Healthy Twists

I wasn’t going to post tonight’s dinner because I wasn’t sure how good it would taste. We all know I love my Mexican food—in fact, I went “off-campus” for lunch today to a local Mexican joint and had some yummy grilled fish tacos. Well, before I knew what I was doing for lunch I had planned to make turkey tacos, so I went ahead and made them anyway.

Now, we’re talking about two very different ends of the Mexican-food spectrum here. In fact, I call these my “Gringa” aka “white girl” tacos, because there is nothing authentic in the least about ground turkey and taco seasoning. But it tasted really good! So I thought I’d share.

“Gringa” Turkey Tacos

Ingredients:

• 1 to 1.25 lbs lean ground turkey (one package)
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon taco seasoning (I buy this from the bulk-spice section of my health-food store; the little packets are loaded with salt and other junk)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 to 1 jar of salsa, whichever type you like
• taco fixings: tortillas, lettuce, cheese, avocado, etc

Directions

1. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; add onion and cook for about a minute.
2. Add ground turkey and brown, adding the garlic halfway through the browning process
3. When they turkey is almost totally browned, add taco seasoning and cumin; stir to distribute.
4. Lower heat to low. Add salsa, adjusting as needed to get the consistency you want.
5. Let mixture sit a few minutes for the flavor to meld. Prep taco fixings while you wait.
6. Serve! That’s all she wrote.

I got these cute little round zucchini and I was going to stuff and bake them, but then I decided that was more effort than I wanted to take (yeah I am the world’s worst food blogger!) and they would be hard to eat that way. So instead, I was already roasting a purple yam in the oven, so halfway through that process I added the zucchini and made a little taco salad with roasted zucchini.

Topped with plain Oikos, cilantro, and hot sauce, of course!

Ok…yams? Totally confuse me. Here’s the backstory: I wandered into a Japanese market a few weeks ago because it was next to the Halloween store where I bought black hair spray for Jon). I thought I might find something fun to cook with, and then I remembered something: I don’t speak Japanese. I had no clue what 99% of the things in the market were (other than, like, the soy sauce and the rice). I saw something called a “purple yam” in the produce section and picked it up. Now, I know that yams are different than sweet potatoes, but I’m still confused what makes this a purple yam when the flesh isn’t purple? I guess you could call the skin purple…so strange.

Whatever. I ate it (about a third of what you see in that photo; the rest is for lunch tomorrow). It was very delicious—I haven’t had a yam/sweet potato in FOREVER! Potatoes, sweet or otherwise, are high in potassium, and I’ve been trying to increase my potassium levels this week because I’ve been getting some leg cramps when falling asleep and/or waking up. I read somewhere that low potassium might be to blame. I’ve also been stretching more, so that seems to help as well.

Do you ever try to “cure” ailments with food? How is it/did it work? I am a big believer that food can be medicine…after all, we’ve only had drugs for a few hundred years (totally making that up) but we’ve had vitamin-rich foods for millennia! For example, I try to eat plenty of Omega-3 foods because I think they help my dry skin and hair (and of course, a million other benefits as well).

Have you ever been to an “ethnic” market? I love ‘em…but I love grocery shopping of all kinds. I hate malls and I’m not a big fan of clothes shopping, but give me a fun market or kitchen store (or heaven forbid, a hippie co-op), and it’s over! Talk about definition of a foodie.

Time to clean up the bomb that went off in the kitchen! And look for some wayward Halloween candy (hey, at least I’m admitting it…). Night!

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