originals: sweet potato, white bean and kale (tacos)

There's only one way to say this: until a couple of days ago, I was a kale virgin. I actually bought it a few times with full intent of using it, but every time I chickened out and I let it rot in my fridge. Believe me - rotten kale is NOT something you want to smell, ever. But as I'm finally realising my dream of cooking for a living (well, for drinks at least) and posing as a pro, I can't run away from it any longer. And so, looking for a vegan option for our tacos (at Ricos Tacos), I created my first recipe using kale!

Prep is key here, once you have everything sliced, diced and drained it's the simplest thing to cook EVER. And the ingredients, in order of appearance, are:

• canola oil
• 1 red onion - diced
• 1 garlic clove - minced
• 1 jalapeno - chopped finely*
• 1 large sweet potato (at least palm sized) - diced
• 1 can of small white beans - drained
• 1 packed glass of kale - chopped
• salt

Now this is really simple: heat oil in a wok, toss in the aromatics, cook on small heat until the onion becomes translucent, toss in the sweet potato, stir well until it's all covered in the oil and increase heat to high, cook for a couple of minutes, add the beans, stir until warm, salt, taste, salt again, add kale, stir until it gets a pretty vivid green colour, serve.

Now, we at Ricos Tacos serve it on warmed corn tortillas with cilantro, slices of avocado, pomegranate seeds and a quarter of lime, but you can serve it any way you want. E.g. on quinoa, if you feel sweet potato and kale aren't hipster enough for you.

*adjust to your own heat preferences, use more or seed the one you're using, but DO NOT leave it out unless you want to end up with a bland dish

almost tinga de pollo and mango guacamole

Of course the day I decided to go Mexican had to be the day when my fiancé, who works in a Mexican restaurant, went on a week-long road trip to shoot a movie. So there was no response when I asked him "how do you make tinga de pollo at work?". So I had to rely on a recipe from Epicurious and, unfortunately, the limited supplies of the Polish suburbia.

This recipe is pretty good, but I call what came out from that "almost" tinga de pollo, because I couldn't find chipotle en adobo within a 5km radius from my parents' house and I had to use marinated jalapeños. It still turned out great. I served it with mango guacamole, which is totally amazing, especially with such great ingredients as we had:

• 1 super ripe avocado
• 1 ripe mango, diced
• 1 small chili pepper
• juice from 1 lime
• chopped fresh cilantro

Using a spoon scoop the avocado out from its skin and squash it in a bowl using a fork. Add the rest of ingredients, mix thourougly. The end.