#13 and #18 - Vegetarian meals and 101 dishes

I got a recipe from a friend for a Mexican Pizza, that also happens to be vegetarian! It was YUMMY! She brought it over for dinner one night while the man was deployed and I just HAD to make it. Let me just say, he loved it even more than I did. We had a lot of fun eating it for our in-home lunch date and we each came up with different ways to change it. We will definitely be having this again. So, I'm going to count this for both 13 and 18. I really need to get to work harder on the 101 dishes though. I'm sure I will get a lot of them done around holidays or parties we have. I like to experiment on my friends.

Loaded Mexican Pizza by Mary Barker of Knoxville, TN
(from Light & Tasty, Feb/March 2008) given to me by Becca

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 med red onion, chopped
1 small sweet yellow pepper, chopped
3 tsp chili powder
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3 med tomatoes, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 10 oz. prebaked thin italian bread shell crust
2 c chopped fresh spinach
2 Tbsp minced fresh cilantro
Hot pepper to taste
1/2 c shredded reduce-fat cheddar cheese
1/2 c pepper jack cheese

In a small bowl, mash black beans; stir in the onion, yellow pepper, chili powder and cumin. In another bowl, combine the tomatoes, jalapeño and garlic.

Place the crust on an ungreased 12 in pizza pan; spread with bean mixture. Top with tomato mixture and spinach. Sprinkle with cilantro, hot pepper sauce and cheeses.

Bake at 400* for 12-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

How I adapted it:

Instead of mashing the black beans with a fork, I pureed them slightly with my immersion blender. I used a medium yellow onion that I had leftover from my produce co-op. I used a red pepper since the yellow pepper was $5 for ONE (yikes). I also didn't have quite the right amount of tomatoes (less) but we couldn't tell and we don't know how it could have held much more on the crust. I hate cilantro, so I used a little parsley instead. We also used the Boboli premade crust, and that isn't thin, but I prefer thick crust.

Other options we came up with:

Refried beans instead of black beans
Saute the onions, so they aren't quite so potent.
Use pearl onions, sliced into rings.
Use 2 jalapeños.
Change up the cheeses.
If we don't want vegetarian, top it with fajita style chicken or steak.