Adaptogenic Super Taco Mix

This post shares an upgraded version of a recipe from my first book which includes a nutrient dense, flavor packed and medicinal grade taco filling recipe that will go in my next book

I love Mexican food (well I love a lot of food with cultural roots south of the US border going all the way down to traditional Incan territory really) so I have been experimenting with combining my passion for making tacos, burritos, enchiladas, fajitas and heuvos rancheros with my more recently acquired knowledge of healing herbs and medicinal grade foraged ingredients/spices.

some stacked super tacos we enjoyed the other night (I went back for a 4th and fifth one later that night!)

What has resulted are some pretty epic taco nights where I have used things like pan fried regeneratively grown Wild Rice from northern Ontario, fresh nettles, goji leaves/shoots, five flavor berries, chipotle peppers, goji berries, homegrown oyster mushrooms, wild ramps, organic red wine, regeneratively grown cacao beans, frozen organic corn, dried beans from last year's harvests (soaked for 24 hours before cooking) and other herbs and spices to make a highly versatile taco mix that leaves you coming back for that 5th taco (even when you are already full) :)

I am always experimenting with formulating versatile and delicious meals made with fresh homegrown and/or foraged ingredients as I aspire to Stack Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet and put together recipes for my next book.

The following is the inevitable result of what happens when you combine a permaculture designer that loves spicy food with about 20 books on herbalism and nutrition and give him a few years to experiment in the kitchen.

This taco mix is not only delicious and filling, it offers adaptogenic, radioprotective, anti-tussive, hepatoprotective, anti-allergen, cognitive function enhancing, anti-aging, anticancer, platelet aggregation suppression, cardioprotective, tumor suppressing, neuroprotective, wound-healing and mitochondrial health optimizing benefits (as well as being packed full of antioxidants).

It is something you not only enjoy eating, but it is something that makes you feel great for the entire day after you eat it.

Nutritionally this stuff knocks the ball outa the park and it is great for taco salad, taco casserole, deluxe quesadillas, burritos or as a nacho topper. It freezes well so I make big batches and then have individual dinner sized portions ready to go in the freezer for quick taco nights.

Gavin’s Super Taco Mix (2024)

This taco/burrito filler is loaded with interesting flavors, protein and nutrition. I honestly eat this and think to myself “who needs ground beef” this is ten times better than my old tacos! (That being said, regeneratively farmed beef or chicken would also go well in this recipe if your into that kinda thing).

Left overs are actually great cold for either lazy taco building or sprinkling over a taco salad.

Ingredients:

- 2 cans of different kinds of beans ( or one can and one cup dried beans like Trail Of Tears black beans, runner beans or Anasazi that you precook the day before)

- a big handful of ripe cherry toms or one large ripe tomato, diced

- 1 or 2 ears of non gmo corn

- 1 bell pepper, diced

- half a teaspoon stone ground whole cumin seeds

- 2 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce

- 1 cup fresh goji berries (or half a cup dried, diced)

This is what a typical daily harvest of Red Goji (Lycium barbarum) berries from our three mature vines looks like in autumn. We like to use our Goji harvests to make mead, smoothies, epic taco mixes and recipes like Jeweled Tabbouleh with Ancient Grains and North African Spices.

- 1 small sweet potato (diced)

- 1/2 cup wild rice (and/or black rice)

- 1 leek (or 2 mature Egyptian walking onions), diced (including green part if crisp and intact)

- 1 yellow onion, diced

- 1 teaspoon of chili powder

- water to adjust consistency

- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons crushed whole coriander seeds

- 1 teaspoon dried oregano

- 1-2 tsp whole crushed whole cumin seeds

- 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

- 1-2 tbsps. cacao nibs (preferably regeneratively grown)

- 2 or 3 slugs of worthy hot sauce

- a drizzle of honey

- the juice of one lime (plus zest)

- 1-2 tbsp chili powder

- olive/avocado or refined coconut oil

- 1 small can of tomato paste

- cheese

- non-gmo tortillas

- lime for squeezing over finished tacos/burritos

- heirloom hot chilis from garden (diced for garnish)

- a splash of organic wine or half a cup of organic hoppy beer

- cilantro for garnishing

- 1-2 ripe avocados

- hot sauce for garnishing

Optional seasonal/exotic/medicinal ingredients that take this recipe to another level:

nettles, goji leaves/shoots, ramp leaves and diced peppers

- 1-2 cups diced fresh stinging nettle leaves

- - 2 tsps. whole schisandra berries

- 1 cup diced ramp leaves

- 1 cup diced Goji Berry Leaves/shoots

- some Rhodiola Rosea or Rhodiola integrifolia root powder

- a chaga chunk or two (simmered in the mix and then removed before serving)

- 1/2 cup diced oyster or morel mushrooms

Directions:

Dice Onion and bell pepper and add to pan with a splash of olive oil, set to high heat and cook until translucent. Add wild rice into pan (stirring regularly).

