Day 234.

Such a busy, busy day today. I am absolutely delighted to be participating in the Secret Recipe Club today. This is my first “normal” reveal day. As those of you who follow the blog may remember, I participated in a special reveal on Thursday after Connor’s Cooking was left out on reveal day. Raina’s blog was full of awesome recipes and I was able to whip up her yummy Lasagna Cups on short notice. But with today’s secret recipe blog pal, I enjoyed an entire month of perusing recipes.

It was a tough choice to make. There were several recipes I could  have chosen and a few that would’ve been a big challenge to convert into vegetarian or vegan meals (like sun-dried tomato meatloaf). But, in the end, one just spoke to me through its creativity.

These aren’t just standard run-of-the-mill tacos. No, siree. It’s like a taco salad I can make easily at home in tiny little taco bowls. Yum. And so surprisingly simple. Now for the reveal, the blogger pal I was assigned is Amy of A Little Nosh. Amy is a working mom and has a super tiny urban kitchen. So her struggle is creating real food with serious time and space constraints. “My goal is to give you real tips on how to get a good, healthy dinner on the table in a timely manner,” Amy says.  I think we can all empathize with her on both fronts. I don’t know if I could ever have a large enough kitchen (though thankfully we’re in the ‘Burbs so mine is not quite as tiny as Amy’s).

Taco Bowls

Adapted from Taco Bowls.
Ingredients

Directions
I opted to do my taco bowls a little different from Amy’s. After seeing her post, I saw several other taco bowls around Pinterest and opted for the more open taco bowls I found on various sites.

Preheat oven to 375. Spray bottoms of two 12-cup muffin tins with cooking spray. Sprinkle a bit of water on each tortilla and stack onto a plate. Top with another plate and microwave for about 1 minute. Separate tortillas. Spray both sides with cooking spray. Press tortillas into muffin tin bottoms, resting each between four cups of the muffin tin. Three tortilla bowls will fit in each muffin tin, placing one in each of the upper corners and the third in the bottom center. If you don’t have two muffin tins, don’t worry, the baking time is really fast, so just do a couple of batches.

When tortilla bowls are ready, bake for 8-10 minutes at 375. Meanwhile, put a bit of olive oil in a pan and brown sofrito and garlic. Add taco seasoning and broth, stirring until well mixed. Add “beef,” beans and corn and stir. Cook about 5-10 minutes on medium until heated through.

Remove tins from oven and let bowls cool for a few minutes.

Place bowls on plates. If desired, put about a tablespoon of cheese in the bottom of each bowl (this will create a melted cheese barrier and keep the bowl from getting soggy; refried beans would also work).

Add a scoop of “beef” mixture to each bowl. Top with desired toppings.

Results
These are incredibly fantastic. Amy’s recipe was excellent and, beyond the switch to vegan meat, I only made minor adjustments in order to give more flavor to the vegan meat. I absolutely adore the tortilla bowls themselves and will definitely be using the technique in the future for other recipes. The mix of corn and sofrito in the meat is excellent. I highly recommend this recipe and please stop by and check out A Little Nosh.

Meatless/Vegan Monday Link-up

To participate this week here on Veggie Converter, you will be able to comment or link your Meatless Monday meals while I post my Meatless Monday challenge to myself, Vegan Mondays. If you’re a vegetarian or vegan blogger and would like to be featured for Vegan Mondays, link up, or contact veggieconverter@gmail.com.·

Now for the link-up rules: post your link to a meatless (vegan or vegetarian, or even an attempted meatless) recipe that you’ve posted on your blog.

Please join the Meatless (Vegan) Monday link-up. What Vegan or Meatless Monday Meal is your family having today?

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