Bexican Style Burritos

This is something I make pretty often. DH really likes it and it works out well for a make-a-little-at-a-time meal. It is also easy to adjust when we eat because the last minute prep is just 20mins or so in the oven. I even made a vegetarian variant when our friends from Germany were visiting. So here is how I make it. You'll want to adjust the ingredients to your taste or diet. Adjust the preparation process to your own health and limitations.

Ingredients

• a package of ground beef or other meat
• a big onion or two smaller ones
• a jar of mushrooms or fresh ones
  
• a can of red kidney or chili beans (optional)
• a can of peeled tomatoes or fresh ones
• one fresh pepper
• salsa (I usually buy cheap ones for putting inside and save better ones, if we have them, for topping)
  
• a bag of grated cheese
• enough tortillas for 2 each person or enough for all the filling you are making. I usually use one package of 8 smaller tortillas or 6 larger tortillas to make 2 days worth of burritos for me and DH
• sour cream and salsa to put on the table for people to use
  
• any other veggies you want (zucchini is good either grated from the freezer or fresh in chunks. a can of corn is really good in it but DH doesn't care for corn)
• salt, ground pepper, and other seasonings to taste

1. The night before, if you remember, get the ground meat out of the freezer. Also ask DH to get out the big lidded saute pan usually used for this. Any lidded frying pan will do. The lid is for covering while simmering slowly or between cooking rounds. If you forgot the night before, do it as early in the morning as you are functional enough. The meat is likely to need to be defrosted in the microwave in this case. Allow for a long rest after getting the pan out (OUCH!).
2. Get the canned goods and onion out of the workshop.
3. Take a break.
4. Coarsely chop the onion. Be especially careful with the knife if it is a migraine day like today.
5. Take a break.
6. Clean and coarsely chop the pepper. Remember the extra knife caution.
7. Be sure you are remembering pain killers because there is no way you can finish in time for dinner if you forget. Also make sure the meat is getting thawed enough for cooking. Give it more time in micro to defrost if needed.
8. Rest up really well and give the pain killer a chance to kick in.
9. Turn up some music because the next step takes longer and the distraction helps cope with the pain and keep your mood up.
10. Put oil and a single piece of chopped onion in the pan and turn it up high.
11. While waiting for it to start sizzling, open and rinse the jar of mushrooms and can of beans. Be careful with the open can--those edges are sharp and just as dangerous as knives.
12. When the onion piece starts sizzling, put the rest in. Stir them around regularly with the wooden spatula until they start looking a little translucent.
13. Add the meat and break it up with the spatula. Cook it until about half browned.
14. While the meat is browning, rinse out the meat tray and pour the water into the dog bowls and add dry food to soak. Stir the meat more.
15. Once the meat is about half browned, add ground black pepper and chili powder to give it more taste.
16. Open the can of tomatoes, biting back the scream from the pain of using the can opener (it worries the dogs and doesn't really help anything). Be especially careful of the sharp edges. Do NOT drain it, but stick a knife in and cut up the tomatoes a little bit.
17. As soon as the meat is browned, put the lid on, turn off the burner, and go crash for a while. You deserve it.
18. Realize suddenly that it is way past lunch time and you should have had some. Go scrounge something up whether you want it or not. Feed the girls too.
19. Put the pan on the slowest burner and turn it on low. Add the rest of the filling ingredients--beans, peppers, tomatoes, any other veggies you are using. Also add some cheap salsa if you can open the jar without hurting yourself too much (banging the side of the lid gently on the counter sometimes helps. Otherwise you need to pry it open with something to break the seal if it is a new jar). Stir everything together. Salt it and stir again. Fresh tomatoes and zucchini, if you use them, increase the need for salt. But just do some for now--you can taste test it later.
20. Cover the pan and leave it to simmer for an hour or so, going back to stir once in a while.
21. Make sure you actually remember to go stir it.
22. If it seems really juicy, you have two options. You can let it simmer uncovered for a while or you can thicken the juice with cornstarch paste. Which I do depends on time and what I feel like.
23. Once you think the mix has cooked long enough and you've dealt with the juice, turn it off and let it cool down a bit so it is easier to work with. Take a rest while it cools.
24. Once it is cool enough to work with, find an oven-safe dish that is about as wide as the tortillas. Then start rolling burritos.
25. To roll a burrito, put it in the pan. Then put a pinch of grated cheese in the middle of it. Add a few scoops of filling in a line across it. Top with a little more cheese. Roll it into a tube. Flip the open side down.
26. Repeat until out of tortillas or filling, taking breaks as needed. With time, you'll get a good feeling for dividing it up right. Initially or if you need a certain number, it might be useful to divide the filling up into approximate portions before putting into the tortillas to be sure it works out about even.
27. Cover the top with lots of grated cheese. Then cover the pan with foil. Put it in the refridgerator or a cool place until time to eat. This recipe would work fine for preparing the day before using.
28. About a half an hour before you want to eat, get out the pan of burritos and put it in the oven. Turn the oven on to around 200 degrees C (375-400F). It is fine to put the burritos in before the oven is hot--that way they warm up to the temperature slowly while the oven does. If your oven is really slow, you may need a little longer to heat it.
29. After 15-20 mins, remove the foil so the cheese can melt and brown. When that has happened, remove from the oven.
30. Serve with sour cream and salsa. It has a lot of vegetables in it already, so you don't really need more. However, if you want it, a salad or rice goes nicely with this. I've even put rice into the burritos when I've had leftovers or wanted to stretch the meal to more people. Rice in the filling is especially useful for giving it more substance for a vegetarian recipe.
31. Leftovers reheat nicely in the microwave.
32. Hope someone else does the dishes or let them sit for the next day--there is no way you can do both this and the dishes in the same day! But you can do them the day you eat leftovers. ;-)

Questions anyone?