Grilled Vegetable Tostadas

When I was in college, my friends always took me to Mexican restaurants and had me order the tostadas. They would crumble all over me, which my friends thought was hilarious. Honestly, I did, too. This makes a great party food—you can keep all the items separate and have guests build their own tostadas. A serving is two or more tostadas, so this recipe feeds three. Oh, I forgot to mention you can totally do this in the house—just bake the tortillas and heat the veggies in a large skillet.

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can refried beans, warmed in the microwave with a little water to make the beans spreadable

6 (6 inch) corn tortillas
Cooking spray

Grilled Vegetables:

12 white button mushrooms, sliced
6 (1/4 inch) slices of red onion
2 jalapenos, stemmed, seeded and sliced
1 cup frozen and thawed (or fresh) corn
12 (1/4 inch) slices of zucchini
About a cup of bell pepper slices (red, green, yellow, orange, etc.)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons grill seasoning (your choice)
1 teaspoon ground chiles, like New Mexico red (substitute taco seasoning or chili powder if you want)

Toppings:

1 tomato, chopped
1 avocado, sliced
½ cup ripe olives, sliced
½ cup taco sauce
1 cup shredded lettuce
¼ cup light sour cream
½ cup crumbled queso fresco

Directions: Preheat grill to medium heat. Lightly spray both sides of each tortilla with cooking spray and put them on a plate, ready for the grill. Next, Place all the grilled vegetable ingredients in a bowl and toss with the olive oil and seasonings. Put all the toppings in separate bowls to make serving easy. Take a grill rack, the tortillas and the bowl of veggies for grilling out to the grill. Lay the tortillas directly on the grill and cook about 5 minutes on each sides or until there are nice grill marks and they are starting to crisp up. Move them back to their plate. Place the veggies for grilling on the grill rack and cook, gently tossing every so often, until soft. Mine took about 15 to 20 minutes.  Put the veggies back in their bowl (hot pads, please) and line up next to the tortillas, refried beans and toppings. Then just take a tortilla, spread on some refried beans, some grilled veggies and as many toppings as you wish. Oh, and have lots of napkins handy!