As a teenager in the 1960’s I was never exposed to Mexican food—at least until we moved my junior year of high school and a lot of my friends from high school liked to go to “Casa Mora” in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Go figure.
Even though it wasn’t anything close to what would now be considered “spicy”, the food at this sit-down restaurant hit your tongue and burned your belly. Today, it would be mild. We’d scoop the “taco sauce” sitting in the bowl on the table onto our tortilla chips and “snarf” it down taking healthy gulps of Coke between bites, grinning and complaining about the heat as we waited for our favorite dish from Casa Mora to be delivered—tostadas at about 50 cents each. They were good. And messy. And spicy.
We still like to make up a batch of tostadas every once in a while. They’re tasty and easy to make. They’re inexpensive and pretty well balanced when topped by lettuce and tomato and cheese. And there’s a secret to keeping the toppings on the flat crispy tortilla—refried beans used like glue on top of the tostada before putting on the rest of the toppings.
Yeah I know—this isn’t what would be considered “foodie food”, or even very original, but today I’m going to write about tostadas because part of my Cheap Bastid mission is to (as the late, great George Carlin used to say) “remind you of stuff you already know”. (OK, he didn’t use the word “stuff” but this is a “G” rated blog). So here’s today’s recipe: Homemade Beef and Bean Tostadas.
