Three Bean & Sweet Potato Tacos

Last night when we (Meg, Evan, and I) had dinner at Mellow Mushroom I became interested in Meg’s tempeh sandwich.  I knew very little about this “tempeh” stuff and wanted to know more.  So of course last night and this morning I explored my ever faithful friend Wikipedia to see what I could find.  Becoming more interested as I read I determined that I desired to make something with tempeh for dinner tonight.  So after work I headed to the store to get some tempeh and other food stuff.  It was very exciting.  Until I learned that tempeh costs a fuckin’ arm and leg.  Damn, seriously, how could funky fermented bean blocks cost so damn much?  Well, I said “fuck that” and moved on, which left me up in the air on what to make.  I decided to wing it and try and make tacos with sweet potato (don’t ask why, just seemed like the right thing at the time).  In all truth it turned out fantastic and considerably cheaper than trying to make a whole meal out of tempeh (which I would still like to try cooking with, just not on such a budget).

Here is the run down

• three cloves garlic finely diced
• two medium jalapenos finely diced (for those who don’t want as much heat remove the seeds before dicing, I personally like the spiciness)
• one large sweet potato shredded (if you have a food processor use that, shredding by hand sucks ass)
• one can black beans
• one can kidney beans
• one can chickpeas
• chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper
• tortillas, shredded cheese (sharp cheddar), chopped onion, green pepper, and tomato, taco sauce and sour cream.

Basically do this.  Pour the beans and chickpeas (aka garbonzo beans) into a bowl (retaining the liquid from the kidney and black beans in another bowl) and crush them up with a fork or spoon.  In a good size pan heat a bit of olive oil and then throw in the garlic and jalapenos and let saute for a few minutes until you get some good spicy garlic aroma.  Then toss in the shredded sweet potato.  Let this saute for awhile too, stirring occasionally.  Finally add the mashed beans and stir all together.  At this point also add some salt and pepper and chili powder and cumin (your gonna have to guess your own amounts because I rarely measure spices).  Let cook for about ten to fifteen minutes stirring occasionally.  If this looks to be getting to dry or burning a bit, add some of the retained bean juice to moisten it up (beans and sweet potatoes are super starchy and so they dry out relatively fast). After it has cooked down some it is ready to serve.  I put it on tortillas with some shredded cheddar cheese, taco sauce, and sour cream and added a bit of chooped onion, green pepper, and tomato.  You can probably top it off however you like.

Delicious and filling, and completely vegetarian (probably could be vegan if you cut the cheese and sour cream).  Sweet potatoes are awesome.  They rank high as one of my recent favorite foods, because they are very tasty but also nutritious and fill you right up. I recommend pairing the whole meal with some good beer (preferably a tasty homebrew if you have one lying around).

~ by Nathaniel on March 23, 2009.