So I'm totally over compensating for last post's lack of photo-punch. So if you're into reading and not into pictures, you'll have to suck it up for a week. Ha!
Here are three vegetarian recipes that with a little work could even become vegan. And since we spend our Monday to Friday schedule being vegetarians and part time vegans, we figured we'd see if we could craft a few Mexican dishes in that spirit. So we grabbed Rick Bayless' Sweet Potato Salad with Caramelized Onions, Watercress and Guajillo Chile Dressing from Mexican Everyday. And then from The Complete Vegan Kitchen we made Mango Salsa, and a modified version of the Black Bean Burgers.
Mango Salsa! This starts out as a Pico de Gallo recipe. Red onion, garlic, tomatoes, lime juice, and salt and pepper get supplemented with a mango. We cranked this out in advance and stuck it in the fridge until we were ready to serve lunch.
Mexican. Dry. Food. Look at those guajillos. They remind me of fruit roll-ups. These are much better than the cello-packed ones I got a while ago.
Stemmed and seeded / Peeled and quartered. Nothing really important to see here, but I think they're nice shots.
So here is what happens: you get a boat load of oil, and fry up your guajillos and garlic. Just until they're fragrant, mind you. Then you blend up the guajillos with your choice of vinegars (we used white wine) and some salt. When the oil and garlic are cool, you toss them in and blend the whole works. Tada! Salad dressing. And if you look carefully you can see the watercress. Watercress by itself is not something I'd be anxious to have a whole bowl of. It's quite strong and pungent and has an almost radish-like flavour to it. Having never had it before, I was suddenly worried that I had grabbed the wrong thing at the grocery store.
We can't say enough about that OXO vegetable peeler. Actually, I think my Starfrit can opener is the superior tool, but that's an apples / oranges comparison; and these are sweet potatoes. About two pounds of them. And I know that those are supposed to be half inch cubes but really, who is measuring.
A large red onion getting it's turn in the frying pan. Followed by the addition of the sweet potato cubes and a half cup of the dressing from above. This goes on for like 20 minutes, so make sure you bring a book, or set the table or something.
Sometimes when we're in the kitchen, scheduling isn't out strong suite. You'll hear no yelling about how many minutes to the window or whatever happens with Gordon is around. So the hook with this potato salad is that you serve it cold. But when you've already got black bean burgers on the BBQ, you have to improvise. So I made a sweet potato ice bath. After dinner I used the ice bath to make sweet potato and watercress ice cream.
So the black bean burger recipe in the vegan cookbook has what we would call a cohesion problem. They've got black beans, a small onion, garlic, a red bell pepper, a jalapeno, cumin, coriander, a chipotle, and some corn. What that means is that you mix that together, dump it onto a cookie sheet and divide it into patties, and put it in the oven. When it comes time to flip, we're glad we have a very low profile lifter.
But BBQs are a little less forgiving, even if you do use tinfoil. So my better half punched up the cohesion factor with egg and bread crumbs. Making them slightly less vegan, but slightly more stable.
On the topic of bread crumbs, we needed some but lacked a package. My better half assured me that should could make some as "they come from bread". And then presto, right before my eyes, bread crumbs were wrought.
Where's the beef? Here it is. Black Bean Burgers. And if you don't make them with eggs or put a big pile of blue cheese on top, they're pretty vegan. I'm not exactly sure what makes them Mexican. There is a chipotle in there. And I'm sure if I looked hard enough, some Mexican vegans are living off of them. But right now, the only thing making them Mexican is that we're cooking them on Mexican night.
Mango salsa doing its thing as a condiment for my black bean burger. It wouldn't feel right to put the usual suspects on a hamburger that wasn't a hamburger.
And finally, Sweet Potato Salad. You build a little nest out of watercress and put down a scoop of sweet potatoes. Since the onions are caramelized and the sweet potatoes are sweet, it's pretty much like eating candy, but the interesting thing was that the pungent taste from the watercress is completely balanced out and you don't even notice it. Thumbs up for a tasty surprise.
That's totally how it is. When it's time for Mexican, it's time. And once the dishes are done, down it comes until next week.
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