Fajita Bowl

Summertime foods like squash, corn, avocados, and tomatoes make for fresh and delicious Mexican-California-style recipes.  While growing up, taco night in my family's house consisted of a seasoning packet tossed into some ground beef or ground turkey fried in a pan.  Now that I am steering clear of both meat and prepackaged goods, this meal plan no longer really works. The following recipe is my first attempt at seasoning my first fajita bowl.  It was quite tasty, but still needs some tweaking.  Some variations I may try for next time is removing the cumin and adding some vinegar, perhaps of the red wine variety.  This time around, I served the veggie stir fry with the Refried Black Beans recipe and then topped it with various farmers market veggies and some aged blue cheese.  So good!

Spring Fajita Bowl

1 yellow squash

1 zucchini

1 onion

olive oil

garlic

5 mushrooms

1 carrot

1 small bell pepper

1 1/2 tsp cumin

2 1/2 tsp oregano

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

salt and pepper

Tasty Optional Toppings and Sides:

corn tortillas

rice

Refried Black Beans

cilantro

cheese (I used blue cheese!)

lime

tomato

avocado

corn

1. Slice the zucchini and summer squash.  Put the slices into a colander and lightly coat the slices in salt.  Set aside to let these veggies "weep."  (By pulling some of the water out of the squash beforehand, makes for a less soggy stir fry later!)

2. Chop the onion.  Heat a pan with olive oil.  Once the olive oil is hot, toss the chopped onion into the pan and listen to it sizzle!  Turn the heat to low and let the onions cook for about 10 minutes.

3. While the onions are cooking, dice the garlic and chop the mushrooms.  Once the onions begin to look translucent, add the cumin, chili powder, and oregano.  Incorporate the spices fully then add the garlic.  Cook for one minute, then add mushrooms.

4. While the mushrooms get a head start on cooking, cut up the bell pepper, remove the seeds, and chop into bite size pieces.  Slice the carrot.  When the mushrooms have started to turn darker brown and reduced some in size, add the carrots and bell peppers.  Stir veg to incorporate spices and other goodness.

5. It takes a while for the peppers and carrots to cook, so while they're doing their thing, this is a good time to slice avocado, cut lime into wedges and chop the tomato and cilantro (and prep any other topping you choose!).

6.  When the peppers and carrots look to be about five minutes from being done, rinse the salt off the squash and zucchini and toss them in to the pan with the rest of the cooking veg.

7. I like the fajita bowl veggies to be al dente, so after about five more minutes of cooking, remove the pan from the heat and add salt & pepper this dish to your liking.  Serve this dish with the tomato, avocado, lime, and cilantro you prepared.  This is also delicious with blue cheese, Refried Black Beans, corn tortillas, and/or rice.  Fix 'em how you like 'em and enjoy!