Taco night

I must admit.  We were going to take pictures before we started, but had swim team practice and we were hungry.  While I had the camera at the ready, we just started eating until I remembered we needed to document. The meal in itself doesn’t take too long to assemble, but it does take a while to prep. About three hours before dinner I was able to put on a pot of dried black beans. I covered them with water and put them on a low simmer. You can leave em alone if you have enough water and taste every now and then for tenderness. When they are just about ready I added a diced onion and garlic, salt and pepper and some olive oil for texture. I let it go for another half an hour while I assemble the toppings.

Sometimes we make tortillas which is easy and fun, but takes more time than we had on a school night. I chopped up fresh scapes and a spring onion from the market and then mashed avocados, salt, pepper, squeeze of lemon, diced Mediterranean cucumbers and a red bell pepper for the Guacamole. Fresh arugula, grated soy cheese and diced tomatoes rounded out the toppings. We put the tortillas on the grill to make them extra crispy and then top with our brown rice and beans and other sides. We also combine our house made habanero sauce with the beans to taste for each of us to make sure we have the right levels of spice for everyone.

You can make the beans and rice ahead of time and put the meat together in just minutes if you plan ahead.  The beans keep in the fridge for a week and we use them in other dishes.  For us vegans it is so important to have protein at the ready to put into a meal.  The beans take the longest cook, but are so easy to make.  We usually eat about 4-5 of these per person and with a light Gamay red wine from the Beaujolais we have one of our favorite meals.