Magic with a Metal Ring: The Alamo

A highlight meal from the Syracuse trip was this creation I made for Jessica and her friend and me. Jessica named it the Alamo due to the Southwestern flavors. I wanted to create something fancy and impressive-looking, and equally impressive-tasting! We all agreed this met our expectations! (And exceeded them in Jessica's case, who admitted she wasn't too pumped for an all-vegan meal).

This creation would have tasted just as good without the presentation, but we eat with our eyes first, right? I had no idea it would be so easy to use this metal ring to make the meal look so fancy. I just put the ring on the plate, piled in the mashed sweet potatoes first, and layered the rest of the components on top, removed the ring, and voila!

The actual components to the meal were simple, so I"ll just list them here.

• 2 mashed sweet potatoes with Southwest seasoning
• 1 can black beans, 1 can corn, mixed, with S.W. seasoning
• Roasted tomatoes and portobello mushrooms
• sliced avocado
• sauteed spinach with garlic and lemon
• a dab of mashed sweet potato on the top with blue corn chips on top to garnish
• the decorative sauce on the plate was a pre-made Mexican flavor blend I got in a tube

This whole meal took about 15-20 minutes to put together!