Make and freeze burritos

My other half and the 16 year old boy love burritos and now and then we buy them on sale at the grocery but though the price may be good, the nutritional content isn't. So today we made a batch of burritos for the freezer. I haven't done this in a long while and recruited my man person for opinions and tasting but the burritos are in the freezer now and my men folk are happy.

We like more meat than beans in the burritos but understand that beans do lend something to economy and nutrition. Unfortunately, they also lend quite a bit to the carbohydrate count and since two of us have Type II diabetes that's an issue to consider. In the end, here's what we did:

Browned 2.5 lbs of ground beef with some onion. When it was browned I drained the fat, put the meat into a colander, and rinsed it well under running hot water, breaking the meat into very small pieces as I rinsed it. Once it was rinsed and drained again I put it back in the wok on a very low flame and added two cans of Ranch Style Beans which had been well drained and mashed with a fork and a can of Ro-tel, drained. I mixed it all up and added crushed red pepper, garlic powder, a little salt, some black pepper and some chili powder. Then I ran it all through the blender, using the 'chop' function to mix it and mash the beans a little more. My other half tasted and added until it was to his liking so I don't have quantities of those spices. Just do it til it tastes right and you should have a gloppy mess that looks something like this.



Once the filling was right, I spooned some (two to three large serving spoons full) onto the edge of a low carb flour tortilla, added some shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and rolled it up.



Then I just placed it on a cookie sheet seam side down.



I also made some with regular tortillas and the 16 year old will eat those. Each full cookie sheet went to the freezer and once the burritos are frozen they'll be individually packaged in freezer paper, labeled, bagged and put back in the freezer.

So there you have it, my basic burrito making method. It's easily adapted to whatever you have on hand or are in the mood for.

By the way, the burritos made with the low carb tortillas have a carb count of approximately 6 grams per burrito and the cost of each burrito is approximately $.50 with all the ingredients purchased on sale. I get 13 to 15 burritos per batch.

I really need to make a batch of these once a week for quick and easy snacks.

The 16 year old just had one and told me it was very good but not hot enough. Okay, more crushed red pepper in his and perhaps a little jalapeno.

Chicken and vegetables cooked in my new toy

I got a new toy today and after testing it to make sure it worked properly, I decided to use it to make dinner. Here's my new toy... do you know what it is?



It's a beautiful Cook's Essentials 8 quart electric pressure cooker! I love cooking with pressure and have a 6 quart stove top model but this one is bound to be my new favorite. Not only was it a great deal (at about 1/3 of the normal cost) it has some really nice features like a removable cooking pot for cleaning ease and a browning feature. It will even keep food warm. If you've ever wanted a pressure cooker or if your old one is about to give it up or if you've wanted a digital one, you might want to look at this one. No, I don't get a thing for suggesting it to others - I just think this is an incredible deal and want to pass it on. By the way, although there are apparently several hundred to sell eventually they'll be gone.

So, I gave the cooker a water test and once I was sure it came to pressure properly I prepared the vegetables and chicken for dinner.

I rinsed and cut fresh green beans, onions, and zucchini from the garden and carrots from the local grocery in large pieces. Then I lightly seasoned them with Cook's Choice Brisket Rub and set them aside.



I rubbed a whole raw chicken well, inside and out, with the same rub I put on the vegetables, put about a tablespoon of EVOO in the cooking pot, set the cooker for browning and when it was hot, placed the chicken in the pot.



About 10 minutes later, I flipped the chicken over and was very pleased to see how well it had browned.



When it was brown on both sides, I drained the oil from the cooking pot, added 1 cup of water, and tossed the raw vegetables on top of the now browned chicken.



I put the lid on, set it to pressure cook for 25 minutes and walked away. It took very little time to come to pressure, probably because I'd done the water test in it before cooking the chicken so it was already hot. When the timer went off 25 minutes later, I let it go through a natural release and about 15 minutes later when it beeped to let me know it was finished, I removed the lid and was greeted by a beautiful sight.



This was some of the most tender and juicy chicken I've ever eaten and the flavor was fantastic thanks to the brisket rub. I followed the suggestion from the owner's manual to put 1 cup of liquid in with the chicken and I wasn't impressed with the boiled effect that gave the chicken, though the horde ate it up. With my stove top model, I can get by with less than a cup of liquid and the finished product has close to two cups of liquid but thanks to 'anonymous' for letting me know I need to use at least 1 cup of liquid. I think I'll try something other than water - that might not change the boiled effect but it might be good, anyway. And the finished product had more than three cups of liquid with it. No wonder it seemed boiled...ah well, I can't have perfection!

