Shrimp and Avocado Tacos

 

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Cooking Light

1 pound cooked shrimp, tails removed
Lime juice, to taste
Corn tortillas
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
1 avocado, sliced

1. Add the shrimp to a large skillet. Heat the shrimp over medium-low heat, until warmed through. Toss with lime juice.
2. Divide shrimp among corn tortillas. Top with feta and avocado slices.

Tomatillo Treasure: Tacos with Salsa Verde

In the spirit of expanding my horizons and whatnot, I’ve lately experimented with ingredients I don’t use often. One of these was mascarpone cheese. Another was tomatillos, which resemble a green tomato and are wrapped in a papery husk oozing sticky sap. If you got past “sticky sap” and are still reading, congrats, because this unusual vegetable transforms into an excellent sauce.

Tomatillos are members of the nightshade family, and are a longtime feature of Mexican cuisine (a really long time—they were favored by the Mayans and Aztecs, or so Wikipedia tells me). I’d only used them once before, and it was to make these tacos in college. I didn’t use tomatillos again until just recently, and that’s a shame, because salsa verde—the most common use for tomatillos—deserves a place on tacos, burritos, nachos, chicken, and anything else you can think of that works.

I began by broiling the tomatillos, onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Broiling for more than a minute or two makes me nervous. When I think about it I picture a grilled cheese sandwich emerging from the oven blackened after an attempt to broil it. That image has come to represent all my broiling anxieties, which I had to set aside in order to make this meal. The promise of something delicious often wins over worries (not unfounded, mind you) about burning the food. Luckily, it all turned out fabulous: the tomatillos were pleasantly charred, the thin crescents of onion cooked to perfection.

From there, the recipe was less stress-inducing. I blended the tomatillos with a generous bunch of cilantro leaves, which weave their distinctive flavor throughout the sauce. It’s vibrant, as bright and pleasant as new spring leaves. Served on top of beans, cheese, and roasted pepper and onion, the sauce elevates this meal to something beyond—and better than—a regular weeknight taco. (Full disclosure: I added more cheese to my tacos after taking these pictures.)

Tomatillos may not look like much, tucked away in the produce section (well, that’s how it is at our local grocery), covered in muted green husks that belie their ability to transform into a versatile sauce. Once you discover them, I think you’ll see why they have such staying power.

Tacos with Salsa Verde

Olive oil for greasing the baking sheet
¾ pound tomatillos (about 6), husks removed
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 onion, sliced into crescent strips
1 bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
Corn tortillas
1 avocado, sliced
1 cup (or more) grated white cheddar cheese

1. Heat oven broiler. Lightly grease a baking sheet with olive oil. Spread whole tomatillos and garlic cloves and sliced onion and bell pepper on the baking sheet. Broil for 6 minutes. Remove from oven, stir vegetables, and return to oven to broil 6 minutes more. The tomatillos should be charred in places and the onion and pepper should be soft and browned in some places.
2. Place cilantro leaves and roasted tomatillos and garlic in a food processor and pulse until a smooth sauce forms.
3. In a small saucepan, heat the beans over low heat. Heat the corn tortillas in the microwave or in the oven on low heat.
4. To assemble the tacos, place a couple small spoonfuls of black beans on a corn tortilla. Top with a couple bell pepper strips and onion slices. Top with a tablespoon or so of the salsa verde, avocado slices, and cheese. Repeat until the fillings and sauce are used up.

At summer’s end, zucchini and black bean tacos

Labor day weekend: or, as I like to think of it, the beginning of fall, of cozy sweaters, of warm drinks, of grey skies for days on end. It’s the last hurrah of summer, and the best way to celebrate the change of season (and pretty much anything else) is a fabulous meal. These black bean and zucchini tacos celebrate summer squash and food made for eating outdoors under the fading sunlight of the last days of summer.

If you find yourself panicking at the idea of what entrée to bring to said fabulous meal this weekend, here’s the dish you need. Minus a small amount of prep time, it takes about 15 minutes to make. For groups, you can set up a taco bar with all the fixings, arranged along a picnic table or, if the weather is more fall than summer, a long countertop or table indoors. If you happen to steal away a quiet evening this weekend, this is an easy meal to pull together before you curl up with a book or catch up on The Newsroom (now you know what I do when I’m not blogging).

You start with the best tortillas you can find; corn tortillas work just as well as flour. Having never made tortillas from scratch, I can’t give you any advice on that (but I have assisted in the making of chapattis, an Indian flatbread, while in the middle of the Thar desert, so I guess that gives me some cred, right?). If you feel like making a snack, not a meal, you could eat the taco filling with tortilla chips. I’m not going to put down eating tortilla chips—goodness knows I love them—but there’s something quite satisfying about pulling it all together in a tortilla, and making these simple ingredients the main attraction rather than the supporting cast.

