Cooking with Toddlers: Sopes with Zucchini Flowers, Avocado, and Ricotta

Aforementioned, I came to Mexico totally prepared with meal plans and shopping lists. All of that went out the window when I realized that most of what I needed, I couldn’t find. That is, of course, unless we wanted to brave hours of mexico city traffic, which was certainly not going to happen with a toddler. Needless to say, we’ve been winging it in the kitchen.

We’ve had a pretty loosey goosey week in terms of eating and without a doubt have been overdoing it on the tropical fruit. We did, however, make something that was both fun for little folks and pretty delicious. If your little one enjoys playdough then making sopes will be right up their alley.

Sopes with Zucchini Flowers, Avocado, and Ricotta

For the Sopes (this makes about 20 sopes):

• 4 cups corn masa flour (we used the Maseca Brand)
• 2½ cups water
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Oil for frying

For the Toppings:

• 10-20 Zucchini flowers
• 1 large avocado
• Ricotta cheese
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1 cup cooked black beans

Step # 1: Prepare the Sopes. Combine the corn flour, water and salt. Knead until the mixture is not sticky, around 5-10 minutes ( more like 10 if you’re working with a toddler). Then arrange into 20 round balls and pat down into desired shape.

Sopes, in my opinion, are like fat tortillas with an indent in the middle, not unlike a little bowl. Perhaps someone with actual knowledge of Mexican cuisine might be able to explain these tasty morsels differently, but I’m no expert.

Because I was making these with my sous chef, who happens to be two, we were not able to achieve the blow like shaped ( no surprise there!). Instead, I had him make tiny balls with the dough while I patted them down into thick tortilla style circles. After shaping, I promptly removed them from his reach before he had time to destroy them.

After shaping the sopes, I had Fig crush some garlic for which we would sautee the flowers in.

Next, its time to cook the sopes. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a frying pan. When the pan and oil are hot, cook sope until golden brown ( about one minute) on each side.

While the sopes are cooking, get out another pan and saute the flowers in olive oil and garlic until slightly wilted ( about 2 minutes). Fig’s not a huge fan of garlic ( yet), so I left a bit of flowers out and sauteed them sans garlic separately.

After the sopes are cooked, spread ricotta cheese, beans, flowers and avocado- enjoy!