As part of my green initiative and being totally influenced by the Food Inc movie, my husband and I decided to be vegetarians for the month of February. This led to us deciding to be vegetarians for all of Lent. (I can’t take credit really for either of these. They were actually both excellent ideas by my husband, but I happily obliged to the challenge.) We are both meat lovers, that is actually the name of our favorite specialty pizza…so this was definitely a great change for both of us. I am not saying that we will stay vegetarians, because that definitely won’t happen, but we want to be more considerate of where our meat comes from, which means we will be eating less of it. So, why not eat no meat for a while?
A while ago I posted that we were going to follow the Meatless Monday initiative that basically says everyone should eat meatless meals on Mondays, and their goal is to ” reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.” So I am going to give you my first vegetarian recipe that we tried out last Thursday and then made again on Saturday because it was so yummy. (Makes great leftovers too). Next time I will take pictures, and I will add them to this post.Here it is:
Vegetarian Tacos
I found this recipe: Veggie Tacos and decided to make it my own way. (These are the ingredients and steps I used.)
INGREDIENTS (the more organic, local, and home-grown, the better…)
- Olive oil
- 2 zucchinis
- 1/2 medium onion, chopped
- 1 can of whole kernel corn
- 1 can of black beans
- 1 large fresh mild green Anaheim chile (I used jalopeno also), seeds and stem discarded, chopped
- 1 half of a green or red pepper
- Goya Adobo All Purpose Seasoning (Not everyone has this, it is basically salt, garlic salt, oregano, black pepper, and turmeric)
- 1 small to medium tomato, chopped (I am not a huge tomato fan, so I just added salsa to my tacos at the end and skipped the tomato, but I am sure it would be a nice addition if you are a tomato fan)
- box of taco shells
- cheddar, pepper jack cheese, whatever you like shredded (I did about a cup of shredded cheese for every four tacos…kinda a preference thing
- 1/4 cup crumbled Mexican cotija cheese (or feta, I tried both. Both are good.)
- A few sprigs of fresh cilantro, chopped
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a large sauté pan on medium high heat. Add zucchini, onion, peppers to the pan. Sprinkle with Goya Adobo seasoning and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil in the pan. Spread the veggies out in the pan and then stir only occasionally, add more Adobo as you prefer until the veggies are soft.
Stir in the chopped tomatoes, black eyed peas, and corn. Lower the heat to low.
Put the taco shells in the oven according to instructions (ok to throw the taco shells in the oven if the oven if it is not preheated. Reduces the amount of time the oven is on which saves energy without hurting the taco shells.)
When the shells are done, add the feta or Mexican cheese to the vegetable mix and you are done!
Serve by putting the vegetable/cheese mix in the taco shells and top with the shredded cheese.
This serves four comfortably (or makes two great meals for couples.
Yummy additions:
Tortilla chips, queso, and salsa. You can dip the chips in the veggie mix, mix it up a bit with some salsa and queso. All very good.
Leftovers:
If you are planning for leftovers, don’t make all the shells or shred all the cheese. When having the leftovers, throw the shells in the over and put the veggie mix in the microwave. Have the shredded cheese ready for when both are done. (Takes about 5 minutes in my experience…)
Enjoy and have a great Meatless Monday! If you try it, let us know and tell us any changes you made.
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