Happy Cinco de Mayo

One of our favorite ethnic foods is Mexican food. My family always gets excited, whether I am making tacos, burritos, enchiladas, taquitos, or our favorite Friday night dinner….Nachos! In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought this week was a perfect week to do a shpiel on Mexican food.

Mexican food is ideal for our family when prepared correctly, because most of the ingredients are whole, natural foods that come from the earth…beans, corn, tomatoes, onions, and chilis. More importantly, these ingredients are also gluten free. However, since most restaurants use soybean oil to prepare their Mexican dishes, eating out isn’t a great option for us, thus, I have to make all of our foods from scratch. But that usually is not a problem, especially now that I have discovered the art of making my own refried beans and yummy tortillas.

If you are learning the ways around gluten free living and are trying to figure out foods that you can eat and that your family will not grumble about, here are 7 meal ideas, one for each day of the week, that you can make and they will never know they are eating gluten free. Oh, and don’t forget to try my homemade refried beans, they are great for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

1. Tacos – Whole Foods 365 Brand makes soy free hard corn taco shells that are out of this world. Stuff with your favorite taco fixings.
2. Burritos – See my recipe below. Chebe’s is a gluten free brand of mixes that you can use to make your own tortillas. Chebe’s makes many different bread mixes. We use the Chebe’s ‘Breadstick’ mix in the green package. I buy mine at King Soopers.
3. Tostadas – I love the Food for Life Gluten Free Rice Tortillas, but frankly, they are a little tough to roll, so I use them as tostadas. I lay out my favorite taco ingredients on the tortillas and then heat them in the oven to melt or warm up. I often put them on the cutting board and slice them up like a pizza.
4. Nachos – Nacho Friday is my favorite night of the week because I can take any of the leftovers from the week, sprinkle some cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and salsa on top and you have a quick and easy meal that is nice and light before we go sit in services.
5. Taquitos – Need I say more. I hope you all saw and tried my recipe in my March 16th article.
6. Enchilladas – Although I have yet to give you my personal favorite enchilada recipe, I recommend you look one up. It will most likely call for flour tortillas, but feel free to substitute with white corn, yellow corn, rice tortillas or the tortilla recipe below.
7. Breakfast Burritos – The great thing about breakfast burritos is you can serve them anytime. I like making these on my Chebe tortillas with my homemade refried beans, egg beaters, tomatoes, green salsa and some jack flavored almond cheese.

Mixed Bean Burritos

Ingredients:
1 T olive oil
½ onion, chopped
6 oz bag mixed beans, soaked overnight, and prepared as directed
6 vine ripened tomatoes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 package Chebe’s breadstick mix
2 eggs
2 T olive oil
5 T plain rice milk
½ cup mozzarella cheese
1 avocado
2 T salsa

Directions:
Soak 1 – 16 oz bag of mixed beans in 6 cups of water overnight.
Rinse beans and add 6 cups of water. Simmer beans for 2 hours over medium heat. Set aside.
Take 2 quarts of boiling water and bring to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice cold water. One at a time boil the tomatoes for 30 seconds and then place in the ice cold water.
Peel tomatoes and chop into chunks. Simmer in a pot for 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Heat 1 T oil in medium sized saucepan. Add onions and cook for 7 minutes until softened.
Add chopped tomatoes, and cumin. Add beans and bring to a boil.
When bubbling, reduce heat to low. Simmer with lid slightly off for 10-15 minutes.

Take 1 package of Chebe breadstick mix and add 2 eggs, 2 T olive oil and 5 T plain rice milk. Mix with a fork, then use hands to form a consistent ball.
Divide dough into 6 equal portions. Roll out to 1/16 inches with a rolling pin.
Heat a frying skillet to medium high and fry tortillas about 1 minute per side. Place in a warming dish.

Take avocado and add 2 T salsa, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly. Place in small bowl at the table.
Build your burrito by adding bean mix, cheese and avocado mix into your fresh tortillas.

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