Today our food truck road trip takes us to Los Angeles to visit the Bowled and Beautiful food truck on our magic carpet ride. This California-based hopeful food truck is looking to win this season's Food TV's Great Food Truck Race.
The group of ladies dishes up fusion California cuisine served in a bowl. And they do have a chance to win! The ladies have earned one of the top two spots for three weeks in row, and they don't look like they'll be slowing down. We'll see how tonight's episode progresses.
Since none of the trucks this season actually own a food truck, yet, the ladies don't actually have a business or a menu I can peek at. No matter; Food TV has supplied cyber space with a picture of one of their meals.
A signature dish of theirs is 3-Bean, Beef and Bacon Chili Bowl. The picture of the bowl on the Food TV site appears to contain sweet potato fries, so, in addition to the name, I decided to add this golden root vegetable to the bowl.
I call my dish, 3-Bean, Barley and Smoky Chili Bowl. I used kidney, pinto and black beans as my trio. I added the barley to give the dish some bite while keeping the faux meat out of the bowl.
I grabbed a package of sweet potato fries at my local Whole Foods, baked them up and plopped them at the bottom of the bowl. Topping the fries with the spicy, smoky chili and finely shredded vegan cheese and minced onions, gave me an adequate facsimile of the pictured dish.
As it turns out, the bowl was quite a hit! The chili took only about 20 minutes to cook. Bonus! However, the fries were the surprise element that we all thought worked quite well with the chili.
Good luck to these women, although given that they are Californian, I'd expect more veg cuisine from them.
Here's hoping they hear the rumble of the vegan crowd.
