Beef and Bean Burritos

I will probably not be making this as a lunch week batch any time soon, or maybe if I do, I certainly won't be eating them every day for lunch.. again. Filling but boring. My burrito wrapping skills, like most recipes that call for wrapping food in something else (e.g., tamales, zongzhi, dumplings, etc.) needs a lot of work. The biggest difference in taste, besides my inept wrapping skill, is that restaurant-quality burritos are typically served warm. You just can't slap together cold ingredients, wrap it up, and call it a burrito. I suppose you could, but it doesn't taste like effort went into it. Anyhow, I ended up making a week's worth of lunch burritos with this attempt.

The Foodening Blog: behold! a burrito in the making

Ingredients

12" flour tortillas
1 lb ground beef, seasoned and prepared
tomato-based salsa, any style
16 oz can of refried beans or salsa-style refried beans
1 to 1.5 c cheddar cheese, grated
sour cream, to taste
shredded lettuce, optional

Directions

If you're making this for lunch, toast the tortilla before assembling the burrito. If not, skip the toasting step.

Lightly toast a flour tortilla on a griddle, or otherwise flat-enough frying pan surface so that your 12" tortilla can lie flat and be heated up. Flip and toast the other side before it burns.

Preparing the ground beef

There are two ways to do this, the quick way (use a taco seasoning packet) with the ground beef before frying it up and draining out the oil. Or, the more authentic way and mix in spices (minced garlic cloves, chili powder, ground cumin) and taco sauce with the ground beef before frying and draining out the oil. Yes, for this step I cheated and used Trader Joe's taco seasoning packet. Aside from what's in the packet, you'll probably also note that a lot of my adapted Mexican recipes do not contain onions. This is on purpose. If you like onions with your beef, go ahead and use it. You'll need one cup of chopped onion per pound of ground beef.

On a plate, begin your assembly.

In the lower 1/3 of the flour tortilla, add the refried beans. This will be your liquid barrier between the tortilla and the rest of the ingredients. Spread the beans like the paste it is across the bottom third, leaving a 1" space to the edge of the tortilla.

Next, add 1/3 cup of prepared ground beef. Spread it around on top of the beans.

Top the meat with 1/4 c grated cheddar cheese, salsa, and garnish with 1 tbsp of sour cream.

You could add shredded lettuce to this step, but not if you intend to freeze the burritos. Lettuce freezes poorly and it'll be a soggy, terrible mess if you include it for not-eaten-same-day burritos.

Folding the burrito

If only I had read this before both writing and doing the recipe. 

Start rolling from the bottom-up, once you pass the filling part, fold in the right and left sides and continue folding up.

Not eating today? Wrap for later.

For each burrito, wrap it up in a sheet of foil large enough to house it. Use a marker on the foil to label what it is and when it was made. Put it in a resealable plastic bag, and freeze.

To reheat

This was interesting since I don't own a microwave, and it seems like a waste of energy to use the oven for one burrito. Let your burrito(s) thaw in the refrigerator. Pan fry on low heat in a covered pan. Make sure to check your burrito so that the tortilla does not burn. Burnt tortillas taste awful.

Baked Sesame Chicken

I envisioned something different. But alas, this is the best that it gets when it's baked and not deep fried. Visually, not terribly appealing. It tasted okay, but I don't think I'll be making this again any time soon. It does not even come close to the sesame chicken you'd get at a Chinese restaurant.

TheFoodeningBlog - Baked Sesame Chicken

Ingredients

2-3 lbs chicken body parts (drumsticks, thighs, wings, etc.)
1/4 c white sesame seeds, toasted
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
pinch of fresh ground black pepper
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 tbsp soy sauce 

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F.

1. In a 9 x 11 x 3 baking dish, add soy sauce and tilt the dish so that the soy sauce covers the bottom evenly.

2. In a shallow dish, combine sesame seeds, flour, salt, and black pepper together. Dredge each chicken piece in the dry ingredients. Lay chicken in a single layer in the baking dish.

3. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the thickest part of the chicken measures 160 F on a meat thermometer. Remove from oven and serve hot.

Corn Chowder

What started out as a vegan recipe, turned into one not so vegan friendly. I don't usually stock vegetable broth since it's mostly just vegetables laced with onions that have been boiled in salt water for a period of time. Instead, I used beef bouillon as the broth base.

