Keeping With The Mexican Theme...

Dinner 01/28:
2 Whole Wheat tortillas, Cuban black bean salad, sauteed onions and greens, Trader Joe's beefless strips, avocado, and fresh green onion. Salsa on the side. :)

Can you tell I've been too busy to post recipes lately? That and the above is just pretty self explanatory. :)

Lunch Tomorrow

Whole wheat tortillas (Trader Joe's) stuffed with Cuban black bean salad, grilled peppers and onions, and a tiny bit too much red pepper flakes. Topped with sprouts and some grape tomatoes to snack on. :)

I'm excited!

Easy Guacamole

I love guacamole, it's absolutely delicious and I always try to have it in the house. The best part about it is that it's super easy to make and you can use it for sandwiches, tacos, as a dip, etc. Here is a recipe for some quick guacamole I whipped up with some basic ingredients.

1 ripe (softened) avodaco
1/2 small onion
1/2 small tomato
2 cloves of garlic
1 small jalapeno (optional)
salt, pepper, and paprika, to taste

Directions:
Cut the avocado in 1/2 and remove the seed. Using a spoon, remove the avocado from the shell and toss it into a food processor.



Dice up the onion, tomato, garlic, and jalapeno, and toss it into the processor. Season mixture with salt, pepper, and paprika.



Mix the ingredients until most of the tomato and onion have been mixed well in. I like my guacamole a bit thicker than completely mashed so I process it enough just to get a "lump" sort of texture from the onion and tomato.



That's it! Place in a dish and serve.



It takes about 5 minutes to make and stores well in the fridge when covered by plastic wrap.

Wild Mushroom Quesdaillas

Yesterday for dinner, I made wild mushroom quesadillas with a black-bean salsa. I kinda stole the recipe from Rachel Ray and modified it a bit.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan, plus some for drizzling
16 crimini mushroom caps, baby portobellos, with stems, trimmed and thinly sliced
12 shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced, stems discarded
Coarse black pepper and salt
4 large flour tortillas, 12 inches in diameter
2 cups shredded sharp white cheddar

Salsa:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the oil and the sliced mushrooms to the hot skillet. Season mushrooms with black pepper and salt. Saute the mushrooms 10 minutes or, until dark and tender, then remove from heat. Transfer the mushrooms to a dish and return the skillet to the stove over medium heat.

(Heh, looks kinda gross from far)

Add another turn of extra-virgin olive oil to the skillet and add the onions, garlic and jalapeno pepper; saute for 2 or 3 minutes, then add beans and corn to the pan. Stir in chopped tomatoes then season salsa with salt and pepper. Transfer warm salsa to a serving dish.

Heat a griddle pan or large nonstick skillet over medium to medium high heat. Add a drizzle of oil to the pan and 1 flour tortilla. Cook tortilla 1 minute, then turn it over. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sharp cheddar over 1/2 of the flour tortilla. Cover the cheese with 1/4 of the cooked sliced mushrooms. Fold the plain 1/2 of the tortilla over top of the filling and gently press down with a spatula. Cook the filled quesadilla 30 seconds to a minute longer on each side to lightly brown and crisp the quesadilla and melt the cheese. Remove the quesadilla to a large cutting board or transfer to a warm oven to hold, then repeat with remaining quesadilla ingredients.

Cut each quesadilla into wedges and serve with warm salsa for topping.

Salsa:

I made my salsa happy by garnishing with avocado (yum), also I wanted to make my meat-eating boyfriend happy even though there was none being served. :P

The final product:

Oh no! Mr. Salsa! What did they do to you?!?