All in all we really enjoyed the chicken and vegetables and after we'd eaten our fill I de-boned what was left and put it in the fridge. It will make great leftovers!

Cabbage Casserole, corn on the cob, and garlic toast

Tonight's main dish is Cabbage Casserole. It wasn't on the menu but we had a head of cabbage in the fridge and needed to start using it. With it we're having corn on the cob (not from the garden, unfortunately, but fresh nonetheless) and garlic toast.

Here's the original recipe and my modifications to it:

1 1/2 lbs ground beef or turkey (I've used as little as 1/2 a lb)
1 tsp cooking oil (I omit this)
1 onion chopped
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
3/4 cup long grain rice (wild rice is great, too)
1 can tomato soup (I use ketchup mixed with water)
1 can mushroom soup or homemade equivalent
1 soup can water (I use one can of stewed tomatoes instead)
3 cups cabbage, shredded (I just slice it very thin rather than shred it)

Preheat oven to 350. Brown the meat and add onion, salt, pepper and rice. Add soups and water and mix well. Put cabbage in the bottom of casserole dish (lasagna pan works well) and pour meat and soup mixture over cabbage. DO NOT STIR. Bake covered for 1 1/2 hours.

We really like this recipe. It's thrifty, makes a lot, and is easily adaptable to ingredients on hand. I've made it with ground beef, ground turkey, ground chicken, and homemade turkey sausage and all were very good. It's even good with leftover chopped cooked chicken or beef rather than ground meat. Sometimes I make it with cream of celery or cream of chicken soup or just a basic white sauce - it just depends on what I have on hand or what I feel like whipping up. We don't eat tomato soup and I don't buy it just for recipes. If I need some for a recipe I mix 1/4 cup ketchup with a cup of water. It's close enough and works fine in recipes.

This was a great main dish and there's enough left for lunch tomorrow. And that's a good thing!

I have five meals left on the menu and only need to make one tomorrow night before I make my new menu. Here are the choices:

Dutch hats served with vanilla yogurt and fresh strawberries

Biiiig salads made with fresh garden vegetables, cheese and turkey ham

Taco squares, black beans, and tomato salad

Hamburger steak and gravy, green beans, tossed salad, and popovers

Poor man's steak, baked potatoes, and green beans

I think we'll have the poor man's steak with baked potatoes and green beans. The other four dishes will be carried over to the menu for the next two weeks.

YOYO Night!

Tonight is YOYO (You're On Your Own) night. I didn't cook a thing. We had a few leftovers still in the fridge so everyone just got their own dinner from the fridge and heated it up.

I'll cook again tomorrow night, more than likely.

Well, the garden is still giving up a few goodies here and there. We got a few cucumbers, a couple of Roma tomatoes, a handful of purple hull peas. That's about it. And the rain keeps coming...

Stovetop Stroganoff, spinach, and corn

Dinner was great even if the main dish was made from planned overs! I put the gravy from last night into the wok and added about 1/2 a cup of sour cream, some garlic powder and some black pepper. I mixed it all well then added some of last night's beef roast that had been cut into bite sized chunks. I let it all heat well and had mine over whole wheat noodles. My man person had his over rice from last night. Served with some spinach and corn, it was tasty and frugal!

We still have some of last night's roast and gravy left and if we don't eat it for lunch tomorrow I'll think of something to do with it - more than likely a homemade beef pie.

Slow cooker roast with gravy and vegetables

Beef roast sounded good to me this morning and I just happened to have two of them we got from the local grocery on sale at $2.59 a lb. so I decided to slow cook them both. Part of one was used for tonight's dinner and hopefully I can keep folks from eating the rest of it so I can use it in a day or two. I think I'll make Stovetop Stroganoff with the leftovers. It's so easy and tastes great and is perfect for leftover roast.

I put Cook's Choice Rib Rub and Cook's Choice Gourmet Steak Seasoning on both roasts, browned them in a cast iron skillet then put them in the crock pot with just a little bit of water and some cream of mushroom soup. I also threw in some onion soup mix.

We had some of the very tender and scrumptious roast with brown basmati rice, turnip greens, and broccoli. It was a nice dinner and there's enough roast left for at least one meal, maybe two meals.

I'm almost bored with roast cooked this way, though. I've cooked them this same basic way for over 25 years. How do you cook your beef roast?