The Foodening Blog: Corn Chowder

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

2 c vegetable or beef broth
1 lb organic cut corn, frozen or fresh
One 14-oz can of organic coconut milk
3 organic celery ribs, diced
1 yukon gold potato, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1-2 tbsp olive oil or unsalted butter
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp celery seed

Quick beef broth:

2 tsp Better than Bouillon Organic Beef Base + 2 c hot water

Directions

In a medium stockpot, melt butter or olive oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic, celery, spices, and salt. Stir until the garlic has started to brown. 

Add the bell pepper, corn, potato and broth. Let this cook until the potatoes are fork tender, about 10 minutes.

Last, add the coconut milk. This might take some serious spooning as it is winter and coconut fat is solid at room temperature.

At this point you could reserved a cup of the vegetables. Use an immersion blender to turn the soup into a chunky chowder. And then, put the reserved vegetables back in.

Serve hot.

Garnish: fresh ground black pepper and/or minced chives

Canning 2016

One day I'll figure out an easier way to log this down. At the moment, I'm just copying a list of what got made on the Notes application of my smartphone with the hope that I remember to blog about it.

Here's what got made in 2016:

peach brandy, 1.5 pints refrigerated
strawberry-rhubarb syrup, 2 pints refrigerated

Extracts
lemon extract, 1 pint
chive flower-infused vinegar, 1 pint
blueberry-infused vodka, 1 quart
blueberry-infused bourbon, 1 pint

Salsas
Control batch salsa (jalapeno peppers), 5.5 pints
Hatch chile salsa (hatch chiles), 5 pints
Spicy salsa (Anaheim & jalapeno peppers), ... pints?
Harissa (dried chile negra, ancho chile, Calif chile), 1 pint refrigerated
La jiao jiang (hot chile paste), 0.5 pints refrigerated

Fruit butters/jams/preserves
Winesap apple butter, 6 pints
Peach bourbon jam (burnt)
Peach bourbon jam (normal)
Apricot-pineapple preserves, 1 pint, 3 half pints, 1 four-oz jar
Apricot-rosemary preserves, 3 half pints, 4 four-oz jars
Strawberry basil preserves, 5 half pints plus 8 oz refrigerated
Strawberry port wine jam, 5 half pints plus 8 oz refrigerated

Pickles/Pickled
Bread and butter pickles, 3 pints
Kimchi, 1 quart refrigerated

Slow Cooker: Stewed Pork Hocks

One way to add depth to any soup is to cook meat bones for a long time, say more than 6 hours. My parents would just cook this stove top for a couple hours, but I find that in these modern and subsequently lazier times, I would much rather start this in the morning and have it ready by dinner in the slow cooker.

It's quite a simple recipe and it makes a few things: a hearty meat stock that can be a base for other soups, a bone broth, and the pork itself can be chilled, sliced and served up with hot or cold noodle dishes. But, for me, I just like the meat and marrow part of the pork.

For those of you (like me) who had to look up what part of the pig the "hock" is, it's the part of the fore or hindquarters above the hoof and below the pig equivalent of the knee/elbow; as illustrated in this Wikipedia stub.

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp olive oil (if cooking by stovetop)
1 lb pork hocks
1 star anise
2-3 slices of fresh ginger, peeled
2-4 tbsp soy sauce
filtered water

To cook this by stovetop:

Brown the hocks in 1-2 tbsp olive oil (or any vegetable oil), add one star anise, a few slices of peeled ginger, 2-4 tbsp of soy sauce (depending on how salty you like it) and an amount of water that covers the hocks. Bring to a boil then simmer covered until the meat is tender, 1-2 hours. Be sure to check on the pot every so often so that the water does not boil all away.

To cook this by slow cooker / crockpot:

Place pork hocks (about a pound) in slow cooker, preferably in a single layer. Add a star anise (one is plenty of flavor per pound of meat), 2-3 slices of peeled ginger, 2-4 tbsp soy sauce, and enough water to cover the hocks. Cook on LOW for 8 hours.

If putting raw meat into a slow cooker is a concern, you can also brown the hocks before putting them in but this is not necessary and it means more stuff to wash.