Summery Chipotle Tequila Shrimp Tacos

How many is too many Panda licorice sticks in one sitting? Because I'm stuck in a cubicle and just snarfed down three of them and might have a problem.

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I was in a food rut (perhaps I still am...see above). My diet consisted of mostly yogurt and fruit and Mexican food and I felt like that might not be the healthiest way to live. Mexican food is the easiest thing for me to fall back on because I always have taco or quesadilla ingredients and pretty much everything but flour tortillas is wheat-free. Hence, our house has approximately this many corn tortillas on hand at all times:

I tried to lay off for a while, but the craving came back hard this time and I decided to try and switch it up. I was at the gym thinking about how hungry I was and how I didn't want to cook anything that would take forever because I was getting close to that my-stomach-is-eating-itself stage that I've mentioned before. I knew I had a ton of shrimp and black beans and taco junk so I began brainstorming.

Some of my fabulous sitting-in-the-pool friends had left me a plastic Parmesan container full of tequila, the lovely people that they are, so somehow that had to come into the mix. There was also a container full of chipotle chillies that looked oddly suspicious to anyone who didn't know what they were so those needed to go as well. I bought some creme fraische and the meal was born.

I also had the pleasure of feeding this to one of my good friends, and she had some feedback for you:
"mmmmmmm!"
She said they were nice and light yet filling, spicy but not too spicy, and a perfect summer meal. We each scraped every bowl and plate clean of everything we made and I will be making these again.

And hey, fun news. Who What Wheat just got it's first non-person-i-know-or-am-friends-with-or-related-to follower! Welcome, apparently I'm doing something right.

Summery Chipotle Tequila Shrimp Tacos
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 lime (the original recipe wanted sugar..no thanks, lime does the job and tastes WAY better)
Dash of salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 large chipotle chili (the kind that come in adobo sauce), chopped
1 Tbsp adobo sauce
2 Tbsp tequila
about 1 pound frozen shrimp (this can be adjusted based on what kind of shrimp you use and how big they are...frozen was all I had and the extra water made for a delicious sauce for them to simmer in)
1 tsp olive oil
6 6-inch corn tortillas
2 cups shredded iceburg lettuce
1 avocado, sliced
salsa
creme fraische
guacamole (optional...some people don't like avo as much as I do and the slices plus guac could be too much)
1 can low sodium black beans
1/4 onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper

Combine chili powder, lime, salt, ground cumin, chipotle chili, adobo sauce, and tequila in a bowl. Add shrimp and toss to coat. Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add shrimp.

Here's where things can vary a little. I used frozen shrimp, so my cooking time was much longer. Even though they were partially defrosted, they still let out a lot of water which combined with the tequila and lime and spices to make a nice sauce. I covered with a lid and let the shrimp simmer until the liquid had evaporated, leaving behind a kind of paste and giving them the ultimate spice kick with lots of flavor.
If you use fresh big fresh shrimp, your cooking time should only be about a minute and a half on each side. If you use small shrimp you can probably just stir them around the pan for a few minutes until they're all nice and pink.
You could also add about half a cup of water to the pan when using fresh shrimp if you want the simmer effect. Cooking is an imperfect science.

While the shrimp are cooking in whatever way you want them to, throw the black beans, chopped onion, minced garlic, and some salt and pepper into a pot and let it all simmer until the shrimp are done. The longer the better as the beans will take on a delicious flavor from the garlic and onion the more time they spend over the heat together.

Heat tortillas in the oven or a skillet for a few minutes until warm and soft and throw three on each of two plates. Add beans, shrimp, lettuce, avocado, salsa, guac, and creme fraische on top and oh my yum.

These shrimp are spicy, but with all the fresh cold toppings the heat gets subdued quite a bit. I never understood what they meant on cooking shows when they said the heat builds, but it definitely does with these bad boys. By the end of the second one you definitely want to keep eating because they aren't super filling but you kind of need to keep eating to keep the heat at bay. It's lovely.

Serves 2 if you can eat 3 tacos (which we did as these aren't extremely filling), 3 if you can't.

Bon Appetit...just not wheat!