Hey John,

Sometimes improvements aren't improvements!

So tell us how you make your burritos. I'm always interested in finding out how other people do things.

Petro

> So tell us how you make your burritos. I'm always interested in finding out how other people do things.

Petro,

I can just feel the people here rolling their eyes and saying "don't get him started" LOL.

During the last few days I've smoked a 6 lb pork roast, 3 lb chicken, a bunch of green peppers etc to use as burrito ingredients. Scrambled 2 doz eggs and cooked a couple lbs Jimmy Dean yesterday for breakfast burritos. Nothing has been rolled yet and additives yet to be decided on.

Here's one:

1 lb large cooked shrimp marinated with 1/2 jar Heinz Zesty Cocktail Sauce,
2 tbs Marv's horseradish & 3 tbs lime juice for 24 hours in fridge
2 cans Progresso clam chowder
1/2 lg yellow onion chopped, salted & sweated in butter
1 stalk celery fine chopped (abt 1/3 cup packed)
2 cups Mex 4 Cheese
1/2 cup chopped pickled C. pubs
2 cups Pepperidge Farms Cubed Herb Seasoned Stuffing
1 cup frozen Green Giant xtra sweet nibletts corn
1 more cup cheese

Heat the chowder just enough that the 2 cups shredded cheese melts when stirred in

Remove from heat

Stir in the translucent onion with butter

Stir in the chopped celery

Stir in 1 cup still frozen niblets corn

Stir in the 1/2 cup chopped pickled peppers

Stir in the stuffing mix

Let sit in fridge for an hour or so

If the constancy is too thin for rolling then add more
stuffing or instant mashed potato flakes

Place a sheet of Saran Wrap over a large plate
Put tortilla shell on top of wrap & microwave for 20 seconds

Dribble a trail of shredded cheese onto the tortilla

Spoon on some of the chowder mixture

Position the marinated shrimp and spoon a little of the marinade on top

Roll the sucker up and then roll/wrap in the Saran Wrap.

Freeze

When completely frozen then vacuum package in seal-a-meal bags.

Notes: I sometimes like to keep flavors as separate as possible and that's why the corn and
celery aren't cooked in the clam chowder. Same with the chopped pickled hot
peppers. I'm thinking of trying brick cheese next time and just place a layer on
the tortilla shell and spoon everything else on top. My burritos are large and weigh aprox 2/3 lb ea.

I nuke each frozen burrito for two min & then remove the Saran Wrap, slit the burrito open lengthwise top, add additional ho-made cheese sauce and
nuke for an additional 1-2 min. Most of the burritos that I make now are rather mild so non-chileheads can eat them too. It's the added cheese sauce that now contains the hot peppers and heat scale runs from mild to wild.

Here's the bird I just recently smoked:

Frozen Ore Ida Potatoes O'Brian, Green Giant Xtra Sweet Niblets corn, various shredded, cubed and/or Mex crumbling cheeses, chopped onions, pickled garlic, shredded carrots, chopped cabbage etc, etc, are all often used in my concoctions.

JohnT

I didn't mine the 'slide and cut', as many times I have been gouged by that serrated edge that sticks out off the corners of the boxes. I never had problems with it, or the roll end sliding back inside. The slider would even go over a crinkled end without any problems. For freezer seperation of smaller items, I use the waxed paper pieces that you see in sub and and deli places. You can buy a box of 500 or 1000 of these precut rectangles and they work very well to keep most frozen items seperated. I do place these wrapped items in a Food Saver bag however, as they keep much longer. I found them in places like Costco and BJ's, and also use the square ones for seperating burger and sausage patties.

Love my BIG box of wrap from Costco or restaurant supply places. Sits on top of the fridge and I just reach up, pull down the amount I need and tear it off.

It only took me 3 boxes of SR to figger out how that slide thingie was supposed to work. I will be glad to return to the sharkstooth edge. I imagine one could save the slide boxes and just put the roll in.

