Baked Mexican spiced potatoes

…enough said!

As per usual with my recipes, these are super flexible. Do what works for you – but hopefully this will give you some inspiration to begin with. We LOVE these.

You need to start with some large potatoes – either sweet potato or white is fine. I tend to like the big white ones for this recipe but you choose for yourself 🙂

 

Ingredients

6-8 large white potatoes

Favourite mexican toppings

 

 

Spice mix:

1 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp smoked paprika powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp tumeric

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

Halve the potatoes lengthways and boil. Once softening (not super soft), scoop out the centres and allow the skins to cool. Gently toss in oil to coat them and rub/sprinkle spice mix all over them. Bake them on a lined tray at 200 dec Celsius for 30 minutes or until crispy.

Top with the above toppings – or any of your favourite mexican toppings.

(NB I sauteed onion and black beans together with garlic, smoked paprika and a diced tomato. I also used chopped salad ingredients – lettuce, corn, capsicum, cucumber, grated carrot, celery, and guacamole. I finished it off with a dollop of Mythos garlic dip (DELICIOUS) but you can use salsa or anything that suits).

Mexican bean soup

Mexican bean soup

For those of you followers who are entering cooler weather I thought it would be good to include this hearty soup to suit your mood, despite the fact that Australia is entering the land of sun and salads 🙂

I stumbled upon this idea whilst we were away on holidays and wow, is it yummy.

Ingredients:
1 fresh organic corn cob (cut the corn off)

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 celery sticks, peeled and diced

1 leek, diced

1/2 brown onion, diced

1 zucchini, diced

1 tin red kidney beans, rinsed and drained (and/or other beans)

1 tin crushed tomatoes, rinsed and drained

3-4 cups vegetable stock

1 tsp cumin seeds (or sub cumin powder if that is what you have)

1 garlic clove

1 T tamari sauce

salt, pepper

sprinkle of oregano flakes

Saute leek, garlic and cumin seeds, then add fresh veggies and saute until starting to soften. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until vegetables are cooked.

It’s that easy! And delicious 🙂

Spicy black beans in a chickpea wrap

Spicy black beans in a chick pea wrap

Could this get any easier?

I’ve known I like black beans but cannot seem to find them in any supermarkets around here. I know there are dried ones in the Central Markets but to be honest, I don’t think that far ahead to soak them the night before…that, and I haven’t been to the Central Markets in almost a year!

Anyhoww…. I struck gold recently with a little health food/lolly shop of sorts (don’t ask me how those two things go together?) in Brighton which sells tinned black beans. Yay!

Basically, make the Frijole Refritos recipe but do it with black beans. And chilli! AWESOME. LOVE black beans.

Frijoles refritos black beans

Now, onto the wrap. We have dug ourselves in a kind of hole lately. Gluten free is one thing. I really dislike gluten free wraps. They are made from useless things and they taste horrible. So we’ve been erring on the corn side of life. The trouble with corn is that unless it’s organic, it’s going to likely give us cancer or as the rats discovered, they were made infertile within two generations :(. I don’t want to leave that legacy with my kids so we eat organic where possible and where can you find corn tortillas that are organic and not filled with the likes of maize and fillers?

Hmm.

So I’m pretty excited to say the least that this TWO MINUTE recipe for chick pea based wraps actually works. And it actually wraps. Unfortunately I filled mine so full that I couldn’t wrap it all the way around but hey, it still held it all together and didn’t fall to pieces! That’s a serious win!

Recipe you ask?

1 cup besan flour (that’s chick pea flour)

1 cup water

And that’s it. Now. I added 1 tsp onion powder, 1 T nutritional yeast, 1/2 tsp garam masala and a shake of salt. But that’s up to you. It’s SO EASY.

Whisk the batter and then spray a hot pan and drop 1/2 cup full and spread it around into a thin layer. Leave it for 30 seconds, then flip over and let it brown on the other side.

Done.

Black beans in chick pea wrap

So insanely easy.

I topped the wrap with black beans in a Frijoles Refritos style, added guacamole, yellow capsicum, lettuce, spanish onion, tomato, grated carrot and fresh coriander.

Life is good!

Frijoles Refritos (Refried beans)

Mexican is my new obsession (food, that is). There’s a little place near here called Lucky Lupitas which has a pretty divine tostada option and hey, Mexican is easily plant based food. Any staff in a Mexican restaurant tend to say “Vegan? Oh yeah. We can do that”. It’s no stress because their cusine is not built around dairy and meat like others. Having said that, I have read that many Mexican places (esp in America) use lard instead of oil in their cooking. That would be good to watch out for.

My main issue is I’d like to buy tostadas but can’t seem to in Adelaide *sigh*. I’m ok with tacos and burritos etc although they are not really a diet staple for us and Dave would prefer not to eat them at all. He did manage to find corn based tortillas which is good but they aren’t organic and are presumably GM. Anyway if you can find ingredients you like, it’s not hard to make your own tostadas.

But I digress. I am in love with Mexican food. And it works for the kids (if it’s not too spicy) because they like building their own food empire and they like the control they get in choosing a bunch of foods to add to their Mexican feast. When I served this bean dish up with a bunch of chopped salad ingredients and corn tortillas for dinner, Mr 3 said this was the “best tea EVER” and Mr 5 said it was a “great idea mum, 11 out of 10”. Their little eating habits have been slower to change than ours but are amazingly different to what they were before WE changed our habits. It’s inspiring.

Here’s a really simple recipe for Refried beans – which aren’t refried at all, but it’s the name for a bean base to use in Mexican cooking. I  read the proper translation is “Well-fried” rather than “re”. You could, however, just serve it up for breakfast with avocado and asparagus or mash it through a green salad. It doesn’t have to be  in a taco/tortilla/tostada.

• 1 cup pinto beans/kidney beans/black beans
• 1 spanish (purple) onion,chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2-400gm tinned or fresh tomatoes (I put this variation because usually it is less but I like it MORE tomatoey)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 finely chopped chilli (or to taste)
• Salt to taste
• Few cilantro sprigs for garnish

As one of our friends found out the hard way, beans need to be soaked prior to cooking if using dried beans or they will give you food poisoning!

Otherwise you are safe with tinned :). Saute the garlic and onion and add in the remaining ingredients. Simmer for 15 minutes and then mash with a fork (or blend with a blender if you prefer a smoother sauce).

Easy as – and so nutritious and tasty!