Saturday, August 22, 2009

Margarita Chicken and Succotash Tostadas

This healthy-ish meal has a lot of fiber, complex carbs, and protein. I made the succotash and chicken to serve together, but also happened to have some leftover tostadas and sour cream. (Does the last two components cancel out the healthful aspects of the first two?) Anyhow, combined together, they made a great summer dinner.

I'm currently in an American food craze, using a lot of indigenous American ingredients and combining succotash with a fried tortilla, aka tostada, which incorporates black beans and pumpkin seeds fits into this phase. I also served the tostadas with new purple potatoes, boiled in heavily salted water, sprinkled with olive oil and dill. Succotash is native to the northeast U.S., tostadas come from Mexico, and potatoes originated in Peru.

The succotash uses butter beans instead of lima beans, which I don't like, but also edamame can be used. I used Goya* products because I think their frozen vegetables taste freshest and their beans the best. The tostadas were from a small pack of 10 I found. I don't know the brand. The oil and butter can be left out and fat-free sour cream used to make this nearly perfectly healthy (besides the tostada.) You'll have a lot of succotash left over but the chicken makes 4-5 tostadas.


Succotash

1 bag frozen *corn, thawed
1/2 bag frozen *peas, thawed
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can butter beans, rinsed and drained
1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded, and finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup toasted shelled pumpkin seeds
1 tbls melted butter
1 tbls olive oil
1 tsp dried dill
salt and pepper to taste

Margarita Chicken
1 lb chicken breast tenders

marinade
l/2 c. lime juice
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 tbls *adobo seasoning
2 shots tequila
pepper

Tostadas
sour cream

Combine the ingredients for the marinade and marinate the chicken for at least 90 minutes while making the succotash.

Combine all the vegetables and pumpkin seeds for the succotash. Melt the butter in the olive oil. Add the dill, salt, and pepper. Fold into the veggies being careful not to mush up the beans too much. Adjust the seasonings and herbs to taste.

Grill the chicken and cut into bite-sized pieces.

Top the tostadas with a thin layer of sour cream, a generous scoop of succotash, and dot with the chicken, in that order.