Black Beans > Bacon

I mean it.

Bacon has long been my favorite food. But in recent months, black beans have moved to the top of my "favorite foods" list. I love them most when covered in queso fresco... I must have some latina in my blood that I'm not aware of or something.

I've made black bean tacos at least once a week for the past month. They're completely impossible to mess up. In fact the only way to mess them up is if you put too much cheese on them. But honestly, there's no such thing as too much cheese.

You will need:

2 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 onion, chopped

2 bell peppers, red & green look nice together

tortillas, flour or corn

queso fresco

**Queso fresco can be found in every grocery store in Austin. However if you don't live in a city with a large hispanic population, it can be found in the "ethnic foods" area of the refrigerated section.

In 3 easy steps:

In a medium sized sauce pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil over medium heat. Toss in onions for a couple of minutes, then add in black beans. Reduce to low heat and heat through.

Slice bell peppers into thin strips. Sauté bell peppers for a couple of minutes. You still want them to be crunchy. In fact, you could skip this step and add them to the taco, raw and crunchy.

If you have a gas top stove, heat tortilla for 1 minute on each side. If not, wrap in a damp paper towel and heat in the microwave. Immediately top with bell peppers, black beans and queso fresco!

These are slightly addictive...

Sarah

Vegetarian Week

Ross and I decided we are going to attempt to eat like vegetarians for a week...possibly 10 days.

{I'll tell you the story of how this idea came about.} It all began the day after Thanksgiving. I felt as if I weighed 1,000 lbs. And as the weekend continued, I continued to eat "Thanksgiving dinner" again, and again, and agaaain.

Somehow, by the time the weekend was over, there was still an obscene amount of food left at Ross' parents house. And of course his mom decided to send it all home with us. This is not to say that we weren't grateful for all of the leftovers, they were delicious. But my body seemed as if it literally hated me. So over the past week we polished off the remnants of Thanksgiving dinner, every last bit of it.

In order to "redeem" ourselves (if that's even possible), we decided to spend the next 10 days eating vegetables, beans and other meatless proteins. Plus, I've been wanting to have a "veggie week" for months, so this was the perfect excuse :)

I'm anxious to see what the week has in store for us. I'm also excited to have lots of new recipes to post, providing all of them turn out.

I'll start this adventure with a peek at my go to veggie-friendly snack:

Red and orange bell peppers dipped in hummus. Yum.

P.S. Once you switch to bell peppers, you'll never go back to crackers.

Here we go...

Sarah