , favorite. I can see why. The battery in my camera is dead. We took a picture of it with Adam's phone, but have not yet figured out how to retrieve the picture from the phone. Maybe someday you will get to see my ugly, naked, but delicious Taco Ring.