My cat has been on a “bland diet” of beef and sweet potatoes. I keep thinking “today is the day” — meaning, today will be the last day, but until “things” have gotten back to normal I am not comfortable putting her back on her cat food. Part of the prescription of the bland diet was “very lean” beef. So I am feeding my cat lean beef. One day I was about to cook two dinners. One for my cat and one for my hubby and I. Then I realized I could just cook one. So I put away what I had originally planned for my hubby and I and just cooked up some beef for us too. As I was cooking the meat I was thinking of what veggies I had in my fridge . . . yeah, my door note does not always get updated. Of course I couldn’t remember but when I opened the door I spotted the mushrooms . . . cool, I decided to put the meat on/in tiny tortillas with some mushrooms and cheese. Then, I decided that in addition to mushrooms I would add some garbanzo beans. As I was putting something in the fridge I spotted the zucchini and I decided to grate some of that into our mushrooms. I was making this dinner up as I was cooking it! (I can do that when I don’t have a Nia class.)
I have to cook the cat’s meat without flavoring, so I figured I would just salt the meat after and put some raw onions on it. I figured that would be enough flavor. But then I took hers out to prepare it and I left ours in the pan and I added cumin and garlic salt. I am starting to add cumin to different things now. Ever since I used it in my adjusted version of Bobby Deen’s Red Beans and Rice recipe. It was not a spice I was accustomed to cooking with. I like it.
We ended up with a pretty tasty dinner, I think. I think the raw onions on the topping it all off really gave it the perfect finishing touch.
Beef, Beans, Mushrooms, Zucchini, And Cheesy Tortillas
small wedge of onion, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
four shakes of garlic salt
half of a zucchini, grated
four shakes of garlic salt
1 can of garbanzo beans
four shakes of garlic salt
1/4 of a pound beef
four shakes of cumin
four shakes of garlic salt
10 small thin slices of cheese
five tiny corn tortillas
Heat the oil and onion (save some for garnish), then put the mushrooms in, add garlic salt. Cook them until they are almost done, then put the grated zucchini in, add garlic salt. Cook until it looks done almost done, then add the beans and the garlic salt. In a different pan, cook the beef with the cumin and garlic salt.
When the mushroom mixture and beef are almost done, heat the tortillas, melt the cheese on the tortillas. Spoon the beef onto four of the cheesy tortilla, then spoon the mushroom bean mixture. Top with raw onions. (One tortilla was meatless!)
I had to cook the meat separate because of my cat, but if I were just making this for us I would cook the mushrooms first . . . I like my mushrooms caramelized, then I would add the beef . . . and I would use more so that it would work for all five tortillas. I would add the cumin to the meat. Then I would add the zucchini, then the beans. I don’t like the beans to get to cooked so I add them last. With each ingredient I would add garlic salt.
I have an electric grill/panini press I used for the tortillas. I grilled them.
This was very good. I will be making this again. But since we rarely have ground beef (we are only eating it because the cat is!) I will use our regular ground turkey.
I like cooking with cumin!
I know I don’t come up with very inventive stuff, but we like it and sometimes all you need is an IDEA of what to cook for dinner. Maybe this will help you.
What do you think? Any ideas on what you might add?
Terre Pruitt's Blog 