
Easy Black Bean Tostada’s
Last night I wanted to make a quick and easy dinner. One of our default easy dinners is tostadas. Tostada shells (or baked corn tortillas), canned refried beans, whatever easy veggies can go on top (usually greens and tomatoes sometimes leftover roasted veggies from earlier meals), and salsa. Simple, fast, crowd pleaser.
The simple, easy, 10-minute dinner quickly became derailed when
- I discovered we didn’t have refried beans (a staple in our house) and
- Jon notified me that our tortillas weren’t good anymore
I was really in the mood for tostadas and didn’t want to use my imagination to find something else for dinner, so even though we were down two main ingredients I decided to make tostadas anyway. I grabbed Eli, one of my favorite sous chefs, and we whipped up homemade tostadas from scratch. With Eli helping it only took about 25-30 minutes, so not a 10 minute prep but: it was FUN, I got to spend time in the kitchen with my kid, and we both learned new things like corn tortillas are SUPER EASY to make.

Corn TORTILLAS
For the corn tortillas we used this Gimme Some Oven recipe: simple and easy. Ours may not have been as round or thin but for sure way more unique and just as tasty.
Masa, salt, water.
Mix. Flatten. Cook.
Can’t get much easier than that. Try it!
BEANS
Ingredients:
1/2 Red onion
3 Cloves of garlic minced (or use frozen garlic cubes from Trader Joe’s)
1 Tbs avocado oil
2 cans of black beans drained and rinsed
1/2 cup of salsa
1/2 cup non-dairy milk of choice (I used soy)
Directions:
Saute onions and garlic in a saucepan over medium heat in small amount of avocado oil
Add two cans of black beans
Add about a half a cup of dairy free milk of choice
Add about half a cup of salsa
Use a potato masher (or fork or spatula or whatever you want) to smash them up as much as you want to smash them

SO-GOOD TOPPER
3 radishes diced in ¼ inch blocks
½ cucumber diced in ¼ inch blocks
½ cup frozen corn
1 avocado cut into ¼ inch blocks
Juice from 1 lime
¼ cups of cilantro (Just learned recently that you can freeze cilantro! Now I have it on hand all the time)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients
Build your tostada and enjoy!
Finished Results!



Nutritious Parenting Pro-Tip: Have your kids try to make the prettiest plate and take a picture of it. The challenge of making it pretty means their food has more color. Color = Variety = More fiber, vitamins, antioxidants in their lives! The more you can incorporate your kids into the cooking process the better.
This meal’s PLANT POINTS: 11