Vegan Tacos, Chia-Seed Gaucamole, Salsa, and Vegan Margaritas, Huh?!

Well, I'm currently down and out with the ankle again, so Rebecca and I took a weekend off from the Sierra.  We realized how long it's been since we had fun cooking a meal together, so it started to sound pretty good the more we thought about it.  We decided on these Vegan tacos we had a little ways back.  What makes them Vegan, you ask?  Instead of beef, they have a "meat" made of lentils and walnuts.  Those Vegans are sneaky, I tell you.  We also made some Chia seed guacamole and a fresh, homemade salsa.  Now, I don't know if Jose Cuervo is technically considered Vegan, but the rest of the ingredients in some yummy whole-citrus-fruit Margaritas we made would classify.

The salsa was pretty easy.  We had several types of fresh tomatoes: orange, yellow, and red heirlooms.  The only other ingredients were cilantro, red onions, black pepper and a bit of lime juice.   We just kind of put them together in whatever proportions looked tasty.

There really wasn't much different about the guacamole than your standard kind, other than the Chia seeds, which add a little superfood kick.  Chia seeds are a great fiber/protein source and high in Omega 3s.  They're also real easy to digest and are detoxifying, which is good since Jose Cuervo was hang'n with us that night.

The recipe comes from Julie Morris on Navitas Naturals.

First, put these in a small glass container and let the Chia seeds soak up the juice for 10-15 mins.  Julie says to put it all in a food processor, but we found just chopping up the tomato worked better for us.  Just make sure to get the tomato juice in the container too.

• 2 Tbsp Chia Seeds
• 1 Very Large Tomato
• 2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

While you're waiting for that, go ahead and get the rest of the ingredients out:

• 1 Large Avocado
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• ¼ tsp Onion Powder
• ¼ cup Red Onion (Julie calls for White, but we like the Red)
• 2 Tbsp Cilantro
• Pinch of Salt

Mash the avocado up with a fork in a bowl of the proper serving size and mix in the remaining ingredients.  Once the 10-15 minutes is up, add in as much of the tomato/chia mix as you want.  We always end up with some extra.

These tacos are a lot easier to make than I might have expected.  It's really all about the "meat", but that only has a few ingredients.  Rebecca got the recipe from Oh She Glows.

• 1 cup dry lentils
• 3 cups veggie broth
• 1 ⅓ cup walnut halves, toasted
• 1 cup bean medley (we used black beans and pinto beans)
• Taco Seasoning

You just have to cook the lentils in the veggie broth for 30-40 minutes.  A little less broth than the recipe calls for might be good.  We just "toasted" the walnuts in a pan.  Once the lentils are done, combine everything in a food processor and lightly process with small pulses adding a teaspoon of taco seasoning at a time, until it tastes right.  Don't over process, because a little texture makes it seem "meatier".

Here's what we used for the taco seasoning.

• 4 parts chili powder
• 2 parts cumin
• 1 part paprika
• 1 part oregano
• 1 part onion powder
• 1 part garlic powder
• 1 part salt
• ½ part black pepper

Then, it's just a matter of some fresh lettuce, tomato, onions, avocado and some vegan, or as I like to call it, stinky cheese.

We experimented around and had a couple different kinds of Margaritas, but the one that turned out best went something like this.

• 1 Whole Lemon
• 1 Whole Cara Cara Orange
• 1 Whole Lime
• 2 oz Triple Sec
• 4 oz Jose Cuervo Silver Tequila
• Maybe 2 cups of Ice 

Just put the whole fruits (peeled, of course) in a blender with the triple sec, tequila and ice - blend till smooth and enjoy!

With these, I had fun trying out the color-accent feature on the Canon G15 (our new camera).  You basically pick a color in the scene and then tell the camera how much it should bleed out other colors.  Makes some neat looking photos.