Thursday, June 2, 2011

Painting & Sweet Potato Tacos

One thing that I love about the end of the school year is being able to spend more time doing fun, creative activities.
After an afternoon of painting and playdough, I decided to make a purchase to hopefully help boost the quality of my pictures (my creative outlet). I have been wanting one for a long time now and I am so excited to start using it! I especially bought it for food photography but I am sure I will find other uses too! Start looking for more clear photos from me in the future.  If you haven't guessed yet (or seen the picture posted directly below), it's a tripod! (Yes, I realize the picture OF the tripod is slightly blurry... hence the reason I bought a tripod.)
Dinner tonight was one of my all time favorite recipes- Sweet potato tacos! The flavors between all the veggies, beans, and spices, compliment each other perfectly! 
I would consider this a cheap and easy meal, but not exactly fast, due to the excessive amount of chopping involved.
But it is worth it! Especially if you designate your husband as your sous chef and assign the chopping to him... while you do "everything else" (open the beans and measure the spices... that's about it). 
Sweet Potato Tacos

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons safflower oil
1 large sweet potato (or 2 small), peeled and cubed
1 red pepper, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon oregano
1 15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 large tomato, diced
salt and pepper
8 small tortillas
1 avocado
1 handful chopped cilantro

Directions:

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the sweet potato and saute until almost soft. Add the red pepper, garlic, and all spices. Saute 3 minutes. Stir in the beans and tomato and cook 3-5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Slightly toast both side of the tortillas in the oven on broil (this will only take a few minutes- watch them carefully!) Spread the sweet potato mixture on the tortillas. Top with avocado and cilantro.
Nate informed me the other day that I had created 23 blog posts so far. Then he proceded to say that he didn't know I had that many ideas. HA! That's why he is designated sous chef.

If you are looking for inspiration, or ways to be more creative, I suggest you create some finger paintings yourself. Then make some sweet potato tacos. I'm pretty sure that is the magic combination for boosting your creativity. Lets hope so anyway. Otherwise, I might not make it past this (my 25th) blog post.

4 comments:

  1. Cute blog MJ!

    1.) Are those kid's fingernails really painted like that? It almost looked like the fingerpaint.

    2.) Nice tripod! Did you use it to take your food photos tonight?

    3.) Recipe looks good! We will have to try it! Brandon would make an excellent sous chef, as I'm sure Nate was! ;)

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  2. 1) Yes- it was perfect for my picture taking :)

    2) Thanks! No, I was running out of daylight by the time I got home and made dinner, so I didn't have time to try it out.

    3) I think you'll like it! Yes, put Brandon to work.

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  3. I have a tripod, but I can't find the part that attaches camera to tripod, whoops!

    I really need to make some vegan tacos soon. I keep meaning to, but taco night is a double meal night for me as hubby insists on meat tacos.

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  4. Haha, I actually couldn't find mine today, but my hubby had ATTACHED it to the actual tripod and I had no idea! We used to do double meal nights all the time, but recently he became vegetarian (not vegan) which is obviously SO much easier! You can easily add meat to half of the tacos though- they are SO yummy!

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