Pinto-and-Tomato Tostadas With Rice.

If you back out the fresh vegetables, tonight’s meal can be classified as a clean-out-the-pantry dinner, as well as a new recipe entirely!  I just sort of made it up as I went along, and it turned out great (or so says LeeLee).

After our Pantry Cleanout week awhile back, I made a personal commitment to keep up with digging deep in the cabinets for long-forgotten treasures.  As a result, over the past few weeks I’ve been cobbling together tasty meals from items I have on hand already – chik’n posole, for instance, as well as red beans and rice – and tonight was no exception.  The only difference was that this recipe was new to me, created on the spot for the occasion!  It’s safe to say I’ll definitely make it again.

Here’s how it went.  I put some rice and Goya seasoning in the rice cooker and pressed the Start button.  Then I pulled a can of pinto beans and a can of Rotel (well, Safeway brand tomatoes and green chilies, if you want to know the truth – they were having a sale the other week) out of the cabinet and mixed the two together in a saucepan with some adobo seasoning.  As the bean mixture came to a boil, I heated a small omelet pan to medium heat (and added some cooking spray beforehand) and warmed up a total of four corn tortillas, which I’ve been keeping in the freezer and pulling out when needed.  These tortillas would end up being the base for my tostadas, so I wanted them to be as crispy as possible!

As all of this cooked, I diced up an onion and a tomato and pulled some leftover lettuce out of the refrigerator.  We even had some Daiya vegan mozzarella to finish using up from some weekend festivities! 

By the time LeeLee got home, dinner was nearly ready.  When the rice cooker finished its work, I spooned some of the rice and some of the bean mixture atop the corn tortillas – two on each plate – and then topped it all with some of the veggies and cheese, adding an extra spoonful of rice on the side.  (The photo above is pre-veggie; I wanted you to be able to see the tostadas in their natural habitat!)

This recipe was definitely a success!  We cleaned our plates, the rice cooker, and the saucepan.  And the vegetable dish.  And even a bottle of Tabasco, which in all honesty was on its last few drops anyway. 

Pinto-and-tomato tostadas for the win!

:)