I just discovered tlacoyos, and they look surprisingly doable: mix masa harina with salt and water, flatten into oval shapes, fill with something like beans or ground beef, fold to close, toss ’em in a pan to cook. Fry them if you want; don’t fry them if you don’t want to.  Top like you would a taco, or just eat them plain. Sounds good to me!

The process doesn’t look like it will require too much prep or cleanup — you don’t need fifteen different bowls and spoons and pots and pans to make these, just a bowl to mix your masa in and a pan to cook your tlacoyos.  Toppings can be as easy as prepared salsa and pre-chopped onions (it seems like almost every grocery store In Louisville carries these in their produce section now). 

I’m betting you can probably make these with regular cornmeal in a pinch (…and being able to do things “in a pinch” is sometimes important when you’re working around a condition that interferes with executive functioning).  In fact, I think I’ll try them that way first.  I already have everything I need to make them that way.

You can easily make your tlacoyos kosher, halal, dairy-free, gluten-free (though some kinds of cornmeal do contain gluten), vegetarian, vegan and so on.  They’re really versatile, and that’s a great thing — especially if you’re looking for something to cook for a crowd of friends who might bring different dietary challenges to the table.

I plan to add these to the first set of test recipes for Cooking with ADHD. 

They might even be first on the field, because I can’t wait to try them.  I’ll probably make some with just mashed beans (the disorganized cook’s answer to refried!) and some with my favorite meatless taco filling, which combines mashed beans with red rice (brown or white rice work fine, too, it just happens that I bought an enormous bag of red rice a while back and don’t eat rice all that often). 

I’ll do them again with proper masa harina (also widely available in US supermarkets and on Amazon) if it turns out that they’re as easy as they sound.