Back To Basics: Simple Bean Burritos

My apologies for the lack of posting this week.  It’s been a combination of a lack of something exciting to blog about, and an obnoxious cold that’s wormed it’s way into the household.  Just when we thought we’d made it through another cold season, it had to come and stir things up a bit…

When I made this week’s meal plan it was with an eye to simplicity.  When I’m not at my best, I don’t feel much like cooking, or more specifically, cleaning up after I’ve cooked.  I was looking through cookbooks, looking for inspiration, and saw a recipe for basic bean burritos.  I thought about how good that sounded, and I wished my kids would eat bean burritos. And then I scolded myself and decided that I didn’t actually know they wouldn’t eat the things, as I’ve never made them.  I simply assumed they wouldn’t eat them, so an idea was born and a simple dinner of Bean Burritos was on the menu.

My burritos started by cooking up a few cups of dry pinto beans. If you’d like to do that, see this post for bean cooking instructions, and go ahead and let the pintos get mushy.  If you don’t cherish the idea of simmering dry beans for a few hours, go ahead and get yourself a can or two or three of already cooked pinto beans, just give them a quick drain and a rinse and you’ll be good to go. If you cook your own beans, when they get to being tender/almost mushy, go ahead and use a slotted spoon to scoop them out of your cooking pot and into a mixing bowl.  I always like to save a bit of the cooking water in case I need to loosen up the beans at all.

Beans in hand, go ahead and mush them up using a potato masher or a fork.  I like to leave a little texture, but if you want them pretty even and pureed, go ahead and throw them in a food processor.  For these specific burritos, I also added 4 ounces of softened Neufchatel cheese, 1 scallion, finely chopped, 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/4 teaspoon smoked spanish paprika and salt and pepper. (All this to about 4 cups of cooked beans.)  Mix it all together, and then give the beans a taste- add a little more of anything if you need it. I would have loved to add more like 3 or 4 scallions, but I was hoping the kids would eat this, you know?

Now we have assembly.  You can make these as basic or as loaded as you want.  I went with completely basic this time.  To accompany the burritos, I’d also cooked up a pot of yellow rice (from a box, which I don’t normally do, except for yellow rice.  Gosh I love this stuff, and it’s the only rice Zander likes too.), and I mention that because I decided to go ahead and use the rice on my burritos- but I left it off the kids.  For making burritos, you want to get the big flour tortillas- the big 12-inch ones.  If you want cheese, get that shredded up as well.  I left the cheese off of these ones, since these are my burritos.  The kids had beans and cheese. (As a side note, if I had an avocado, it would have been on here as well.) You simply take your tortilla and put a bit of your toppings in the very center of the tortilla, kind of in a rectangle shape.  I started with rice, topped with beans, followed by a drizzle of salsa.

It doesn’t look like there’s vey much here, but this is what you want.  Overfilled burritos are a terrible thing.  Then we start to roll them up.  We take the tortilla at the top and bottom of our little rectangle, and fold them up like this:

Then you start at one remaining side, fold that over the center of the burrito, and simply roll the whole thing up, and what you end up with is a tidy little package, just dying to be eaten.

I made two burritos for myself, along with a simple vegetable saute of mushrooms and zucchini, and found that two burritos was actually too much for me.

Overall, they were very tasty and incredibly easy to make.  As an added bonus, you can make these burritos assembly line style and serve the whole family at once OR you can take individual burritos, wrap them well in plastic wrap, tuck into a freezer bag and then freeze for individual, microwaveable servings.   As for the kids… well, let’s just say that they are not fans of bean burritos, sadly.  Abigail couldn’t even be persuaded to eat half of her burrito, and if I had a child who I thought was going to be won over to the joy of beans, it was her.  She just didn’t care for it for some reason.  Zander took about three bites before encountering the bean filling, then set it aside and asked if he could have one with just cheese.  He promptly inhaled that one, of course, but the bean burritos were not a hit.  Maybe your little monsters will fare better than mine…

Oh, and one last thing, this bean filling.  Delicious.  I could scoop it up with a spoon and eat it straight up.  I think that if you added a few scoops of sour cream, maybe a little salsa, you’d have an amazing bean dip for chips or veggies.  I may have to try that with the leftovers for lunch today.

Bean Burrito Filling

4 cups cooked pinto beans

4 ounces Neufchatel cheese, softened (or cream cheese)

1/4 teaspoon smoked spanish paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1-4 scallions, finely sliced

salt and pepper to taste

Mash the beans with the cheese until as smooth as you’d like. Add seasonings and scallions, mix well.  Taste, and adjust seasonings as necessary.

Makes enough filling for about 8 burritos.