Taco Night!

Monday nights in our house have become unofficial (or possibly official, by now) roommate night.  Some weeks that means house meetings, and it often involves chores (last night we cleaned out the fridge), but last night it also involved a pretty awesome dinner - taco night!  At last count, our dinner required 11 bowls, 2 plates, and a tub of sour cream just to serve, and the meal was a constant chorus of "could you please pass the ___", but it was oh so totally worth it!  What was in all those containers?  Taco meat (for the non-vegetarians in the house), awesome bean filling, two kinds of guacamole, tex-mex cheese, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes+red peppers, cucumber, green onion, and cilantro, plus soft (flour) and hard (corn) tortillas.   I personally like to eat one or two hard tacos before getting fed up with how small they are or how easily they break, then I tend to switch to crumbling the taco shells over a salad.  So tasty!

Given that a traditional taco involves a lot of beef and cheese, and occasionally some guacamole which has been spiked with sour cream, I thought I'd talk about some of the recipes I use to make taco night equally enjoyable but all-the-more vegan.  (Although for the non-vegetarians, adding ketchup, garlic powder, chili powder, hot sauce, and a pinch of curry powder to browned beef makes for a pretty tasty alternative to pre-packaged taco seasoning packages).

Bean Filling

Did anyone else grow up eating beans and toast?  As a kid, for Saturday lunch I would make toast, cut it into cubes, then top with a can of baked beans in tomato sauce and microwave.  The bread soaked up all the sauce and got soggy and it was oh so very, very tasty!  Canned baked beans are SO cheap, and versatile, and have been a major player in my kitchen for pretty much as long as I could cook.  This particular variation I came up with one day when I was trying to make a can of beans seem a little more exciting; it was so amazingly delicious and so completely a comfort food that I have continued to make it for years.  It's also a nice way to use up leftover vegetables.  It's good eaten on pretty much anything crunchy (toasted pita bread is an especially good base, for those who can still eat wheat), but also doubles very nicely as a taco filling.

Ingredients:
-1/2 - 1 onion
-1/2 bell peppers, preferably a combo of 1+ colour
-1/2 - 1 carrot, thinly diced
-2 cloves garlic
-1 can baked beans in tomato sauce*, drained
-spices (use some of all of: chili powder, cumin, chipotle chili powder, ground coriander seed, red pepper flakes)
*Any brand works -  no-name is cheapest but every kind I've tried (except for Heinz, for some reason) is good

In a skillet over medium heat, saute the veggies til soft (generally adding them in the order of carrot-onion-pepper-garlic results in effective, even cooking).  Add beans and mix to combine.  Add spices.  I tend to add a few shakes of red pepper flakes to the veggies when sautéing them; then I add quite a lot of both chili powder and cumin, and a bit of each chipotle chili powder (not at all required if not on hand; it's really pricey) and coriander seed.  Make sure to taste and adjust spices to your preferred spice and flavour levels.  Continue to cook the beans at medium heat (or adjust down to medium low), stirring occasionally to avoid sticking, and use the spatula to press down on the beans to partially mash them.  Ultimately, the beans should form a thick paste, and will start to stick to the bottom of the pan.  Remove from heat and serve.  (Soaking the pan for a couple of hours after will make clean-up much easier).

Modified Guacamole
I was looking in my copy of Students Go Vegan Cookbook yesterday.  Have I mentioned this book yet?  It's a really good vegan resource, because it's designed for student budgets and also student portion sizes (most of the recipes feed 2, as opposed to the 4-6 of usual cookbooks). Anyway, I came across a recipe for a quesidilla filling that involved mashing avocado and white beans.  Coincidentally, I happened to have a pot of white beans cooking on the stove, which I subsequently forgot about and overcooked.  They were pretty mushy, so what better to do with them than mash them?

Upon actually making the filling, I realized it tasted pretty similar to guacamole, so I threw in a few more ingredients and made it more of a traditional guac.  The beans didn't really affect the flavour at all, and just contributed to the creaminess of the guac. Recipes for guacamole vary*, but whatever your preferred recipe, adding a cup or two of white beans is a way to add a protein, fiber and iron hit to an appetizer, a burrito, or a taco.  I recommend it!
*I never make guacamole the same way twice, although for me it must always involve avocado, garlic, and citrus juice, usually lime.  I'll often add cilantro, tomato or onion as well, or just mix in some salsa

 Lastly, one of my roommate turned me on to adding chopped bell peppers (red) to tacos, and another suggested adding cucumber.  Neither of these were filling ingredients I was used to (at home we used tomato, lettuce and onion, and sometimes we'd sauté strips of peppers fajita style, but never ate them raw), but both were delicious!  I recommend it.

Happy delicious messy taco-making!