Life and Mexican Food :)

Woot! This has been an amazing couple of days :) Nothing too crazy as far as figuring out what foods I should and shouldn't be eating, but as far as cooking and life in general it's been awesome!
First off, I am in love with those chocolate chip scones. They are amazing. I've been having them for breakfast the last couple mornings. YUM. The only thing is they do give me a little gas, I'm thinking it's because of all the sugar in them... Sugar is starting to give me gas issues. At least that's what I think it is. Idk we shall see. Less than 2 weeks til my doctor appointment! yay!!
Also, when it comes to life awesomeness, I ran a mile today!! You might not realize how exciting that is, but I have never ran a mile without stopping before. Like I always make it like half a mile or so and than take a walking break or something. But I did the whole mile without stopping! And only in like 10 minutes which I'm pretty dang excited about! Also it was my first jog in forever, I usually swim more, and in all honestly usually just don't work out at all. I'm kind of a lazy person. BUT I am trying to work on that, and it was so nice today when I got off work, it was like 40 degrees and sunny. It was beautiful! So I was like what the heck, I'm gonna go for a jog. And I knew what loop was about a mile because it's the one my roommate does, so I did the loop and just told myself not to stop unless I absolutely couldn't breathe. I just kept going. And I did the whole thing!!! I'm rather proud of myself right now :)
Anyways, moving on to cooking... Mexican food adventure!! Umm, it was awesome. So I will just go with the recipes and then I will make comments after :)

Homemade Rice Tortillas

1 1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup arrowroot starch
1 tsp salt
2 TBS Crisco
1/2-3/4 water

Ok so this recipe was supposed to have xantham gum in it, I would say about a teaspoon. BUT, brilliant me over here ran out and didn't remember that at the grocery store... so they didn't have any. But I would recommend definitely putting in a little bit. It would help them stick together better.
Anyways, so mix all the dry ingredients together, and then stir in the Crisco. This is easier to do with your hands, just make sure it gets all mixed in really well. There shouldn't be ay large chunks, so run it all through your fingers. Then starting with 1/2 cup and then adding in no more than 1 TBS at a time, mix it in with either a spoon or your hands until it's damp, but not wet. It should be able to stick together, but not be sticky and stick to your hands. For me it took about 3 tbs. Then, when you are ready to make tortillas, just grab a handful at a time, roll into a ball, and then roll out on a floured surface until they are pretty thin and whatever size you want them. If you want pretty big ones then grab a pretty big handful. My mix made about 10 5-6 inch tortillas. Then once it is rolled out, put it in a hot DRY pan on the stove, for about 20 seconds one one side and about 10 on the other, until there is some brown spots like you see on normal tortillas. The end! Keep them under a dry towel or something to keep them warm until you use them, but I recommend using them right away!

Black Bean Filling

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
3-4 slices red onion
1 TBS minced garlic (I'm lazy so I use the stuff from the jar)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro

Ok so I have this cool little handy chopper thing, so I used that for the onions and the cilantro, if you don't then you will have to just chop them up by hand as small as you can. So put the black beans in a bowl, slice the red onions into quarters and put them in the chopper with the cilantro and pulse until finely chopped. Mix with the garlic and the black beans in the bowl. That's it! Personally I added a little cheddar Daiya too just because hey who doesn't love cheesy tacos? But that is totally optional!

Avocado Dipping Sauce

1 large avocado
1 TBS minced garlic
1 tsp each salt and pepper
1 TBS lemon juice
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used coconut milk, but if you can have dairy I would recommend greek)

Chunk up the avocado and put it in the chopper with the garlic. (This would actually probably be easier in a food processor, but quite frankly I was too lazy to pull out another appliance. So that is all up to you.) Wait until it's pureed and mixed in with the garlic well. Put in a bowl, stir in the lemon juice, yogurt and spices. That's it!

Ok now notes. Definitely add the xantham gum to the tortillas, because mine did crack and fall apart a little bit. Which kinda sucked because then I had to eat them with a fork. But they were delicious! Also a little cilantro in the dipping sauce would probably be really good, but I didn't want to overpower on any one spice. And, I tried to make fried tacos, but the tortillas didn't really fry up well, they just kept falling apart and soaking up oil but not getting very crispy... So I would actually recommend making the filling (probably without the cheese) on the stove so it can get warmed up! Then you can have hot tacos. Maybe even mash them a little bit with a potato masher if you have one.
Then to assemble the tortillas, spread a thin layer of the avocado sauce on the inside, fill it with the filling and dig in! You can always put more dipping sauce on top, or on the inside if you want it to be more on the tacos than dipped in. So yeah, yummy!! Enjoy!!

Also, tonight for dinner I just wanted a salad, so I threw some of that filling on top of the lettuce and some of the avocado sauce and a little ranch. And it was delicious! So also makes good salads, and tomorrow morning I think I'm going to try making it into a breakfast burrito :) mix in a couple spoonfuls of the filling with some eggs and scramble. I'm excited. It's gonna be delicious! So this filling is also super versatile! Which is great, cuz then you don't have to just make the same meal every day.

Ok so this was super long but hopefully worth it. ENJOY!