Meatless Wednesdays: Vegetarian Tacos

Lots of people make New Year's Resolutions and probably the most common one has to do with losing weight or eating healthier or exercising.  So in an effort to jump on this band wagon ourselves, we have decided to have at least one meal a week that is vegetarian.  We've come a along way since Yumma Yumma first started almost a year and a half ago.  When I started this blog Superking and I were pesca-vegetarians...meaning the only meat we ate was fish and seafood.  While we still aim to be animal welfare-and-environmentally-conscious by choosing organic and local whenever we can, we have definitely broadened our horizons on the meat front, always looking for the strange and unique.

Now we've come full-circle...almost...not getting any younger and wanting to be healthier we have introduced Meatless Wednesdays into our lives.  I really wanted it to be Meatless Mondays because I love alliterations but the Monday thing wasn't working out so well with our crazy schedules. So Meatless Wednesday it is.

Our first go-round at a meatless meal was vegetarian tacos.  Some people might wonder what are you going to put in a taco thats not meat and still have it be filling? One of my favorite fast-food restaurants (and one of the handful I actually still go to) is Chipotle.  I love their tacos and burrito bowls and all their fresh ingredients.  And what's the best form of flattery? Be a copy cat! 

I tried to mimic their rice (which I love) by cooking plain white rice, then adding a chipotle lime finishing butter from the grocery store, a squeeze of lime, and a few sprigs of fresh cilantro.  A little different twist with the butter but it added a nice little kick. Cilantro and lime...you can never go wrong with that!

I picked up a couple small avocados and made some fresh guacamole with a little chopped red onion, fresh cilantro, another squeeze of lime.

We also whipped up a batch of pico de gallo (of which you can see my full recipe for here). Diced roma tomatoes, chopped red onion, whatever kind of peppers you like (I used yellow Hungarian wax peppers and green anaheim, neither of which are very spicy because I'm a spice whimp but I always get Superking a jalapeno on the side which he can then add himself), salt and pepper, cumin, garlic (freshly minced if possible or garlic powder is fine), and of course cilantro and lime.

We also had black beans and vegetarian refried beans, soft shell tacos and hard shell tacos.  Since we had both kinds of shells we made double decker tacos.  Take the soft shell, slather on a layer of refried beans, wrap it around the hard shell.  Not only is this yummy, it protects the hard taco since it will inevitably break when you put the toppings in, but it won't matter because the soft shell layer with the beans will still hold it all together.

Fill the shell with some rice, black beans, pico de gallo, guacamole or sour cream, a little shredded cheese ( a great white sharp cheddar works well), and dig right in!! Believe me, with all those flavors you won't miss the meat!

Happy birthday to me!!

Today is my birthday. The big 3-2. Yay.


After discussing what we were going to do for a special birthday dinner, we decided to go on a food adventure and go somewhere we've never been.  I looked up Indian restaurants in the area just to see what was available.There were 3...one of them we've been to before and it was good.  The other 2 also had pretty good reviews when we looked them up at Yelp.  But one of them had all rave reviews and after checking out the menu, we hopped in the car and were on our way.


Its exciting trying out a new restaurant, especially with so many good reviews.  We both love Indian food and it fits very well with the whole pesca-vegetarian diet.  This place is called Swagath.  It is located in Ashburn, VA and its in the middle of a shopping center.  A shopping center restaurant? Sounds a little suspect.  But do not be fooled by outward appearances.

We were there for an early dinner so there were only a few other customers there.  The decor was neat and modern, a few oblong mirrors lining the walls above the booths and small flat screen TV's  mounted above the tables playing Bollywood videos.  The menu was extensive...not one piece of meat on there either!! They specialize in vegetarian and vegan recipes, using mostly organic and seasonal ingredients.

Garlic Naan

We ordered a basket of garlic naan, which is a thin crispy bread covered with melted butter and fresh garlic and herbs.  Then we ordered an onion masala dosa.  A dosa is like a thin crispy crepe filled with yummy stuff.  This one was filled with onion and potato curry. 

Dosa

Dosa insides

It was served with 3 sauces...a spicy red sauce, a white coconutty sauce, and a lentil veggie soup type sauce.  I don't know what any of them were but they were all so yummy.  The dosa was huge! And they accidentally brought us 2 of them! But they were nice enough not to charge us for one.    

Yummy sauces

Then we also ordered paneer butter masala.  Paneer is a type of cheese used frequently in Indian dishes.  It's white, usually cubed, and has a mild soft flavor similar to cottage cheese or a fresh mozarella.  And in this dish its smothered with melted butter and a thick creamy tomato sauce and served with rice.  It is heavenly! So much cheese and butter!!

Paneer Butter Masala

It was a lot of kinda heavy food but we did our best to polish off as much of it as we could!  As we rolled our way out to the car and back home, we knew we had found a hidden gem.  We knew we wold have to go back for more.