Taco Ring

When I mentioned that my husband had to remind me that the culinary delight of french fries was not the first thing we cooked in my oven, but that it was actually Taco Ring, I had someone comment that they didn't know what that was. That was probably the longest sentence I've ever written. Anyway, so I decided that even though it's not an original recipe (most of mine aren't...I leave that to Pioneer Woman), I'd post about it.

A little background. I was first introduced to Pampered Chef the year after my sweet husband and I were married. I immediately fell in love with the company. I was working full time outside the home at the time, or I would have probably signed up as a consultant back then. I eventually did become a consultant after my kiddo was born and had the best time doing it for about three years. Those were the days of every Pampered Chef recipe having cream cheese and/or crescent rolls. They've mixed it up a bit since then, but man, those first recipes I was exposed to just did me in. I was hooked. Taco Ring was our favorite back then, and is pretty much our favorite now, as far as P.C. recipes go. I have others that I lurve, but I know I can always fall back on this one.

So, here you go, all you uninitiated ones!

First of all, you can find "Beef Taco Ring" in Pampered Chef's The Pampered Chef® All The Best - From Our Kitchens To Yours cookbook. I have other favorites in here, too. My Taco Ring is a little more simplified than what they do. And I love simplified.

Here are the ingredients (can you tell I shop at Aldi?)

1 1/ lbs. ground beef (or ground turkey, or what we use, ground deer)

1 pkg. taco seasoning mix

1 3/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese, or however much you want


2 Tbsp. water (in the cute pink measuring cup, also from P.C.)

First, you take your take your trusty Large Round Stone (okay, let me say that every stinkin' piece of kitchen equipment I'm using is from P.C, just so I don't have to keep saying, "This is from Pampered Chef, too!" As a matter of fact, everything you see in this picture except the permanent fixtures is from P.C...what can I say, I earned a lot of stuff as a consultant!),

or if you don't have one, a cookie sheet will work okay, you just have to be creative with your crescent roll placement. My stone is very seasoned. That's the reason it doesn't look clean. It used to have a perfect bull's-eye design cooked into it. Some people's stones look very dark brown or even black. Think of it like a cast iron skillet. The more you use it, the better it gets. I've had this one since February 1996. I will go into serious mourning if and when this baby ever breaks. I do, however, have a backup because I CANNOT be without this stone.

And don't ask me why these huge spaces are in between each paragraph they keep getting bigger with each edit and it's driving me c r a z y !

But I digress...Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Cook your ground beef (or turkey, deer, whatever) in a skillet until browned and no pink is left.

Drain if you have grease left. Since I use deer meat (alright, stay with me people! It's good!), there is NO fat left. In fact, I had to add a couple teaspoons of oil so it have some grease in it.

Next, mix in the water, taco seasoning,


and cheese

and stir until well mixed in. I would post a picture, but the pictures turned out really weird and kinda gross looking, so I decided that you can figure out on your own how it's gonna look. You could actually do all of this on your own, but then I wouldn't have anything to post about.

Okay, now that you've got your meat browned and stirred up, it's time for your crescent rolls. Open each can and separate each triangle, laying them in a circle on the stone (if you are using a cookie sheet, get creative with this part. You could probably do the same thing, just in a square).

You want to lay them with the points hanging off the edge of the stone and the wide part overlapping the previous triangle, like this:

Continue around the entire stone with all 16 crescent rolls. I can't for the life of me figure out why my picture of all of the rolls on the stone didn't end up on my camera. But you can see it when we start placing the meat mixture on the crescents, here:

Make sure all the crescents get covered with the meat mixture. See how it's making a complete circle? Then place the points of the triangle over the top of the meat mixture, tucking the points under the wide ends:

Until it's completely covered. You will have filling peeking out between the crescents.

Then bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until lovely golden brown:

Then cut each crescent for a total of 16 servings. Serve with sour cream, salsa, extra cheese, whatever you would normally use on tacos.

Ironically, just before this went into the oven I remembered I had to be at a Pampered Chef party in like, 5 minutes. Panic mode set in and I gave the responsibility of picture taking to my sweet husband. I forgot to tell him to take a picture of one of the crescents when he had "dressed" it, so you'll have to wait on that one. The great thing about this recipe is that for my family, it makes enough for leftovers.

So, there you go. Taco Ring. Hope you make it often. So, what are your favorite recipes?