Do you hear what I hear? Yup — fajitas
In my Texas upbringing, fajitas were a restaurant thing, not a home-cooking thing. They came out sizzling on cast iron — strips of grilled steak, along with onions and peppers, that we would wrap in flour tortillas with salsa, and maybe cheese, guacamole and/or sour cream, too.
The word “fajitas,” in fact, refers to that steak; it's a diminutive form of the Spanish word for “belt,” referring to the cut (flank) originally used to prepare the dish. But it long ago became generalized to apply to any version of the dish, most popularly with chicken but also shrimp and even vegetables.
The latter are often mushrooms, with perhaps onions and bell peppers in the background. But the version I made from Jen Hansard's “Simple Green Meals” (Rodale, 2018) includes sweet potato and poblano chile peppers as partners. It's a great combination, with the sweet potato adding starchy heft, the poblanos a little vegetal spice and the portobellos their characteristic meaty earthiness. Toss all three in lime juice, oil and spices, roast in a hot oven and try to resist the aroma that will soon fill your kitchen. Distract yourself by making a little spicy avocado crema to go on top.
Try to resist the noise, too. When you pull out the sheet pan, everything is sizzling. Have tortillas ready, please.
• Joe Yonan is the Food and Dining editor of The Washington Post and the author of “Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook.”