By DeShawna called me Wednesday afternoon while I was in AP English and I had to call her back at lunch — she’s the dental-office woman from Bristow who’d taken my number at Mrs. Patterson’s baby shower last October and who Mrs. Patterson had told me would call me eventually. Eventually had finally arrived. Her son Zay was turning seven the following Saturday, the party was at the public-park pavilion in Bristow, and she wanted me to cater. Forty kids invited, plus parents and grandparents totaling about sixty mouths. She had a budget. She wanted “something more interesting than the pizza-place catering kit but still kid-friendly.”
I asked her three diagnostic questions: were any kids vegetarian (two), any allergies (one peanut allergy), any kids under three (no, all six and up). I told her I’d send her a proposed menu by Wednesday night for her approval and a price by Thursday morning. I sent her the menu Wednesday at eight PM: forty-eight mini taco cups, one hundred mini quesadillas, a half-sheet pan of cilantro-lime rice and black beans, a fruit platter, and a tray of churro bites for dessert. She approved everything by nine.
I priced the gig at one hundred seventy-five dollars total — not maximizing, but fair-with-margin for a five-hour Saturday and good for a referral relationship. She paid in cash at the end of the party with a fifty-dollar tip and a sentence I will probably remember for the rest of my life: “You took my Pinterest fantasy and made it real. I’m telling everybody.”
The taco cups were the centerpiece because kid food has to be hand-held, photogenic for the parents’ phones, fun, mild, and structurally non-threatening. The mini taco cup is engineered for all five. The crust is a single wonton wrapper from the Asian-foods aisle at Walmart pressed into a sprayed muffin-tin cup so the corners stick up like a four-pointed star. The wrappers come in fifty-count packs for two-something a pack, which means the crust cost across forty-eight cups was about two dollars total. The shells bake at three-fifty for five minutes empty — just to crisp them and set the shape — before the filling goes in.
The filling: a pound and a half of eighty-twenty ground beef browned and drained, seasoned with a packet of mild taco seasoning and a quarter-cup of water simmered down into a thick taco-meat texture (mild not hot — kids); a can of refried beans heated through and slightly thinned with a splash of broth so it spreads easily; two cups of pre-shredded Mexican-blend cheese. Each pre-baked wonton cup gets a teaspoon of refried beans on the bottom (binder), a tablespoon of taco meat on top, a generous pinch of shredded cheese, and goes back into the oven at three-fifty for another five minutes until the cheese is fully melted and slightly browned at the edges. Total bake time per batch is ten minutes.
The cups can be made up to four hours ahead and reheated on a sheet pan at three-fifty for three minutes to crisp them back up before serving — a feature that matters at a kid party because the catering window is unpredictable and the food needs to hold. At the party I assembled them on a serving tray with the toppings on-site: a small dollop of sour cream from a piping bag with a snipped corner (no piping tip needed, just a zip-top bag), a quarter-teaspoon of fresh pico de gallo, and a single shred of romaine for the leafy garnish. The pico and the lettuce go on at the last minute so they don’t wilt.
Forty-eight cups disappeared in approximately fourteen minutes. Three different parents asked DeShawna for my contact information before the cake came out. By the time I’d packed up and gotten home it was four-thirty Saturday afternoon and I had three new texts on my phone from numbers I didn’t recognize, all asking about availability for various events in May and June. I now have a small stack of business cards in a plastic case in my bag — Mama and I had ordered a hundred from the Sapulpa OfficeMax for ninety-nine cents per fifty on a print-shop coupon. The cards are simple: my name, a phone number, my email, and the words “Catering & Cakes” in a script font Mama picked. I handed out twelve at the party. I have eighty-eight left and I expect to be out of them by the end of June.
Wonton wrappers as the cups, two short bakes, toppings on-site. Here’s the build.
Taco Cups
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 12 cups
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef (80/20)
- 1 packet (1 oz) taco seasoning
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 can (16 oz) refried beans
- 1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese
- 12 wonton wrappers
- 1/2 cup salsa
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup sliced black olives (optional)
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- Cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a standard 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray.
- Press wonton cups. Press one wonton wrapper into each muffin cup, gently fitting it against the sides to form a small bowl shape. Lightly mist the tops with cooking spray.
- Pre-bake shells. Bake wonton cups for 5 minutes until just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Remove from oven and set aside.
- Brown the beef. In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook ground beef, breaking it apart, until no pink remains, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat.
- Season the meat. Add taco seasoning and water to the skillet. Stir to combine and simmer 2–3 minutes until the liquid is mostly absorbed.
- Layer the cups. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of refried beans into the bottom of each wonton cup. Top with a heaping tablespoon of seasoned taco meat.
- Add cheese. Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over each filled cup.
- Bake until melted. Return the muffin tin to the oven and bake 8–10 minutes, until the cheese is fully melted and the wonton edges are crisp and golden brown.
- Top and serve. Remove from oven and let cool 2 minutes. Top each cup with a small spoonful of salsa and sour cream. Garnish with sliced green onions and black olives if using. Serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 185 | Protein: 12g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 420mg