Mexican Entree

TOASTED RICE-AND-BEAN BURRITO

INGREDIENTS

¼ medium onion
½ red bell pepper
1 avocado
¾ cup rice
1½ cups water
1 15-ounce cans pinto beans with jalapeno peppers
1 7-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 ounces Cotija cheese
¼ cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon onion powder
½ cup grated Four Mexican Cheeses
8 medium flour tortillas
8 teaspoons Parmesan cheese
4 slices Swiss cheese

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Dice onion and bell pepper. Peel avocado, remove pit, and slice the good part into thin slices. Cut each Swiss cheese slice into 3 strips.

Cook the rice according to instructions shown on bag. (Unless, of course the instructions are in a foreign language. In this horrible case, take the appropriate intensive three-minute foreign language course.) If you are fortunate to own a rice maker, follow its instructions. (If you don’t own a rice maker, ask for one for Christmas. Make gentle hints as well for a gun to protect the first gift from increasingly desperate gangs of rice-maker thieves.)

While rice is cooking, drain water from pinto beans and diced tomatoes. Add onion, bell pepper, pinto beans, diced tomatoes, Mexican cheeses, Cotija cheese, sour cream, cumin, and onion powder to large frying pan. Cook on low-to-medium heat. Stir occasionally. (Unless, of course you are a hibernating polar bear, then just chill.)

When rice is ready, add it to frying pan. Stir. Put about 4 tablespoons of frying-pan mixture in lower-center part of tortilla. Fold edges in and roll up from the bottom. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Put burrito on cookie sheet with folded side down. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of burrito.

Put cookie sheet with burritos on it in pre-heated oven. Bake for 10 minutes, or until tortilla or most of the Parmesan cheese is turning golden brown.

Remove cookie sheet from oven and cover the top of each burrito with thin avocado slices. Add a half slice of Swiss cheese on top of each burrito. Bake for 2 minutes or until the Swiss cheese turns brown or begins to melt.

TIDBITS

1) Avocado comes from a Native American word meaning “testicle.” Apparently, they thought avocados looked liked that. My Gosh, these early Americans must really have bulged in their loincloths.

2) Rocky Mountain Oysters are beef testicles. Yuck. Who would eat them? Deliberately?

3) Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company is, not surprisingly, famous for its chocolate.

4) Chocolate has been confirmed to have a slight–-slight means slight, guys-–effect on women. This is why, over the decades, men have given women chocolate when going on dates.

5) And if the woman refuses the chocolate, it wasn’t meant to be and the man has something to eat.

6) But, at least, the man has much higher chance of success with his date if he offers chocolate instead of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.