Vegetarian Burritos!!

This recipe is easy, cheap and healthy, and great for kids who don't like veggies. My mom used to make this recipe when I was a kid, and I LOVED it. It was the only way she could get broccoli down me.

Some time ago, I actually lost the original recipe, but I've continued to make it, morphing it into my own creation which now includes 3 serranos (and somehow still not spicy enough for us.)

My version makes a ton, so if you don't want to be eating it all week, you can half the recipe. Or you can make it and freeze some for later. Personally, I like to make the whole batch and change it up later in the week-- like put it over tortilla chips to make nachos, or add fried plantains or sausage or BACON! Of course, then it's not quite as healthy, but who cares after you've been a god damn vegetarian for several days. You deserve it.

Vegetarian Burritos (This is the first time I've written it down so if it's confusing, let me know)

Ingredients:

3-4 tablespoons oil (I used canola, but vegetable or olive would be fine)
1 lb Broccoli (large stems removed and chopped into small-ish pieces)
3/4 lb Carrots (shredded)
1 or 2 onions finely chopped
2 jalapeno or serrano chiles if you like it hot (obviously, if you're cooking for kids or like it mild, you can reduce or leave these out) finely chopped
6 Cloves garlic minced
4 tomatoes coarsely chopped (you can also use canned tomatoes if you want)
4  15 oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed (you can use dried beans of course, but I'm just lazy and don't feel like taking all that time to soak and cook them first)
2   15oz cans corn
1 1/2 tsp salt (add more to taste)
1 tsp black pepper
2 TBS Chili powder
2 TBS cumin
1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 (6oz?) cans of tomato paste
1-2 TBS tapatio (or any kind of hot sauce)
Large flour tortillas
Cheddar cheese
Cilantro
Sour cream (optional)

Instructions:

1.) Heat Oil in a large skillet or pot. When it reaches moderately high heat, add the chiles and onion. Cook until tender and translucent (about 5 minutes)

2.) Add the garlic, salt and pepper. Cook 1 minute.

3.) Add the broccoli, carrots and the rest of the spices: Cook, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes, or until broccoli is fairly tender.

4.) Add beans, corn, tomatoes, tomato paste and Tapatio. (Depending on how juicy the tomatoes are, you may need to add a bit of water, but not too much because you want it to be fairly thick so it won't fall out of your burritos.)  Reduce heat to medium and simmer for about another 10 minutes, or until everything is nice and tender and has lots of flavor. Just taste and add at this point. Add more salt if you want, or more spices. Sometimes I add a few tablespoons to sour cream to the mix, but if you have lactose intolerant people involved, leave it out and let people put it in their burritos individually.

5.) Put mix onto warmed tortillas. Top with cheese, cilantro, and sour cream if you want. Roll and eat!

Enjoy skinnies! (you're all skinny this week, since this shit is healthy!)

Spicy Chicken Skewers with Mango Tabbouleh and Glazed Japanese eggplant

Okay, second post. I made this last week, so I'm a little behind already. Good thing I don't cook every night because I'd be way too lazy to post that often. 

First up: Chicken Skewers with Tabbouleh. We added four or five small red chiles (they were tiny ones we got at the farmer's market that pack a lot of heat) to the marinade instead of one, and then we used spicy curry powder instead of regular. We like it hot. If you want it mild, stick to the original recipe. Also, we grilled the chicken on the BBQ rather than the oven. But be careful because it might cook faster this way. It did for us. Also, I couldn't find bulgur wheat, so substituted quinoa. It worked fine!

Glazed Japanese Eggplant. My Nana gave me this recipe and we make it all the time. I LOVE it. This time, we grilled the eggplant on the grill first which made it soft and allowed us to skip the step of cooking it with the water (plus gave it a nice BBQ taste). After grilling it for 10-12 minutes turning once, we just added the grilled eggplant to the pan with the sauce and cooked it for another 10 minutes on simmer. For the sauce, we added a couple of hot jalapenos (of course), and a few scoops (TBS) of peanut butter to give it a nice nutty flavor. Also, I like to blend the sauce in the food processor to save on having to chop a bunch of crap because I'm lazy. Also, make sure not to leave out the sesame oil-- it  gives it a great flavor. It came out REALLY spicy because of the extra hot jalapenos-- and it takes a lot for me to say something is spicy-- so proceed with care. 

And yes, that is food I've spilled on my recipes. Told you I was a disaster in the kitchen.

Enjoy, piggies!

Malaysian Glazed Chicken Legs with Curried Corn Pudding and Spinach Simmered in Yogurt

This is my first attempt at blogging. I have no clue what I'm doing so bear with me. I am also no professional fucking chef, so everything I do is trial and error and my kitchen always looks like a war zone when I'm finished.  I find it a matter of pride and amusement that I manage to use every utensil in the house for one dish. My husband, however, finds it not so admirable (he does the dishes).I didn't go to culinary school but during college I did learn to concoct recipes based solely on ingredients found at 7-11. That's a talent in itself. I also learned a lot from my mom and nana (my grandma), who always made everything from scratch. I don't claim to be an expert on shit.... or food. haha. I just want to share recipes that I've found (and typically altered), or made up... at least the ones that turned out great. For example, I'm not going to post about the sour cream lamb meatballs I attempted last year, which turned into sourcreamlambmush that looked like prison food. 

This chicken recipe called for wings, which turned out to be more expensive than legs, so we used legs. I don't think it makes much difference, other than maybe a slightly longer cooking time.

They were f-ing delish! Next up: Curried Corn Pudding. Don't need to alter it at all. Although I think I added jalapenos because I put them in everything. Except my vagina.

Spinach Simmered in Yogurt: I ripped this recipe out of a magazine in a waiting room somewhere. I do that a lot. It's not stealing. Is it? I like to add tomatoes to it. They add color and I just really like tomatoes. A couple chopped roma or hot house do fine. 

Also, on a side note, the stewed okra with tomatoes recipe is good too.

All of this crap went really well together. Complimentary flavors blah blah blah. But do with them what you want. Enjoy, fatties!