Mushroom Tacos: Not Those Kind~

Written by: Alana Harris 

You will not be disappointed with these!

 As a high school senior, it's past time for me to get ready for the real world and take care of myself beyond the routine box mac-and-cheese, microwave burritos, and cup-of-noodles. Recently I've been trying to step-up beyond my comfort zone of frozen meals and try to actually cook. 

During this journey of trying to focus on my health and that stuff I decided to binge-watch the TV show called Blue Zones. It was first shown to me in health class, but It's actually very interesting. They look at different places in the world where people tend to live longer than most (these areas are called blue zones) and look at the similarities in their cultures and lifestyles. The main things were stuff like exercise, community and whatnot but I focused on one thing mostly, diet. 

Soon I will be living on my own and I would like to be able to cook healthy meals for myself so I found the Blue Zones recipe articles and started searching. I really like these recipes because my parents are always on some weird diets, and my best friend is a vegetarian so they can actually eat most of these plant-based, healthy, or even vegan foods. I decided to try and take inspiration from a  Blue Zone Recipe with a few twists. These vegetarian tacos involve cooking A LOT of mushrooms into a meat-like ingredient for some simple tacos. 

- I switched up a few of the ingredients from the Blue Zone recipe

Ingredients

1 lb cremini mushrooms ( about 2 containers)  

½ yellow or red onion, diced (I used red) 

2 garlic cloves ( I used A LOT more, like half a clove)

1-2 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon cumin

½  tablespoon ancho chili (instead of cayenne- definitely recommend) 

2 tablespoons white vinegar

¼ cup olive oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

Corn tortillas

Optional: Canned corn, beans, hot sauce, and salsa for topping, but you can add anything! 

First, dice the mushrooms to your desired size, I made mine a tiny ‘ground meat’ like consistency. 

Heat up a pan on medium high heat with the oil and sauté the mushrooms until they're soft or the water mostly evaporates depending on their size. Add your minced or crushed garlic.. A lot of garlic.

Saute the garlic with the mushrooms then add the rest of your ingredients ( chopped onion + spices, vinegar) cook until onions are soft 

Prepare any toppings you may want on your tacos. These are my toppings ( corn, beans, and salsa + I added hot sauce).

Chop up your green onion (optional)  and heat up your tortillas 

Assemble your tacos and enjoy!