This blogpost made me hungry

Two things this morning, first of all, I really really need to change, fix, something... this layout I've got going on here, it appears far too cluttered, and is making me slightly claustrophobic.

Secondly, having recently become a vegetarian... Hey! It's been one month today!.. Anyways, since I've stopped eating meat, I have noticed two things (at least 2 that I'm going to mention right now), it's definitely not easy, and I've been trying to cook a lot more at home.

Let me just go ahead and put it out there, I've never really been someone who cooks. Yes I know how, I can even make recipes far more complicated than boiling water and adding noodles. I just don't, not a lot anyways. I think these days it is mostly due to the fact that I'm single, living on my own, and cooking for 1 sucks. I'm bad at portion control, and I always make too much food. Leftovers you say? Sure, sometimes. Most of the time, they go forgotten, or unwanted, and result in a container in the refrigerator that looks like it came out of a high school science class.

But what I have found, without the option of meat, or any byproduct of, like say, top ramen seasoning (aside from oriental, which, word on the street is it IS veggie friendly) if you don't enjoy eating salad for every meal of the day, and don't want to overdose on carbs, you have to be, very creative sometimes in your meal preparation. Ok to be fair you don't HAVE to be, I have spent many nights just eating beans, or brown rice, or Doritos er, anyways... Where was I? Oh right, cooking, veggie style, and getting more than one food group, for a non cooker has been very interesting, but guess what? I ACTUALLY ENJOY IT! I know, no one is more surprised in this realization than myself. I guess I should add here, what makes things really interesting is the fact that I tend to live fairly cheaply. I try not to spend a lot of money on food, it can be SO expensive, and I'm by myself, so I've been trying to work on how much of what I buy actually gets wasted (it used to be a LOT) so a lot of things are made with very minimal ingredients, and definitely nothing fancy. I read a lot of cooking blogs and there are some GREAT recipes out there, that maybe one day I will try, but lets just say, food is not the top priority of my budget.

Anyway, the whole point to this was, I made a yummy, easy dinner last night, that I really wanted to share. I suppose it's technically cooking, though really it didn't require much effort. I wish now I had taken a picture of the masterpiece before shoving it into my face... maybe next time, maybe.

To be fair, and to give credit where credit is due, I found this recipe on a livejournal community and knew I had to try it. It's very similar to a meal I had at a veggie restaurant last weekend too, which was absolutely fabulous. More on that later.

I actually made a few alterations to this, though I don't know the exact amount. I used 4 small corn tortillas, but pretty much everything is the same, give or take some cheese... (Ok I had to have used more than 1/4 a cup, I LOVE cheese) Anyway! Here you go!

INGREDIENTS

2 (7-inch) flour tortillas
1 small sweet potato
1/4 cup black beans drained and rinsed
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Salt, chili powder and cilantro to taste
Hot sauce (optional)
Fat-free cooking spray

DIRECTIONS
1) Peel sweet potato and chop into small pieces. Boil for about 10 minutes, or until very soft. Drain and mash.

2) Lay out one tortilla. Cover with 1/4 cup mashed sweet potato, 1/4 cup black beans, 1/4 cup cheese and salt, chili powder, cilantro and hot sauce. Cover with second tortilla.

3) Spray frying pan with a little fat-free cooking spray and fry your tortilla a few minutes on each side, until cheese is melted and beans are heated through.

Let me just say, they were FABULOUS! I'm out!