Black Bean and Sweet Potato Tacos

 Missy Tippens

I just had another amazing vegetarian dish this week: black bean and sweet potato tacos. They were SO GOOD! I'm already craving the tacos again. Will be making this often!

This was a dish from Dinnerly food delivery service, so I don't feel I can share the exact recipe. However, I wanted to just tell you the ingredients so you can come up with your own version.

I first peeled and cut up a sweet potato. I was limited on time so cut it pretty small. Then I tossed the potato with olive oil, taco seasoning (powder) and some salt and pepper. I roasted the potatoes at 400 degrees until they started to get tender. Then to the sweet potatoes I added a little bit of water (about 1/4 cup), a can of rinsed and drained black beans, and some chopped garlic. I roasted it a bit longer until the potatoes were ready to eat.

Serve on taco shells (soft corn tortillas is what I used) with guacamole and grated cheese! My husband added salsa to his. Like I said, these were amazing. And so simple! A one-pan dish. Or wait, it was actually two pans because I used a skillet to warm my tortillas. But that's still very easy cleanup!

www.missytippens.com

When a Kitchen Shortcut Pays Off

Missy Tippens

How many times have I shared kitchen fails on here? Too many times, I'm sure! haha But I want to share a successful experiment from earlier this week.

I was making one of the delivery meal kits-- fried shrimp tacos. I looked at the instructions that said to dry the shrimp, coat them in flour, then dip in egg wash, then dip in Panko bread crumbs. I said... UM.... NO. It was getting late, and everyone was hungry. Plus, I figured it would be healthier.

So I decided not to fry the shrimp. I wanted to just sauté them. (Sorry, I forgot photos.)

I heated a drizzle of olive oil in the skillet. I did not pat the shrimp dry. I put them in a bowl and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I sprinkled on a little bit (maybe 1/8 to 1/4 cup) of Panko bread crumbs. I tossed the shrimp with the crumbs and put them in the hot skillet. I sautéed until opaque (it only takes about 3-4 minutes).

They turned out really good!! And took like thirty seconds to prepare them for cooking.

The tacos were so good! We had the shrimp along with slaw (made with a dressing of lime juice, olive oil, and minced garlic). And also a lime mayo (mayonnaise with lime zest).

I'm so glad I did the short version of prep for this dish. You should try it sometime!

www.missytippens.com

Pork Carnitas

Missy Tippens

I love carnitas tacos. I mean REALLY love them. I get them every time we eat at certain Mexican restaurants (the ones that do them really well). So recently, I decided to try to make them at home.

I got a Boston butt roast. I considered using the Instant Pot but settled on the slow cooker because the recipes I found were simpler (and I had a busy day).

Of course, I lined the Crock Pot for easy cleanup.

I looked at several recipes but didn't follow any exactly because I didn't have everything I needed (the usual for me). One thing I needed was an orange! So be sure if you make it to have an orange on hand.

Here's the main recipe that I based mine on: Melissa d'Arabian's at Food Network.

I rubbed the roast with salt and pepper. Then I mixed oregano and cumin with canola oil and rubbed it on the meat. Then I put it in the cooker and topped with onion and garlic. I planned to do 4 hours on high and then turn it down until dinner time.

But when I went to check it and turn it down, it wasn't tender at all! Most of the recipes called for a 2 pound roast. So I dug the package out of the garbage can to see how heavy my roast was.

IT WAS 7.5 POUNDS!!! LOL!! So I kept that baby on high, and we had a late dinner. :)

I took the meat out and let it cool for a while so I could shred it. Then I heated oil in a skillet and put some of the shredded meat in. I pressed with a spatula (and later weighted it down with my dad's Lodge cast iron meat press I inherited). It got nice and crispy and yummy!

One thing I love about my favorite restaurants is they top the tacos with cabbage. And some even put on pickled onion. It really makes the dish.

I love mine on corn tortillas (heated in the skillet alongside the meat). My husband likes his on flour tortillas.

I topped mine with cabbage (I bought pre-packaged coleslaw mix!). My husband ate his with salsa and avocado. They turned out really good!

Next time, I'll definitely buy a smaller roast (I had used Kroger pick-up service that time and they had chosen the roast for me). And I'll also have that orange to add a little zest and juice. But overall, I was pleased.

Of course, my favorite Mexican restaurants don't have anything to worry about. I'll still show up often, because they have the best chips and salsa! :)


www.missytippens.com

Fish fillet tostadas with spicy cilantro cream sauce

Hello, everybody! Mary Jane here and I have a delicious recipe for fish tostadas. (Actually, this could be set on rice or salad, too, but I like some crunch with my veggies.)

Ingredients:

One package of breaded fish fillets, or bread and fry up your preferred fish

two cups corn

two cups black beans

four avocados

3 small tomatoes, chopped

4 tsp chopped onion

Veggie sauce:

2 tsp olive oil

3 tsp honey

4 tsp lime juice

dash of cumin

dash of cayenne pepper

Cream sauce:

2 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp fresh cilantro fresh cilantro

4 tsp lime juice

1 cup mayo

1/4 tsp cayenne

4 oz canned green chiles, mild

salt to taste

4 or 5 corn tortillas

salt to taste

Oil for frying

So, chop the avocados, tomatoes, onion and add to the corn in a medium bowl. 

