Okay, here is the promised recipe.

To give you an initial general overview of Veggie Burritos My Way, the recipe is 1 part cooked brown rice, 1 part cooked pinto beans, and 1 part sauteed mixed vegetables.

The Beans

You can used canned, rinsed pinto beans if you want to for this. I like the taste of freshly cooked better. To cook them fresh, soak the dry beans for 6 hours or overnight. Then drain and rinse them. Put the beans into a pot, cover them with plenty of water (don’t worry, you can’t use too much water), toss in a bay leaf or two and some salt and bring to a low boil and cook them until they are nice and tender, about 2 hours, maybe a little longer. When they are done, drain them and rinse them again. Don’t under-cook your beans or you may experience unpleasant after-effects. Rinsing them also helps prevent problem after-effects. (I used 3 cups of dry beans, because I wanted to make and freeze plenty of burritos.) Put the beans back into the pot, add about 2 cups of water and smash them a little with a potato masher.

The Brown Rice

For the brown rice, first toast the dry rice in a pan with 2 Tbsp. coconut oil (or whatever oil you have). You will know it’s done when a few grains of rice pop and it has a toasty look to it. It goes from toasty to burnt fast so pay attention to it during this step. I cook my brown rice in a rice cooker on the brown rice setting (surprise!) using the usual ratio of water for cooking brown rice. For burritos, I like to add to the rice some “Organic No-Salt Seasoning” from Costco. Mrs. Dash would work too, but it has more black pepper than I like in it. I also add salt. Cooking the rice takes about 2 hours. (For my ton of burrito filling, I used 3 cups of dry rice.)

For the Vegetables

Here are the veggie ingredients I used (be flexible – if you don’t have something or don’t like something, substitute or leave it out):

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cups baby portabella mushrooms chopped
• 1 zuchinni chopped
• 2 carrots grated
• 2 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 2 Tbsp. dried basil
• 2 Tbsp. dried parsley
• 1 Tbsp. Southwest Sizzle seasoning (I buy it at the Sara Lee bread store) You could use 1/2 Tbsp chili powder instead. (Really I use about twice as much of the spicy stuff, but most people aren’t used to that level of heat.)

Saute all the veggies in some coconut (or other) oil until they are nice and roasty.

Now that you have the three parts of your recipe ready, just mix them all together. Place 1 Tbsp. of grated cheese in the center of a whole wheat tortilla, and 1/2 cup of the bean/veggie/rice mix, fold the ends over the filling and roll up the tortilla. Tadaaa! Just like store-bought, only better.

I freeze each burrito in individual sandwich bags which can be placed into gallon-sized freezer bags. My experience with reheating in the microwave says one burrito requires 2 – 2 1/2 minutes, stopping and flipping it over a couple of times for more even cooking.

This recipe sounds more complicated than it actually is in practice. Mostly it’s just a matter of planning ahead. Enjoy!

winner-winner, veggie dinner 🙂