Hannah Lorence: #MexicanFoodTherapy - Shrimp & Summer Veggie Tostadas

Mexican food. I have only met one person in my entire life who told me they didn't like it. It was hard for me to even process those words. I still hold to this day that the only reason she made such an outrageous claim is because she had only been exposed to the travesty that is Taco Bell and Tex-Mex.

Although I have a particular affinity for Tex-Mex there is nothing like truly authentic street tacos, or the joy that one can experience when they take their first bite of a homemade churro. Mexican food is most definitely comfort food for me. You might even say it's therapeutic. I'm having a hard time even writing this because I keep day dreaming about the mouth watering "tacos al pastor" that my family and I could pick up at the street corner living in Mexico City. But I digress...

I am very excited to start an ongoing series called #MexicanFoodTherapy in which I share some of my favorite Mexican food recipes. These recipes are inspired by my Abuelita Lupe, my childhood in Mexico, and my own cooking experiments and research.

Traditional Mexican food generally comes deep fried and dripping in grease, (again I do not understand the lack of appeal) but because I don't want to weigh 400 pounds and my husband and I try to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I have tweaked some of the more traditional recipes to be slightly healthier. I don't want to get too crazy with the substitutions, but you may read about low-fat sour cream here and baking instead of frying there. Of course I don't want to deprive you of the truly rich and authentic flavors of Mexico, so on occasion I'll post something you may regret eating later. But hey, that's what some of the best food experiences are all about.

This week's #MexicanFoodTherapy recipe is a take on the TOSTADA. This recipe is inspired by summer flavors and can be made with shrimp or chicken.

Shrimp and Summer Veggie Tostadas

Ingredients
Serves 4

1 tablespoon cooking oil
8 small tortillas or 4 large tortillas
3/4-1 pound of shrimp, (fresh or frozen) peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large zucchini, diced medium
1/2 cup of corn (frozen or fresh)
1/2 cup of salsa verde
4 tablespoons of cilantro, minced
Cooking spray
1 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese

Directions

Before you start cooking anything you'll need to put on some Salsa music. Any good cooking experience is paired with good music. Feel free to borrow my Mexican Food Cooking Playlist on Spotify here.

Ok now that that is all settled, you'll want to preheat your oven to broil. I just set it on the high setting because I am impatient and want those tostadas to cook up as fast as possible. But feel free to set it to a lower setting. The point is to get it hot enough to harden the tortillas and melt the cheese.

Next you'll want to prepare your shrimp. This recipe would be just as delicious with frozen shrimp that has been thawed, but I bought fresh shrimp from the grocery store. Peeling and deveining shrimp can be tricky and time consuming, so do whatever works best for you. Just make sure to take those tails off! This recipe is also excellent with chicken and you could use chicken tenderloin here. Here is a little less than a pound of large shrimp that I rinsed with cold water.

Once your shrimp is prepped you'll want to cut it into smaller pieces and season it. Large shrimp can be cut in half or in thirds and be a good size for tostadas (depending on the tortilla size). Mix the shrimp in a bowl with the spices. Adjust the seasoning to your preference depending on how spicy you want it. Once you cut and season your shrimp set it aside.

Next is chopping your veggies. Like I said this recipe is inspired by summer flavors so I used summer vegetables, but you can tweak this recipe to include any veggie you want. If you are using zucchini dice it medium like so:

After dicing the zucchini you'll want to get the shrimp cooking. Shrimp cooks relatively fast and since this is a "one pot meal" you don't want to overcook it and make it too chewy. Set your stove top to medium heat and throw those shrimp in a 10-12' frying pan. I decided to cook my shrimp in coconut oil because shrimp and coconut go so beautifully together and it is one of the healthier oils. Trader Joe's brand is my fave.

After the shrimp has cooked for a minute or two throw in your zucchini and cook for a minute or two more.

The next ingredient to add is your corn. I decided to use frozen corn, though corn straight from the cob would be lovely. I just didn't have the time. At this stage in the game you'll want to add a bit more salt and pepper to keep everything flavorful.

After a minute or two of cooking the corn, bust out your salsa verde. I LOVE homemade salsa verde and have a pretty stellar recipe, but like I said I was short on time because it was a week night dinner, so I decided to use the pre-made stuff. Once again I used Trader Joe's, but any salsa verde will do. Can you tell I'm a T.J.'s fan?

After adding your salsa verde turn the heat to low so as not to overcook the shrimp. As the liquid evaporates a bit, chop your cilantro. Mince it fine and stir it in. You can always add more later.

After stirring in your final ingredient, turn of your stove top and start preparing your tortillas. For those of you who didn't know, a tostada is in fact a fried or baked tortilla. Crazy, I know. I used white corn tortillas this time around. You can use flour or corn tortillas. I would encourage using corn though. It is more traditional and you can get more tostadas out of them.

Spray each side of the tortilla with cooking spray and stick them in your preheated oven. On high heat it should only take a few minutes on each side to harden. Keep a close eye on them so that they don't burn. Meanwhile,if you'd like, shred some Monterrey Jack cheese.

This is what you are looking for with the tortillas...

Last but not least, assemble your totstadas. Spoon a generous amount of the shrimp mixture on the tostada and sprinkle with cheese if desired. After you sprinkle with cheese throw it back in the broiler for a minute or two to melt the cheese. Y fin!