I’ve eaten zucchini and even black beans fresh from the garden, but if, like us, you don’t have ongoing access to a garden overflowing with vegetables, the zucchini and black beans from the store work just as well. While I used black beans, other beans would work; try cannellini beans, like I did here, chickpeas, or black-eyed peas. When summer really does succumb to fall and butternut squash is everywhere, you can replace the zucchini. Don’t forget the avocado, as it adds a lushness and superb flavor to the meal, and with a sprinkling of sharp cheddar, creates something heavenly.

In addition to dusting off my winter coat this weekend, I’ll be thinking about the meals I want to make this winter. What lies ahead—hearty casseroles, rejuvenating soups, root vegetables galore—will make this seasonal transition most enjoyable.

Zucchini and Black Bean Tacos

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ red onion, diced
2 zucchini, cut into quarters and diced
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained
1 avocado, chopped
Grated cheddar cheese
Tortillas

1. Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Sauté onion for 5 minutes. Add zucchini; sauté for 5 minutes, or until slightly softened.
2. Add the black beans, and cook until warmed through. This should take about 5 minutes (seeing a theme here?). Remove filling from heat.
3. Heat tortillas in the microwave. Fill warm tortillas with the zucchini mixture. Garnish with avocado and cheese.

Warming up October, with tacos and spice

Tacos epitomize summer, recalling boardwalks and food trucks, fresh corn and tomatoes, and handheld snacks perfect for a picnic at the beach. It’s a food that embodies a do-it-yourself principle, something that appeals to everyone at those summer potlucks.

Leave it to me to make tacos on a chilly October night, when the sun had been down for hours and no one in their right mind would think of going to the beach.

But in my search for food with family appeal (my family, specifically) that didn’t take hours out of my midweek evening, I landed on this taco recipe, from the Vegetarian Times. At first, I felt a tinge of out-of-season guilt at the thought of using corn at a time of year when it’s all but gone. Then I noticed that the recipe called for frozen corn, which somehow made me feel better. Freezing is a bit like preserving, and that’s all the rage these days! Guilt assuaged, I went through my usual routine of substitutions, replacing spinach with lettuce (for Kyle), jarred bell peppers with fresh (better texture and flavor), and feta with Monterey Jack (easier to find at Bainbridge’s Safeway, where our groceries come from). Finally, because the fresh cilantro miraculously goes unused too often, I opted for dried. This turned out to be a good choice, as it blended well with the other spices mixed with the corn.

As I assembled the ingredients, I ran into a roadblock right away: no black beans in the pantry. I  shuffled through various oils, pastas, and sauces before finding a can of white kidney beans. They would have to suffice. I blended them with salsa, cumin, and garlic, then mashed them after a few minutes of cooking. Sometimes, not all beans are interchangeable, but this time, it seemed that all beans are beans.

Next came the corn, from a can in this iteration. It went into the skillet with pepper, chili powder (not cayenne, and better for it, I think), and more cumin. I cooked the corn on medium-high for 5 minutes, then reduced the heat to medium-low for the remaining 5; otherwise, it would have burned. The corn achieved a crisp sweetness, accented by smoky cumin and chili. As it cooked, I stirred in the dried cilantro, and the kitchen was perfumed with the spices.

Somehow, everything fit into those small corn tortillas: the smooth, mashed beans with the sweetness and spice of tomato salsa; the corn, crunchy yet tender, with a mix of smoky spices; the crunch and snap of lettuce and fresh bell pepper alongside tender green onions; and the cheese, a glorious topping, as usual. Perhaps so many flavors and textures could be overwhelming, but here they blended well, with the beans and corn bonded by cumin, the garnishes adding contrast and mixing with the fillings without a problem.

Something I hadn’t expected, but which was a welcome surprise, was that the tacos, with their smokiness and spiciness, were warming on a chilly fall evening. Here was a dish that, by evoking summer, provided a respite from the cold. Perfect for October.

Tacos with Beans and Corn
Adapted from The Vegetarian Times

1 15-ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
½ cup salsa
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 ½ teaspoons cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 15-ounce can corn, drained (or 15 ounces frozen corn)
1 teaspoon chili powder
Dried cilantro, to taste
1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
2 green onions, chopped
6-inch tortillas (flour or corn)
Spinach or lettuce leaves
Grated Jack cheese

1. Combine beans, salsa, garlic, and 1 teaspoon cumin in a large skillet. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat and let cook for 5 minutes. Keep bean mixture warm on low heat.
2. In a second large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Combine corn, chili powder, and dried cilantro in the skillet. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add bell pepper strips and chopped green onion. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.
3. Heat tortillas in the microwave or oven. Layer the beans, corn mixture, spinach, and cheese inside the tortillas.