 Mix the lime juice, cayenne pepper, honey, salt, and garlic together and add to the veggies above.

 Random pictures of chopped tomatoes. *sigh* These were from a store. How I miss fresh tomatoes right now!

 Prep the cilantro so it's ready to add as a garnish. I'm NOT a cilantro fan. Even the smell of it makes me queasy. But my husband loves it, so here we are... lots of cilantro. Because love.

 I love fresh limes. :)

Heat about 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil in a small pan until hot enough to crisp corn tortillas. 

I also made some corn chips for those who preferred mostly veggies and just some chips for a garnish.

                                                    
As soon as the tostada is out of the oil and cooled, pile on the veggies and beans. This is a bit of a deceptive photo since the reality was almost all the ingredients were separate because I have picky eaters, so people were adding what they wanted, with or without sauce.

 Now, add the mayonnaise, garlic, lime juice, cayenne pepper and cilantro to a blender and blend completely. Add salt to taste.

 The fish should be cooked or near cooked by now. I picked up the wrong fillets so these weren't as crunchy as I wanted, but they were still good.

 Add the cilantro cream sauce and garnish with fresh cilantro.

A shot of the tortillas. If I wasn't so scared of hot oil, I'd make fresh tortilla chips every day!

Enjoy! I hope everyone is surviving the dark days of February. :) We haven't been felled by sickness yet  (knock on wood) and I have a dream of escaping the winter without any terrible colds or stomach flu! Be sure to stop by my author pages of Mary Jane Hathaway or Virginia Carmichael where I share all my book news and announcements.
Until next week!

Welcome to Happy Healthy 2017

The Healthy Writer here is gleefully welcoming all of you who are ready to start fresh after indulging over the holidays.

A little indulgence now and then is good for our spirits. It's especially good when it inspires us to want to eat healthy in the aftermath.

I saw this Santa and thought he looks like he's had a pretty rough season. I guess he could use some healthy eating too.

Okay, on to healthy food.


I don't know about you, but as I get older, I find I just can't tolerate as much of the sweetness. I used to be a bottomless receptacle for all things holiday - cookies, candy, cake, repeat.

But this year, I only spent one evening baking, I indulged in one Junior's cheesecake given to us by a friend, and I ate a chocolate bar that had been hiding in my freezer since before Thanksgiving.

Not trying to be all virtuous here - just getting old, I fear.

On Monday, Jan said:

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's all do a number on our eating habits, and every year at the beginning of January we decide that THIS is the year that we'll like our scale again. THIS is the year we will eat healthy. THIS is the year that we will learn to like healthy eating!

Let me give you an idea to try.

I was craving something colorful and nutritious last week, but I had no clear idea of what it was going to be. Then I remembered the can of black beans I'd been inspired to pick up at Whole Foods. And I had a sweet potato.

From there, I added things as I went.

Let me tell it in pictures.

First there was the sweet potato. I tried something different. I peeled it and then roasted it. So what you see here is about to be chopped up into bite-sized chunks.

I used Eden Organics Black Beans. I like them because they're packed in seaweed and contain no additional salt or preservatives. I added some Cippolini onions and my favorite freeze-dried garlic.

I wanted to add some sort of spices, but I wasn't exactly sure what.  I ended up adding the onion and garlic and then I threw in some cumin. Perfect!

Once everything had simmered a bit, I added in some frozen corn.

Stir and simmer a bit longer.

Drain thoroughly. You don't want soggy taco shells!

I had some delicious avocados, so I scooped them out.

Then it was time to add everything into the heated taco shells.

I broke this one open so you could see all the layered goodness.

A few notes:

I used one sweet potato and one can of beans because I was making it just for my daughter and myself. The rest of the ingredients can be added according to taste. I like a lot of garlic, but I only chopped up one Cippolini onion and it was enough. I didn't measure the cumin, just gave the jar a shake.

When it came time to assemble, I smashed the avocado and lined the shell with it and then alternated the chunks of roasted sweet potato and bean/corn mix.

I loved the taco shell because it added a crunchy texture. I've had similar recipes that used soft tortillas instead. They were delicious too.  If you're wondering about the green stuff, I had a bag of salad greens that were about to expire so I dry roasted them too and tossed them in. You could do that or not, not necessary though.


So, what healthy meals are you inspired to try this year?

Cow Tongue and the Best Beef Broth

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I have some delicious food, fresh off the farm. Well, the grocery store, but still... pretty fresh! Why cow tongue? Well, it has a very strong flavor, has half the calories of hamburger, is great for tacos, and isn't an organ meat (for those of us who avoid liver, etc.).

This is not the recipe. (And it's upside down.) I just thought it was weird that it's labeled "chicken paws". Hmmmm.....

