Breakfast Tacos

Tacos are found everywhere across the country. But, the breakfast taco is just one more thing that seems to be unique to Texas.

The popular and inexpensive breakfast taco is found everywhere in and around the hill country, and consists of a soft tortilla, either corn or flour, filled with a variety of fillings. At many places, if you don’t see the breakfast taco you want, you can custom order one with the fillings that will make you happy.

A breakfast taco’s fillings normally include egg, cheese, and some form of meat. The meat is often Mexican chorizo (a pork sausage seasoned with garlic, chilies, and other spices), but bacon is common as well. Beyond the basic ingredients, there are a whole host of things you can include as fillings, depending on what the vendor has on hand. Onion, potato, cilantro, beans, rice, ham, tomato, and jalapeno peppers can be added to the basic mix. There are even places that add mashed potatoes. Salsa is often served as a side.

While the rest of you around the country are grabbing a quick cup of coffee in the morning, a bowl of cold cereal, fruit, or an early "something" from one of those fast-food chains before running off to work, down here in Texas we’re enjoying a real hearty breakfast.

Good Morning, and sorry about your luck.

That’s One Big Donut

I don’t know if everything is bigger in Texas, but I do know one thing that is, and that’s the Texas Donut.

The Texas Donut is only available at the Lone Star Bakery in its Round Rock Donuts store in Round Rock,Texas. The oval shaped donut is a whopping 12 inches long, and about 8 inches wide. It weighs two pounds, is the equivalent of a dozen normal donuts, and contains about 2,300 calories.

Despite its large size, the donut, covered in either regular or chocolate glaze, is light and fluffy and has a fresh and yeasty taste. Because the bakery uses fresh eggs instead of baking powder, the donut has a distinctly yellow, and perhaps, slightly orange color. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of either sweet foods or eggs, but, I do make an exception in this case. This donut literally melts in your mouth. This is a good donut; no, it’s a great donut. By the way, before you start assuming things, I did not eat the entire thing by myself, although, I certainly thought about it.

The store opens at 4:00 a.m., and they tell me there is a line to get in at that hour. I’m not often up at that time of the morning, but I can verify that we waited for 15 minutes at the drive-thru at two in the afternoon. The Texas Donut; however, was worth every minute of the wait.

Lone Star Bakery has been around since 1926, and has a wide selection of delicious treats. In addition to the Texas Donut, you can also purchase smaller donuts, kolaches, fritters, muffins, cinnamon rolls, breads, cookies, brownies, pies, cakes, and cupcakes.

The Texas Donut is truly one of a kind. Don’t mess with Texas, at least, not with the Texas Donut!

Kolaches

You can’t talk about the history, culture, food, and music of the Texas Hill Country without mentioning the waves of German and Czech settlers during the 19th century. Those early settlers left a legacy which still reverberates throughout the hill country today.

One of the legacies which I appreciate is the food. Before moving to Texas, I had never heard of Kolaches. Now, I can’t believe I haven’t been enjoying them my entire life.

The Kolache is a Czech food, and the traditional Kolache is cooked bread-dough filled with various sweet fruits, poppy seeds, or cheese. Americans, being who we are, have expanded beyond the "traditional" fillings to include all kinds of things. And that’s a good thing, because I’m not really wild about sweet foods, although, I do like cheese.

In Texas, Kolaches seem particularly popular for breakfast. I don’t know why that is. The Kolache choices are seemingly endless. I’m going to disregard writing about the “sweet” Kolaches. Sorry, but if you want to find out more about the sweet Kolaches, you’ll have to come to Texas. The same is true with respect to eggs. I’ve just never appreciated the egg in any way, shape, or form, including, inside a Kolache.

My kind of Kolache is filled with meats, cheeses, and potatoes. Bacon, sausage, Polish sausage, meatball, chicken, pepperoni, cheddar cheese, and cream cheese; these are the fillings which excite me. Being a non-traditionalist in more ways than one today, I decided to have two non-sweet Kolaches at a time other than breakfast. My lunch choice today was a warm Philly Cheese Steak Kolache and a hot Sausage Gravy Kolache.

At this point, after eating my two Kolaches, I don’t know what more to say, except maybe to thank the early Czech settlers for their delicious contribution to the hill country.