Black Bean and Corn Relish

We were having Tuna tacos (not the canned Tuna, fresh) and needed a side dish so I whipped this up.  Side note:  This was my first time eating Tuna, and no I still will not try the canned/pouch kind. 

Take a can of rinsed black beans (or do what we do and make a huge batch of dried black beans and portion them into can sized servings and freeze them).  Add some chopped up red onion and some frozen corn.  Microwave just to slightly warm up the corn or if you're making it for enough ahead you can skip this step.  Mix these up with some fresh lemon (or lime) juice.  Finally add some spices, I added chili powder, cumin, onion, and garlic powder to taste. 

Makes a great side relish for tacos!

My mommy's Tacos with a Twist

I grew up eating my mom’s tacos.  The first time I had tacos made using the spice packet I knew something was wrong.  I didn’t know what it was, but I knew they weren’t as good as my mom’s.  Since, I’ve grown up and moved out I occasionally used the spice packets, until last year when I actually read the back and realized how many calories and sodium is in that little packet of spices.  I’m back to using my mom’s recipe for tacos.  Its just as easy and way better anyway!


 I had to make it my own by adding some black beans to the mix to up the fiber.  The recipe below won’t show the beans, but I just added the equivalent to one can of black beans to the mix (I had some dried ones that we cooked and froze).  I typically use 90/10 ground beef for these but any ground meat will work.  I served these with a High fiber wrap and no fat cheese as an excellent dinner for right about 350 calories, it was about ¼ of the meat and bean mixture (calorie counts will vary depending on your meat and the amount of beans used).

My Mommy's Tacos

Brown 1 lb ground beef (or any ground meat) with chopped onion.  Drain fat.  Add 1- 8 oz can tomato sauce (I always use the no salt added kind) and a can of water.  Add 2 to 3 TBS chili powder, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp pepper, salt (optional), 2 to 3 TBS salsa (, I often leave this out...) and 1 TBS chili sauce (or more.. I never actually measure it).  Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes on low heat.

Thanks mom for making tacos without the packet!


See Eat at Home for other ideas on how to use Tomato Sauce.



Crock pot Mexican Pork...

We love breaking out the crock pot in the winter.  It is great to come home and have the house smell like a yummy dinner and only be minutes a way from a nice warm dinner.  Pork tacos seem to be really popular lately, so we took a stab at our own Mexican pork.  The ingredients were thrown together in the crock pot and stored in the fridge overnight before we put it on.

In crock pot, put pork loin (ours was almost 2.5lbs), can of diced tomatoes (no salt added!), can of tomato paste (again no salt added!), 2 cups low sodium chicken broth, diced onion, diced garlic cloves (used about 5), juice of one lime, cumin, and chili powder (I'm sorry we didn't measure how much we put in).   Turn crock pot on high for 8 hours.  Shred up the meat if it hasn't already fallen apart with 2 forks.  Put the meat back in the sauce and cook for at least another 20 minutes or longer at this point I had another lime so we juiced it in the meat.  Serve as tacos or on spinach (how I had mine).