My wife is studying biochemistry and recently attended a lecture on heating things in microwave ovens using plastic containers. There are plastic containers and then there are other plastic containers, some of which undergo all kinds of chemical changes when being zapped, letting off stuff that I can't begin to pronounce, but generally are not considered all that good for you. Anywho, she came home and threw out most of the plastic stuff and left the glass stuff.

David,

My eyes were opened up about plastics recently too when visiting Jim Campbell's home at a recent hot pepper get-together in Indiana. He is the owner of the Mild To Wild Pepper & Herb company. Asked him why he didn't use those nifty pointy top plastic condiment dispensers in his manufacturing. (My current fav hot sauce comes in same. Snip top off and ready to use) Anyways, I'm going to everything glass too.

I've been buying bottled water for cooking and drinking for some time now and even the good brands get a funky taste after being stored for a few weeks.

Thanks for the great advice! Oddly enough, just yesterday I ordered some condiment pumps that screw on to various size jars to use with my ho-made hot cheese/salsa sauces that I use on burritos. At the moment I have 4 diff sauces in those pointy plastic dispensers. It didn't escape my notice that Jim was the only one not to squeeze some of my sauce onto the burritos.

jt

Fats and sugars in the microwave will melt these plastics even faster than just water. The plastics that do melt or emit fumes are supposed to be safe if the box says 'microwavable'. Not all plastics can do that, especially those cheap throw aways you get with Cool Whip and at deli's. Face it, plastics are a fact of life now and without some, we wouldn't be here. On the other hand, most anything heated to extremes can be hazardous. I recall a local plastics company having a serious fire. The whole wharehouse went up and every plastic was melted together in a huge mass. The bilding was destroyed and the plastic had to be chipped away using jackhammers. To this day, its still there and concrete was poured over it for another building.

John, thanks for bring this up. Thought I was the only one who thought the guy who invented that slide & not cut bar needed to be taken out behind the barn. Fey!

>letting off stuff that I can't begin to pronounce,David, nobody can pronounce those names. When I was editing Package Engineering magazine we just lumped it all together as "ethylmethylbadsh*t. Seemed to sum it up nicely.

Gee, maybe thats why my kidneys are failing. Having to smell all that Methylethylketone, methylisobutylketone, trichloroethyline, methanol, acetone, trychlorodyflormethane, and many more.. If the asbestos hasn't killed me yet and the radioactivity I used (solids, liquids and gases, and LOTS of x-rays) hasn't caused cancer, than its the solvents that have gotten to me. 16 years in the same company (electronics) must have been what all these health conditions have come from, but how can I prove it for a company that has been gobbled up by another company, and all these things are still used today, or have been substituted for others that can still be considered dangerous...?

ksrogers can say 'em!! Or at least type 'em!
I don't know what you're reading those from, but get it out of the house immediately! Sounds dangerous.

Deanna

These things were used in the cleaning processes in the electronics field. As you must know, its a vast area, and my jobs were many. This is probably how I lost my sense of smell too. I don't keep these chemicals here, and about the strongest I have here is paint thinner and brush cleaner. They do get used in a well ventilated area, but sometimes you have no choice.

I second that. I gave them a call and told them that I was going to buy the cheap store brand instead. It was more trouble that it was worth.(Not to mention a big waste of plastic). Pat

I was curious about the title of this thread so read through it. Being a rabid environmentalist and very thrifty to boot, I haven't bought plastic wrap for at least 15 years. Do without it just fine. When I need a plastic wrap for something I use a saved bag that something like bread, bagels, vegies, etc. came in. I do sometimes buy vacuum food sealer bags, but I also seal things up to freeze in empty cereal and chip bags. They don't keep as well but for some items, like bananas for fruit smoothies, it doesn't matter at all.

I don't eat much cereal, but my brother-in-law saves his Cheerios bags for us. Those are handy for many things and are sort of like waxed paper. I use cloth shopping bags, but some friends save their plastic shopping bags for us, and I just wrapped a cake up in one of those. I also use them for trash bags. I find that I save a lot of money substituting free things for stuff other people buy. I also save aluminum foil, so I guess that puts me in the eccentric category already. :-)

The roasted pork and chicken and the burritos in general sound fabulous. My other comment related to thriftiness is that John spends an awful lot of money on his burritos! Precut potatoes, packaged stuffing mix, all name brand items. I guess if you're working you need to save time somewhere. I go the other route, don't work and substitute time for money. I challenge all you Saran Wrap lovers to try to use less of it! Did you hear about the people who are trying to go a whole year without buying anything besides food or heating fuel? Interesting idea.