If using mushrooms add now.

pan frying black rice and wild rice, onions and whole spices before adding the other ingredients

Use a mortar and pestle to crush up the coriander and cumin seeds as well as cacao beans/nibs. Add diced chipotle peppers, stone ground whole cumin seeds, chili powder, cacao bean pieces, coriander seeds, oregano, cinnamon, and hot sauce. Cook until fragrant, (1-2 minutes).

opening a bag of whole (regeneratively grown) cacao beans from my friend’s farm in Ecuador. As soon as I opened the bag of whole cacao beans I was hit by this layered wave of rich alluring fragrances. The depth of the aroma is intoxicating very beautiful and hard to describe in words. No wonder they called the tree species that produces these seeds Theobroma Cacao! You might be thinking that putting the main ingredient that defines Chocolate in a taco mix is crazy, but long before there was Chocolate the Mayans and people of the Triple Alliance were making Xocolatl and their descendants used cacao beans to make Mole Polbano sauce (both of which pair cacao with hot chilis, and for good reason!)

Add beans, sweet potato, tomato, tomato paste, corn, lime juice and zest, chili powder, and enough water to allow the mixture to be able to boil, and then simmer for 15-20 minutes without burning.

adding homegrown sweet corn kernels, chipotle peppers, lime zest, sweet potato and bell pepper

Adding goji berries to our taco mix (along with Goji leaves, Nettle, Cilantro, homegrown sweetcorn kernels, sweet potato, wild rice, sprouted heirloom black beans, onions, peppers, chiplotle peppers in adobe sauce, fresh mortar and pestle ground whole spices and a splash of beer).

If using wine or beer, add now.

If using ramp leaves, goji leaves or stinging nettles, add now.

Mix well, bring to a boil and then turn heat down and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes (mixing intermittently and adding more water and/or organic beer as needed to adjust consistency) or until the wild rice is split open and the sauce has thickened.

adding Schisandra berries to the mix

Our goji infused taco mix after simmering. If you have access to fresh goji berries I highly suggest using them in Mexican dishes. Goji is in the same family as tomato (Solanaceae) so the fact that it pairs well in meals that were created with (Solanaceae) fruit in mind makes sense, but while tomatoes are indeed very good for you (if they are homegrown in living soil) including Goji berries in Mexican dishes improves their nutrition by leaps and bounds and takes your meal into the realm of medicinal super foods.

If using corn tortillas, take a separate pan and turn the heat to low-medium, add a few drops of olive oil in the middle of the pan, and put a corn tortilla in the pan, slide it around a bit and flip it, allow to cool until it begins to blister and softens (30 seconds to 1 minute) and then flip it back. Sprinkle on some cheese and leave it in the pan just long enough for the cheese to melt.

building tacos

extra ingredients after making the mix I also use to garnish individual tacos

Remove from pan and add to plates for serving, scoop in some bean mixture, top with salsa, avocado, cilantro, a squeeze of lime and some hot sauce.

If using flour tortillas just do the same but sprinkle cheese on top of the bean mixture once scooped into the flour tortilla.

Serve with extra wedges of lime and some high quality hot sauce. ;)

one variation of the super taco mix served with wild rice, sweet potato, beuna mulata peppers and homemade raw fermented hot sauce

Enjoy!

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The recipe above is an adapted version of a recipe from an earlier version my book (cover shown in image below).

If you would like to have access to well over a hundred other fun and nutritious recipes like this there is info to where you can purchase either a physical or digital copy of my book below.

For those of you interested in purchasing an Ebook copy of my book that option is now available through this link: https://payhip.com/b/6P5Ab?fbclid=IwAR1eIyc1hZU0q_KjJJDv2LGUfirxErNpey_jTpMV7vdVx4maB1ahZX2SNNM

For those interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book you can do so through this link:

https://recipesforreciprocity.com/shop/softcover/

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The recipe above was a sneak peak preview of the kinds of recipes I will be including in my next book (Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary). which you can learn more about here:

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