Taco Salad and Banana Cookies

Hey there!  I haven’t disappeared – I’m just not very good at keeping up with this blogging thing.  I am still doing the “real food”, though I am struggling with the no sugar thing, and I have slipped up more than once.  I’m doing pretty well otherwise though.

Last night we had taco salad for dinner.  Usually when I make taco salad, I use a can of beans in tomato sauce and put some taco seasoning in that (I use Epicure brand…no weird stuff in that).  However, I realized yesterday that we didn’t have any baked beans, so I decided to go with some black beans.  I soaked them for a few hours, then cooked them for 1 hour, and they were ready to go.

Here it is:

Black Bean and Corn Vegetarian Taco Salad

Ingredients:

1 whole wheat tortilla

1-2 tbsp olive oil

½ yellow onion

4 mushrooms

1C black beans (about ½ C dried, then soaked and cooked)

A few tbsp of water

Taco seasoning

Romaine Lettuce (about 1 head)

1 tomato, chopped

1 pepper (whatever colour you like – I used ½ orange and ½ yellow)

½ C corn kernels (cooked)

½ C plain Greek yogurt (I used 2%)

½ C salsa

½ C – 1 C grated cheese

Directions:

1)      Cut up the tortilla and bake it in the oven to make “crisps” – about 15 minutes at 350

2)      Meanwhile, sautee the onion and mushroom in the oil, until soft.  Add the beans, water, and taco seasoning, and cook on medium-low for about 10-15 minutes.  Most or all of the water should be cooked off, but if it’s not, drain it.

3)      Layer the ingredients in a large bowl: lettuce, tomato, pepper, tortilla crisps, corn, bean mixture, yogurt, salsa, cheese.  Enjoy!  Tastes great the next day too!

I took a picture of the original salad, but it just looked like cheese in a bowl.  Here are my leftovers the next day...not going to win any food photography awards, but I still think it looks yummy :)

I also decided to make these cookies:

Banana Cookies

Take 2 very ripe bananas and mash them up with a sprinkle of coconut (unsweetened), a small handful of chocolate chips and raisins, and 1 C of oatmeal.  Put on baking sheet in spoonfuls, and bake at 350F for 15 minutes.  THE END.

I saw the recipe on Pinterest, and I was a little skeptical, so I decided to give it a try.  Here's the original recipe (only 2 ingredients in the original)

The verdict?  They worked out GREAT!  So yummy!  And pretty much "guilt-free".

Here's a picture:

Yummy banana oat cookies