Beer Bean Tostadas with Chili Pesto

A condiment is a preparation that is added to food, typically after cooking, to impart a specific flavor, to enhance the flavor, or to complement the dish.

                                                           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condiment

Meat department sticker shock! My friends with meatier diets are suffering this malady in these days of inflationary pricing. The causes are multiple, ranging from labor issues to Covid to supply chains. One can read up on these factors til the cows come home… (Pun intended.) The fact remains that due to the high price of animal products, many are unable to sustain those meaty diets right now. As one who buys primarily pastured animal products, the prices in the supermarket today are similar to what I’ve paid for years, but that’s a story for another day, I suspect.

It’s been over a year since our household transitioned to what I term a “plant predominant” dietary pattern. We have cut out no particular food products, other than highly processed items; but we have switched the ratio of animal based foods to plant foods. In other words, we mostly eat vegetarian, with animal products occasionally serving as a condiment. Eating this way, I can easily get twelve to sixteen servings from a single pound of ground beef. And in my case, I spread these servings out over weeks, as opposed to one night’s dinner. This, however, was never my motivation. Plant predominant diets are proving to be quite beneficial to those of us who suffer digestive challenges. It sure hasn’t hurt that I’ve dropped a few of the pounds that otherwise seem to stubbornly stick as though super glued. And the fact that plant heavy diets appear to be associated with better health and longevity?  I’ll take it. 

My own grocery bill hasn’t changed much in these last weeks, because we’ve cut way back on the meat and we just so happen to live in close proximity to produce production areas. While my produce bins overflow, my freezer houses only small parcels of meat. When meat hits the kitchen, it’s portioned into four ounce packages and frozen. When I want to augment a plant heavy dish with the flavor and texture of meat, I pull out one of those small packages and work it into the recipe. And of course, how much one wants to cut the meat is totally up to the individual. While I’m using four ounces, there’s no reason you couldn’t use eight. Flexibility is the name of this game.

This beer infused bean tostada, topped with a pesto of roasted chilies and pumpkin seeds, is a perfect example. The beans are deeply flavored with beer, chili and tomato; the chili pesto is spicy and rich with pumpkin seeds. Sprinkle on the condiments: taco spiced ground beef, chopped tomato, avocado and grated cheese. The finished tostada is an explosion of flavor and texture. Let’s be clear, however. One does not need the ground beef topping for these to be a delicious, nutritionally adequate dinner. The beans, cornmeal and pumpkin seeds alone provide the protein one needs in a meal. Some days, we choose to add the meat condiment, other days we simply don’t find that we need it. 

What about those remaining little parcels of frozen ground beef? They might add flavor and texture to: a tomato and eggplant pasta sauce; walnut taco meat for nachos; chickpea filling for lettuce wraps; predominantly veggie based “meatballs”; chili soup; grain stuffed peppers. The possibilities are endless, but the best place to start is with your own favorite recipes. The question becomes: how can I flip the ratio of veg to meat? How will this improve my grocery bill? How will it improve my health? 

One can view cutting back on the animal products as inflation dictated deprivation, or as a health promoting money saving practice. I choose the latter and consider it a win-win.