Before sending us off into the world, my mom taught my brother and me one of our favorite weeknight dinner recipes — spinach burritos. I always liked this recipe and it was always a hit among my college roommates. Recently, I revisited the recipe and as I always do, took it as merely inspiration. And I realized that the changes to the recipe throughout my life presented an interesting chronology.
This is the tale of my life through Spinach Cumin Burritos…
- Original Mom’s quick weeknight dinner recipe
- Dan’s poor college student adaptation
- Dan’s Spoiled Millennial adaptation
- A return to simple, how fast can I cook baby makes me tired
Original Mom’s Recipe
- 1 pkg Morningstar or Veggie crumbles (or 1 lb ground beef)
- 1 10 oz pkg frozen chopped spinach
- 1 1/4 cup chunky salsa (any favorite)
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons Chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- Shredded cheddar or Mex cheese
- 8 flour tortillas
Nuke frozen spinach 3 minutes while combining salsa and crumbles in medium sauce pan to warm. Squeeze excess water from spinach to add to crumbles and salsa. Add spices, heat through.
Serve on tortillas with cheese. Roll and enjoy.
Dan’s College Recipe
Add rice, frozen veggies, can of tomatoes, and increase seasoning to cover the boring rice. This increases the yield to feed 3 hungry college guys and friends. At the end of ingredients line add, “whatever is on sale.” All items generally from CostCo.
- 1 pkg Morningstar or Veggie crumbles (or 1 lb ground beef),
- 1 10 oz pkg frozen chopped spinach
- 2 cup chunky salsa (any favorite)
- 3 Tablespoons Chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 2 cups of cooked minute rice
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 can of spicy tomatoes
- add Frank’s or Cholula hot sauce
- Frozen Broccoli to taste
- Shredded cheddar or Mex cheese
- 16 flour tortillas
Nuke frozen spinach 3 minutes while combining salsa and crumbles in medium sauce pan to warm. Squeeze excess water from spinach to add to crumbles and salsa. Add spices, heat through.
Serve on tortillas with cheese. Roll and enjoy.
Dan’s Spoiled Millennial Update
This is by far the most delicious of the bunch, but it requires you to check your privilege 😉
Basically, you need to have a productive garden and buy farm fresh ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 pkg organic free range ground beef (Step 3 or above)
- 1 giant harvesting bowl of organic home grown kale from your garden
- 1 shallot
- 1 1/4 cup chunky salsa (any favorite), this is basically the same but of course fresh organic salsa
- 2 Tablespoons Chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- actually 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin, yeah lets go ahead and triple that (3x the cumin kale power combo)
- 2-3 home grown hot peppers, jalapeño recommended
- 2-3 cloves of home grown garlic
- 2-3 carrots, of course home grown preferred but I guess organic will do
- hand full of home grown basil
- hand full of home grown arugula
- lime wedge
- 1/2 lbs of home grown heirloom cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 bag of organic cheddar cheese
Preparation
- pour glass of wine or craft beer to begin
- sauté shallot while prepping
- chop kale (and arugula) in food processor with olive oil
- put chopped kale in a bowl, squeeze in lime, add seasonings, add some of favorite hot sauce
- add carrots to sauté
- prep other veggies
- add veggies to kale mixture (tomatoes, garlic, salsa, other extras)
- add beef and hot peppers, season with Worcestershire sauce
- season sauté with salt and pepper to taste (possibly some extra paprika, crushed red pepper, etc)
- minutes later add kale marinading mixture
- add cheese immediately before turning off stove and stir in
wrap with freshly heated tortillas
Serve to your non-impressed and tired of waiting hungry guests
Dinner? Burritos? Umm, but the baby is crying
A return to simple, how fast can I cook anything… We have a baby on the way… I don’t know if we will garden. Who knows if I can cook anything that isn’t microwavable. I am currently contemplating on moving to compostable plates for the next few years.
Ask Mom to make original recipe and bring it over
or
Adventures of the Miller Mayers 