Cinco de Mayo Feast – aka Kitchen experiments 4, 5, 6 & 7

Oh MAN!! I heart Mexican food….

Yesterday in celebration of Cinco de mayo I conducted a whole lotta kitchen experiments … which resulted in a delicious and healthy Mexican food extravaganza.

I will give you the low down on what I made, and then post recipes separately so as not to completely bombard you.

• Black Bean Pizza
  

• Build-your-own Burrito Bowl, with margarita chicken & cilantro lime rice
  

• Homemade Tortilla chips, guacamole, and salsa
  

• Virgin Margaritas

• Horchatas

The ultimate fiesta fave seemed to be the Black Bean Pizza…

I had originally intended on making my own crust but decided it just wasn’t worth the time, so instead bought refrigerated pizza dough which worked out just great. I threw down some cornmeal on the pan before baking it to add  mexican flavor and crunch to the crust. I baked the crust by itself for 5 minutes in a 400 degree oven, then topped with the following:

Black Bean  Spread:

1 can of black beans, juice of 1/2 a lime, 1 tsp Cumin, 1 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 2 chipotles in adobo sauce, salt & pepper to taste… then mashed it or blend it all together. I used my magic bullet… handy little sucker.  (you might need to add a little water to achieve desired consistency)  Then spread the bean mixture on the partially baked crust. 

Toppings:

On top of the bean spread I put diced red bell pepper, red onion, & jalapeno, defrosted frozen corn, and cilantro. Then topped that with shredded reduced fat Monteray Jack and Sharp Cheddar.

Baked it for another 8 minutes… and it was SOOOOOO good!

I based this on a recipe I found here.