 So, this is a cow tongue. Not appetizing. And if you've ever felt a cat lick your hand, you know what the taste buds feel like. Here's a picture of someone touching it. Imagine the audio... "Ouch!"

 We took the opportunity to inspect it. I don't think I have any kids interested in following my grandpa's footsteps into the veterinary field, but they did have a good time looking at the giant tongue.

 So, make some deep cuts along the top and the sides.

 My youngest was seriously disturbed. He was worried the cow wouldn't be able to eat without its tongue. I told him the cow was dead. That didn't help his mood.

 OK, big pot of water boiling? We need several cloves of garlic.

 A whole chopped onion and one diced tomato.

 About five celery stalks and about 6 TBS salt. Make it nice and salty because we're going to use this water. Let everything boil for about 10 minutes and then turn it down low. Put in the beef tongue and let it cook for about five hours.

 Remove when the meat is very tender.

 It should shred easily. The lower end of the tongue is the lowest fat so you can separate the meat if you have people who prefer a fattier tasting taco meat.

 The end of the tongue.

 The beef broth is so delicious I would eat this as a soup.

 Usually tongue tacos have lots of cilantro and salsa but we were out so I just placed some of the shredded beef in warmed corn tortillas, a few onions from the broth, added chopped onions and tomatoes.

 MMM. Nothing like it!

We ended up using half of the broth in a vegetable barley soup (DELICIOUS) and half was made into gravy when we had guests coming over for a big dinner. The kids declared it the best home made gravy ever (and it had very little fat, unlike pork drippings, etc.)

 That's all for now! We've got house guests and  just got home from a late night baseball game. We've still got baths, dinner, and bed to do... Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and I hope you try beef tongue sometime soon! Or, if you've already had it, let me know if you cook yours another way!

Big Daddy's Big Day

Today is my husband's birthday. Yes, he's my little groundhog. 

So to celebrate, the kids that are local joined us Sunday for Pulled Pork Tacos.

Mmm, mmm, mmm...

Man were these good. And so easy to make. One of those dishes you throw in the pot and let the oven or slow cooker do all the work.

To start, the first thing you're going to need is a pork shoulder/butt roast. 

This one was way bigger than what I needed, about nine pounds. But it's what I had in the freezer, having bought it on sale a while back. I just send leftovers home with each of the kids.

As you can see, I trimmed off come of the fat before adding my seasonings. And what might those be, you ask.

Well, since why roast was so big, I tripled everything, but for an average 2-3 pound roast:

2 teaspoons of cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

You will also need:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic

1 chipotle pepper, chopped

1 teaspoon adobo sauce (it's what the chipotles are packed in)

1/2 cup beer or chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

Okay, so I put all of my dry seasonings into a bowl and stir them together

Before rubbing them all over my roast.

Heat the oil in a large dutch oven or, if you'll be using a slow cooker, large skillet.

Add the roast and brown on all sides.

Once the meat is browned, turn off the heat and remove the roast from the pan. Toss your onion and garlic into the same pan and stir together, allowing the drippings/seasonings to coat them.

Now add the chipotle, adobo sauce and orange zest and stir again.

If you're using a slow cooker,  you can simply put all of these items in the bottom of the cooker.

I don't know about you, but I need a break.

Just kidding. 

This is simply the part where you add your beer or chicken broth. I will say, though, that the yeast in the beer does impart a nice flavor to the meat. 

So pour that in and stir one last time.

Before adding your meat.

Cover and bake in a 200 degree oven 6-8 hours for a smaller roast. I cooked mine for closer to 12 hours. Overnight, actually. And I can't tell you how yummy the house smelled when I woke up. 

For a slow cooker, roughly 8 hours on low, 6 if you use the high setting.

Once the cooking is done, allow the pork to cool for a bit before removing it from the pan. Then, using two forks, shred the meat, tossing aside any fat.

Naturally, I forgot to take a picture of this process, but I think you'll do fine.

Then put your shredded meat back into the juices it cooked in.

My darling daughter, Rachel, decided this was a good time for a photo bomb.

Such a brat.

Assemble the tacos on tortillas of your choice. We prefer flour.

Then add your choice of toppings.

I had some finely shredded cabbage, queso fresco (which is a Mexican cheese with a mild flavor that you crumble instead of shred or slice), some radishes, pico de gallo, tomatoes, jalapenos, limes to squeeze over the meat...

Guacamole (recipe here)...

And Big Daddy's all-time favorite, Grape salsa (recipe here).

Everyone ate their share.

Including my granddaughter, Aila.

But with these on the table, they could hardly wait for dessert.

Big Daddy always requests coconut cream pie for his birthday (recipe here).

But since the kids prefer chocolate, I made one of those, too.

And it wasn't long for those pretty pies looked like this.

With full bellies, it was time to just sit and talk. Oh, and open presents.

Our son-in-law, Dayton, thought it would be cute to give Big Daddy a fishing shirt that matched his own.

 Don't they look cute?

Happy birthday, Big Daddy!