Fiesta Menu

Here is a fiesta menu that will keep you fit as a fiddle. The menu features four recipes that I have shared on the Hatha Heart website. I love these recipes and I prepare them at least twice a month. For many of us, these are the flavors we love. We grew up eating these foods and flavors. This is our comfort food. It is important to eat foods that we enjoy eating. Enjoying our food is an essential part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and living a happy life!

These recipes offer the familiar flavor profiles that we love with whole foods that are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, rather than fat, cholesterol, and overly processed ingredients. I’ll explain how I use these 4 basic recipes in my weekly meals and also when I entertain guests.

To streamline my weekday cooking, I complete my grocery shopping on Sunday morning and I will cook my rice and beans for the week on a Sunday afternoon.

Weekday meal:

For a simple weekday dinner, I serve the chipotle black beans and cilantro rice with a kale salad. Since, I cook beans and rice on Sunday to prepare this meal, I simply reheat the beans and rice and make the salad. It comes together in less than 15 minutes. To give the meal some additional healthy fats, I add avocado and pumpkin seeds to my kale salad. Recipe for the savory kale salad is linked below.

Weekday breakfast: 3 variations

Option 1: Omelette. Whisk a couple of eggs with some milk. Add some salt and pepper. Pour into a pan to make an omelette, melt cheddar cheese or cojita cheese into my omelette as it cooks and stuff the omelette with the chipotle black bean combination. Top the omelette with some pico do gallo, avocados, and cilantro. It’s delicious!

Option 2: Tacos. Gently heat the chipotle beans and cilantro rice stuff them into a warm corn tortilla top it off with hot sauce and you’re done! This is super quick, convenient, cost effective and healthy. You can never go wrong with tacos!

Option 3: Breakfast Bowl: Heat chipotle beans and cilantro rice place them in a bowl. Cook an over easy egg set the egg on top of your beans and rice. Top the bowl with some cilantro, tomato, diced purple onion, and avocado slices. You can also add some grated cheddar, cojita or nutritional yeast for a cheesy vegan alternative. This makes a delicious and colorful plate.

Any of these meal ideas can be eaten for lunch or dinner. Chipotle black beans and Cilantro Rice recipes are linked below.

Fiesta Menus for Entertaining:

Vegan Menu: When entertaining your vegan friends, you can serve the chipotle black beans, cilantro rice and kale salad with grilled vegetables, such as grilled portobellos, zucchinis, asparagus and potatoes. Make extra chipotle dressing for drizzling over the grilled veggies. If you have the time you can also serve this meal with guacamole, chips, pico de gallo and mango jicama salad.

I like to serve this menu with pineapple pico de gallo. The sweet, tart flavors of the pineapple and the bright spicy flavor of jalapeño taste great with the creamy, cilantro rice. The flavors are just so well balanced! To make pineapple pico, just chop and mix red onion, red bell pepper, fresh pineapple, jalapeño and cilantro. Add a squeeze of lime and a pinch of salt. This pico is so good I eat it as a side dish with the coconut cilantro rice not as a condiment. Make plenty. You are going to love it!

Vegetarian Menu: Hosting a party with some of your vegetarian friends? Serve all of the above and add some delicious queso. Queso will add a sharp and savory decadence to the menu.

Fiesta for All: If your guests need some animal protein, serve the vegan menu, add the queso and add grilled chicken, steak, shrimp or fish. I recommend grilled chicken, because it pairs so well with pineapple pico de gallo and cilantro rice.

Final note: Adding meat and queso will add fat and cholesterol to the plate, but we have come to expect rich, decadent foods at our celebratory meals. Many times, that is all that is served. Adding the chipotle beans, the kale salad, the cilantro rice, and the jicama salad will offer healthy and filling alternatives to the meat and cheese. These healthy recipes will allow your guests the opportunity to integrate more fiber, fruits and vegetables into a celebratory meal. Most people want to eat in a manner that helps their body heal and recover. Many of us are not sure how to integrate healthy foods into our daily meals. Others have been conditioned to think that healthy food is bland, tasteless food. Taking the time to prepare and serve menus like this one is an important part of re-educating ourselves, our friends and family, on how to eat healthy, whole food meals that include plenty of fruits and vegetables. I admit that this meal may take a little more time to prepare, but I think YOU and YOUR LOVED ONES are totally worth it. Here’s to your health! Enjoy!