I love Mexican food for many reasons. First, of course, is for the taste.

The fresh crisp vegetables, the creamy avocado, the spices. Such great textural and flavor combinations. Cool sour cream against the heat of a chili. Soft tortillas and crunch peppers.

The second reason to love Mexican is how fast you can get dinner on the table when you do a Mexican night.

We make tacos a lot. Tons of variations, too.

But I haven’t made fajitas in a while.

You can buy a kit at the store, but you can just as easily make your own. The kit doesn’t save you much time any way – it really just puts the spice packet and the tortillas in the same box.

I made chicken fajitas, but you can use any kind of meat you want, or you can go vegetarian with it. Maybe add some black beans for the protein. Or tofu. If you’re feeling daring.

So you will need

• chicken breast
• 3 peppers (any color, I used green because they were cheapest), diced
• 1 onion, diced
• vegetable oil
• taco or fajita seasoning (it’s in a packet- it’s premixed with all those great flavors)
• toppings as desired (I made my avocado yogurt dip and then added some shredded cabbage and cheese)

Preheat the oven to 400.

Place the chicken breasts on a foil lined baking dish. You want something with sides so the oil and spices won’t drip when you take the pan out (yes, I’ve made a mess of my stove before).

Drizzle some vegetable and some of the seasoning mix over the chicken. Add more if you want more spice and less for less. Totally up to you.

Pop the chicken in the oven and let cook until the juices run clear. You can also cut it open and check the coloring since we’re just going to shred the chicken later.

While the chicken bakes, add some vegetable oil and the diced peppers and onion to a pan.

Sprinkle over more of the seasoning mix. Stir and let cook until the veggies are soft.

When the juices are clear and the pinkness is cooked out of the chicken, remove from the oven and slice it up into bite size pieces.

Add the shredded chicken to the pot of veggies, stir and let the mixture cook together. For a bit of extra flavor, pour the oil collected in the pan from the chicken into the pot. It adds some more fat and juice to the dish, which is on the light side.

Last, but not least, assemble the fajita. Some avocado yogurt sauce, followed by shredded cabbage, then by the veggie and chicken mix and topped with cheese.

That’s the third great thing about Mexican night. It’s assemble your own meal. It’s like those R.L Stine Choose Your Own Adventure Goosebumps books!

Except, you know, you won’t meet a mad scientist or a flesh-eating zombie if you make the wrong turn.