Vegetable Tacos with Cauliflower Rice

This recipe is quick and painless—aside from the time consuming cutting of the fresh veggies. 

I was surprised at how well it turned out! I will be repeating this, with some minor tweaks. 

I started by chopping up my vegetables into bite-sized chunks.

First, red bell pepper...

Next, yellow bell pepper...

Then, green bell pepper...

Followed by a yellow squash...

Then a large zucchini...

And I topped it off with diced onion. 

I also added a little bit of parsley for color. I put all of the veggie chunks in an aluminum pan and mixed them around with some olive oil. I then put the dish in the oven at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes to get them slightly softened, but you don't want to leave them in there too long or they'll get mushy (personal preference). I tossed them around every 10 minutes or so. 

Next, I took a full head of cauliflower and cut off the stem. Then I grated it, just like cheese, into a microwave-safe bowl. This is going to be your "rice". I put my large bowl of grated cauliflower into the microwave for about 3 minutes, in 1 minutes increments. 

I made my own seasoning for the "rice" with a mix of Cholula, Tapatio, and powdered taco seasoning. I prefer my dishes to be pretty spicy, so how you make your mix will be entirely up to you. I put everything together in a microwave safe bowl and heated it up together to get the powder to mix in well with the liquids.

Meanwhile, the tortillas were lightly sprayed with Pam and hung over the oven racks to form a shell crispy and give them that classic taco crunch. It take about 10 minutes to get them to where I want them, but everyone is different. 

Once the "rice" seasoning was complete, I poured it over my steamed cauliflower and added some canned corn. I them microwaved everything together for another 2 minutes. 

I drained and rinsed a can of black beans, which I also heated up in the microwave for about 3 minutes. 

Then I filled my tacos up, starting with a layer of cauliflower rice. Followed by a thin layer of black beans, and a hearty layer of my baked vegetable medly. Topped with shredded sharp chedar cheese. 

This meal has a lot of flavors, is filling, and is very healthy! The only thing I would change is the way I cooked the cauliflower. I may look for another recipe which includes water or maybe, boiling the "rice". I would have preferred it had no crunch at all—like basic rice—but because I didn't include any moisture while it was cooking it didn't ever get completely soft. Other than that, it turned out great and I was very happy!