Taquito Tuesday! Or Thursday, or Saturday, or Anyday!

Last night I made taquitos for the first time, and I think it will be a stand by from now on. Moms, I bet this will be a great food for kids too. Finger food with nutritious fillings, and they're baked so can be quite low fat.
I adapted a recipe from She Runs, She Eats. In her taquitos she used sweet potato, which we in Canada would call yam, and in my taquitos I used pumpkin and black beans to get some protein in. Here we go!

First, chop 1 large onion quite small, and three cloves of garlic (or more to taste). Fry the onions in 1 Tbsp of oil in a non-stick skillet until translucent then add garlic for a minute or so. Then add:
2 Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
and stir, and cook for another minute until spices are fragrant. Remove from heat.
Meanwhile, mix up the main ingredients for the filling. I used 1 can of pumpkin puree and 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed), but you could use just about anything that will be moist and flavourful. The original recipe sauted cubes of yam until soft, then pureed them in a blender with the onions. In the future I want to make a sweet potato and bean version, or a refried bean and veggies version, maybe a cauliflower puree version with loads of cilantro, you could try mashed peas and soft potato, or even throw in some chopped hard boiled egg. You could change up the spicing too to be less hot, or try Indian spicing, or even Mediterranean. Obviously the carnivores could try shredded chicken or ground beef, but I won't condone such behaviour. ;-)
The point is, in a large bowl, mix up your main ingredients. Add onion mixture and 1 cup of shredded cheese (whatever cheese you prefer). Stir thoroughly.

Now comes the part that I imagined would be tricky but was actually shockingly easy. You get a stack of small corn tortillas. Heat your oven to about 275. Using spray oil, lightly spritz both sides of 6 or so tortillas and lay them on a baking try. Heat them in the oven for about 3-5 minutes. They will get soft and flexible. One at a time, remove from oven, place a heaping tablespoon of filling on the tortilla close to one edge. Roll tortilla up around the filling like a tight cigar. The tighter roll (and less filling) makes for a crunchier and more satisfying taquito.

Place your finished taquito on a baking try and set it aside. Continue this process with the rest of the tortillas until the filling runs out. My filling made about 20 taquitos. She Runs, She Eats has a good series of photos in her recipe post that kind of show how to roll them and what a filled tray looks like. From my experience, it's crazy easy, just make sure the rolled taquito is placed seam side down on the tray, and individual taquitos are not touching. This allows them to get evenly crunchy on all sides.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes. Serve with salsa for dipping, and you're all set with a nutritious and delicious snack.