Category: bean recipes

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos

Happy March, fellow foodies! Sorry for the long absense; things were a little rough for me for awhile. But it’s all looking up, and here’s to yummy food and fellowship as we continue on in Lent and head towards Easter and fresh spring vegetables and flowers and summer! And allergies, but that’s not so exciting hahaha.

Today I have a simple inexpensive meatless (depending on the cooking fat you use) recipe for you that is super easy to make for 1-2 people or a large crowd. Besides, who doesn’t love tacos?? If you don’t, just shhh, I don’t need that negativity in my life 😉

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos

Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp cooking fat such as coconut oil, lard, ghee, butter, or tallow
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 1 can black beans, drained
  • 2 tbsp taco seasoning + 1/4 cup water
  • Fresh lime juice (optional)

Heat fat in large skillet. Add onion and sweet potatoes, frying on medium high till tender. Add black beans and mix well. Add taco seasoning and water. Mix well. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Just before serving, if desired, squeeze half a lime over the skillet.

 

As you can see from the photos, I cut up flour tortillas and fried them to make chips for this particular meal. Of course shells or wraps work just as well! And fresh cilantro on top is just a serving suggestion as well. Other addons include cheese, tomatoes, olives, greens, etc. Whatever you like to put on your tacos could apply here. Stack them high and enjoy!

A note on the cooking fat in the recipe, too, is that any oil would also work, but I’ve found through trial and error and quite a few painful splatter burns on my arms and neck that the solid fats work much better for root vegetables. This is my experience, not anything super scientific or a chef’s recommendation!

Also, posts will be moving to Monday from now on.

Happy Monday and happy cooking!

Homemade Citrus-based Dressing

Can I just say that I really love La Croix?  It’s super refreshing and I honestly can’t figure out why so many people hate it. Except for the mixed berry or whatever; that one just tastes odd.

Also I haven’t quite decided which kind of beans I like better, black beans or cannellini beans. Both are so delicious and versatile. Black beans usually mean tacos, but white beans are so good in almost anything else. Like a cold salad. With mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, and a citrus-based dressing. That may or may not have wine in it. I mean, I made tuna steaks tonight, and some pretty groovy red potatoes (sorry, I may have watched Austin Powers earlier), but the bean salad was the star of the show. It just was. Mostly because of the dressing. But also the beans. I dunno, it was just perfectly summery and I loved it.

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Homemade Citrus-based Dressing

(adapted from the March 2018 issue of Shape Magazine)

Ingredients:

Juice of 1 medium grapefruit

1 small shallot

Olive oil

Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Squeeze of fresh orange juice

White wine

Pink Himalayan salt

Freshly ground black pepper

 

Directions: Blend all ingredients together, adjusting the ratios as you see fit. Will keep in the fridge for a few days. (I got a little less than 1/2 cup juice from my grapefruit and used about two tablespoons olive oil and maybe just over a tablespoon of wine. I don’t measure. It’s a bit of a problem.)

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Okay so this is a suuuuuper loose recipe. The one in Shape suggests pomelo or tangelo in place of the grapefruit even. And white wine vinegar, not just white wine, but I somehow do not have any (just red wine vinegar and I didn’t think that would work too well) so I splashed a little wine in instead, which makes it not really a vinaigrette but eh who cares. Also it suggested lemon zest, but I just skipped that step tonight. Also, I toyed with the idea of adding a bit of jalapeno and avocado, which I might try next time. Homemade dressings are so fun.

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See, the salad really was the star of the show. I probably overcooked the tuna. That tends to happen. But it was tasty and the leftovers are being crumbled up and added to the salad for my lunch at work tomorrow and served with a side of my actually rather delicious fiber crackers (more on those another time). Because I can.

UPS broke my taco shells

I really never know how to begin blog posts. It’s not a letter or an email, but it feels like it needs an introduction of sorts. Yeah yeah, I’ve got an English degree, I probably should know these things. But I don’t. It’s just weird. I don’t want to be too informal, but I don’t want to say “hello and welcome” every single time either.

I’ll figure it out. Eventually.

Meanwhile, I haven’t been cooking all that much recently either (as I believe I said in my last post) but today I went major (and I do mean MAJOR) grocery shopping so here’s to some awesome experimenting in the kitchen in the next month!

Anyway, taco shells. I put in a large order of pantry items from Amazon Pantry a few weeks ago, and it arrived in two shipments over two days, and BOTH boxes were banged up really badly, despite reading FRAGILE all over them. One box had a bunch of packages of pasta, as well as the aforementioned taco shells. Fast-forward to yesterday when I was making turkey tacos with black beans and cheese, and I open the first box of shells to find mostly broken pieces. Stupid. I like saving the money with Amazon, but I’m not sure I’ll order hard taco shells again…so a word of advice to anyone else who thinks to do this. It’s one thing when chips are broken…shells, not so much. They worked as chips for a taco salad, but I still wasn’t happy. My Taco Tuesday experience was slightly dampened. #firstworldproblems

But hey, I made The World’s Best Black Beans yesterday. They were so good I almost ate all of them in one meal. Well not quite. But they were really that good. Also here’s my concise review for White Claw Hard Seltzer: It’s low calorie, low carb, and tastes like Skittles. I love all the flavors. Give it a try if you’re into that sort of thing; it’s a great refreshing beverage for the summer, especially if you’re not into beer!

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The World’s Best Black Beans (serves up to 4, probably)

Ingredients:

1 can black beans

1 tbsp freshly minced garlic (chopped is okay too if you want bigger pieces)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Dash pink Himalayan salt

Dash freshly ground black pepper

Juice of half a lime

1 tsp lime zest

Dash of cumin (optional)

Pour beans into a small pot on the stove and heat over medium heat, stirring to ensure even heat. Add garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper, and mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and add lime juice, lime zest, and cumin if using. Serve immediately, preferably in tacos, but would also be delicious over rice and topped with chopped cilantro.