Tostada Bar

Every now and then I have a desperate need for food from home. Sometimes it’s understandable, food I ate a lot, like breakfast burritos, and sometimes it’s really damn weird, like Dr. Pepper slurpees, which I rarely ever drank (and basically doesn’t count as any kind of food product past the age of 9). This morning I just really craved Tex-Mex, but it’s too warm for grilling fajitas or baking empanadas, so tostadas it was. When Paul got home, I fried the tostadas and we dug in. Kudos for him for (a) eating it with his fingers like a proper Texan, (b) trying everything, even the limes and jalepanos, and (c) basically being a really good sport and humouring me.

I know I’m biased, because this is the food of My People, but this is a really fast and easy dinner to make in the summer when it’s just too hot to be in the kitchen for that long. And better still, everything but the tostadas can be made ahead of time and popped in the fridge until you’re ready for dinner. In spite of the fact that the tostadas are fried, and there is never enough cheese to please me, the meal is actually not too heavy for hot weather. Black beans for protein, lots of garlic, tomatoes and lettuce and limes, and since I don’t like sour cream, I blitz together Greek yogurt with cilantro and garlic to make a cream sauce. The tostadas only take a few minutes to fry, and if you get bored, you can pop the bubbles as they come up.