Kickass Burritos

Burritos are super easy to make. With anything. At anytime. Again, I'm using up some extra stuff in my fridge. No photo. I was ravenous.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup green chilies, diced
1/4 cup scallions, sliced
1/4 cup tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup lettuce, shredded/chopped
1/4 cup vegan cheddar, shredded
1 cup black beans, cooked
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp coriander
1/2 cup rice, cooked (you can cook the rice while putting the rest of this dish together)
Tortillas (makes approx. 2)

...why didn't I pick a jalapeño?!? Ohmygah, culinary regret. (You might want to add some sliced jalapeños if easily accessible to avoid culinary regret.)

In a large frying pan over medium heat, sauté the garlic, chilies, and scallions in oil. Add the black beans, cumin, chili powder, and coriander. Reduce heat, stirring occasionally. When rice is done cooking, add it to the frying pan and toss with the bean mixture. Add more spices to taste.

Sprinkle half the shredded cheese onto each tortilla and microwave for approximately 20 seconds to soften them. Spoon the bean mixture on, then the lettuce and tomato. I also shredded some carrot over these for more color and vegetable goodness.

Spicy tofu scramble

 

I've made many different variations of this recipe, but this week I needed to use up some peppers and tomatoes.

Note on tofu: Drain or press to your heart's content. It saves cooking time in this recipe, but my morning laziness usually makes me skip that part.

12-14 ounces tofu, crumbled but still chunky
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
Ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 scallions, sliced
1/2 cup vegan cheddar, shredded

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
1/2 hatch chile, seeded and diced
1 sweet banana pepper, seeded and diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 small tomato, diced

Gently heat the olive oil, garlic, and peppers in a small frying pan. Once heated, add the tomatoes (they cook much faster than other veggies). Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and add the mixture to the pan, cooking about 4-5 minutes, or until most of the excess moisture is gone and the scramble is heated through.

Serve on toast, tortillas, whatever makes you happy. Ketchup and toast make me most happy.

PEPPER BURN SUCKS

Have you ever heard or read, "Wear gloves when handling hot peppers"?

I had. I ignored. And the pepper gods smote me.

Let's rewind to last week. A Friday night housewarming party awaited, I was dying to try some new recipes, and there were ten or so jalapeños in my garden corked and begging to be eaten. What better challenge then vegan jalapeño poppers? None, I say. None. [recipe forthcoming.]

Anyone who knows my food habits knows I love spicy food. So this was not my first time working with jalapeños. And to me, jalapeños never constituted a "hot" pepper... at least not enough to warrant gloves. Gloves, really? Gloves are for suckers. Or habaneros.

I harvested my glorious peppers and went inside. I laid all out on the cutting board when a voice in my head said I should wear gloves. And I replied: Eff off, little voice. The voice told me it remembered some recipe that said homegrown peppers were hotter than storebought peppers. I replied: Seriously, little voice. Get a life. It's all lies. And if it's not, I'm a grown woman. I am built for pain. I can handle it.

So I sliced and seeded with haste and got my hands all up in that capsaicin goodness. I was coughing more than usual, but that didn't ring any warning bells. It wasn't until all the peppers were cut that I started to feel the burn creeping into my fingers. I acknowledged it, but kept cooking, first blanching the peppers, then stuffing them, then rolling them in the batter and setting them up to fry. During all this, I started to feel the throbbing and the scorching heat. And it was spreading. And I started to see crimson burn marks all over my hands. It reminded me of when I was six years old and "checked if the iron was on" right before a Christmas party. I walked to the neighbor's with my hand in a cup of ice water.

Immediately after the poppers were done (because of course I'm crazy and insisted on finishing the stupid poppers before tending to my screaming hands) the ice water thing was the first thing I tried. Ah, cold relief. Short-lived. I alternated running my hands under cool water while looking up pepper burn remedies on the internet. I tried detergent. I tried lemon juice. I tried vegetable oil. I took a couple of painkillers. I tried baking soda paste. I tried rubbing alcohol. I tried everything again. Some temporary relief, but no luck with anything lasting.

Finally, I tried the baking soda paste again. I made it super thick and slathered it on my hands. I laid down on the couch with my hands over my stomach and took a fifteen minute nap. While I lay there, the heat got worse, but it felt more like a sauna under the paste and I didn't mind that sensation. When I woke up, I was covered in baking soda, but my pain was.. was it gone? Not totally, but it was a memory of what it had been before. YAY!

So, I washed off the paste and....damn it. The pain was back. I had to mail a bill out before I left and I couldn't even hold a pen long enough to write a word in one try. I do believe that was the longest address I've written since Kindergarten.

I was hours late. I was angry. I put some more paste on, put on some vinyl gloves, and drove to the party an hour away. The steering wheel was my enemy.

Beer, of course, became my fast friend. When I arrived I stripped my powdery gloves and donned some clean ones to slice the chilies for my seven layer dip, also delicious, recipe also forthcoming. And I was still burning throughout the night, but it's amazing how a good old keg will dull that pain. [I should mention, that in the hours before, I wanted to kill the bastard who wrote that the only thing that stopped the burning was lots and lots of rum.]

I woke the next morning with no burning.

So, maybe you feel like a sissy if you wear gloves. Well you'll feel like a total jerk if you don't and end up three hours late and miserable to a party because you're freaking out over your pepper-scalded hands. Wear the gloves. Really.

Photo update