Taco Trays

Aylesbury, 0 miles, 0 locks

It's been a bit of a nowt nor summat day today. After a conversation with Gordon I'd decided to take Oothoon's batteries out and see what state they're in, but the weather really wasn't in the mood to co-operate, with showers on and off all day. I'm sure that in an emergency you could do work on the batteries in the wet, but frankly I'd rather not.

I did figure out where Maplin is, though, and took advantage of a break in the rain to cycle over there to get bits to connect up the solar panel. Jan brought over the regulator last week, but I was short of connectors and the 10 amp in-line fuse that it needs to have. Having got home with it all, I realised that I needed two fuses--one per battery bank--so I'll have to go back again. Also, the wires seem awfully thin, although I'm assured that they're able to take 12 volt at 8 amps. I'll have to hope there's not too much voltage drop.

I thought I'd mention the Discovery Foods Taco Trays that I bought the other night. I had high hopes for these, and sure enough they seem to work well. My 'standard' layering for a taco is salsa on the bottom, then sour cream, then beef, then cheese, then tomatoes and finally lettuce. This works well in a normal shell as the salsa and cream glue the beef in place, with the heat of the beef making the cheese melt slightly to make a 'cap' that also helps hold it in place. Gravity means that the lettuce and tomato will go everywhere, but that's part of the fun. With the trays, the standard layering works well, but you need to fill the tray with beef until it's level with the top, otherwise you don't really get enough (see the picture above). This does mean that the cheese, tomato and lettuce are perched precariously, ready to fall off at any moment, but with care you can eat it without losing too much over the sides and the trays are robust enough to handle being munched without catastrophic structural failure--even if you hold it by the little handle at one end. But...I dunno...it's just not as much fun as a normal taco. Overall they get a thumbs up and they definitely beat Old El Paso's flat-bottomed model, but I think I'll continue to buy normal shells for the foreseeable future.

One last point: with the Old El Paso Stand'n'Stuff Taco Dinner Kit you get 10 shells. When I wrote to Old El Paso to say how terrible I thought their new tacos were, I mentioned what an awkward number 10 is (except for two), and how the 'standard' kit gives you 12 tacos which works nicely between two, three or four people. The Taco Tray Dinner Kit comes with 14 trays, which I thought was a weird number, but I'm guessing that you should either get 12 fully intact trays out of this, with two spares, or it's aimed at couples who'll eat 7 tacos each, thinking that each one is slightly smaller than usual (which they are unless you pack them carefully).