Marcia

P.S. I have also read and heard that microwaving food in plastic wrap is very bad, so would advise you to sidestep that in the heating of your delicious sounding burritos. You could put it in a glass container with a cover and nuke it instead maybe?

Hey John... got any more of those burrito recipes?

There's an excellent summary of the safety of plastics and which ones are better to use at: http://www.thegreenguide.com/reports/product.mhtml?id=44&sec=3

It's important to look into these things, as some plastics are endocrine disrupters.

I gotta go with Ken on this issue - I loved the slider bar!
No lost end, and no wad of plastic when I cut it.

Yup, and I am on roll #5 now, and even save the old plastic roll holders with slide cutters just in case.

Does Saran Wrap come in larger sizes? I need 14 x 14 inch minimum squares to use for dehydrating runny stuff on top of my fruit leather trays. Or is there something else I could use in place of the wrap? It must be non-stick. Tinfoil didn't work as well as had hoped.

jt

breasley.. I must have posted at least 50 different burrito recipes on various forums and lists over the last 5 years or so. No way to find them all though.

Here is one on a "spud" thread: Please scroll to reply of Jan 27th......

jt

There is the 'release' type aluminium foil, which has a no stick coating on it. Love it for lining the small pan in the toaster oven. There is also a plastic wrap sold by Sams, BJ's and Costco and is 18 inches wide. I have a roll here over 15 years, as it has a 1000 feet. I think its the biggest they make in food grade.

BTW, the "Saran Wrap' product doesn't have the sliding plastic cutter, its on the Reynolds plastic wrap. Saran Wrap quality has been going down, due to the fact they make it thinner now.

Ken writes: > Saran Wrap quality has been going down, due to the fact they make it thinner now.

And very noticeable I might add. It all too often tears in little pieces when I try to peel my dehydrated stuff from it.

I will go to Sam's in the morning and try to find that 18" stuff. The 'release' type foil sounds great too. I don't remember seeing any at WallyWorld when I was in that section looking for similar this morning. If is a wide foil would be just perfect. Will look in the morning too.

Thanks, you are the best!!

jt

Reynolds makes the regular sized as a 'Release' foil, and I believe its now made in the wider size too. Wally may not have it, but its out there.

Ken,

That 18" x 1000' plastic wrap... is it a 'cling' wrap?

Too nice a day here to waste on shopping, so will go some other day. Will be making breakfast burritos on the deck in just a few short minutes. Grinding some just dehydrated red ripe Mexican jalapes at the moment. A chile-head friend in Texas sends me some most every year. They are fantastic!! Incredibly sweet and hot.

jt

Found it at Sam's. 18" x 3000' food service cling film. $14.38

Unless you use a lot, it should last for years..

John, you are always making burritos! When do you eat them? :-)

Half kidding, half serious...I put stuff up like an ant and sometimes find pretty old stuff in the freezer. It's like there's some secret sweet spot of time when it's long enough to be worth freezing it & stretch out the usage time of the food, but short enough that it still tastes good.

Melissa

Melissa,

I really do like burritos. They are the perfect meal for someone that doesn't like regular cooking much and not much good at it either. My kids always loved my one pan meals & am rather good at grilling (a guy thing) and smoking, but otherwise am pretty bad. Been living by myself for over a decade now and large burritos are perfect for a person that only eats one meal per day. Much more healthy than the stuff I used to cook for myself and especially the frozen meals that I used to buy.

A chile-head friend of mine in Maine recently Amazoned me a brand of tortilla wraps that I have never tried before. Tumaro's. Most excellent! Very large and extremely resistant to tearing when rolling. He and his wife are health nuts so was fat free & I would have gone for the regular. Don't have a cholesterol problem here. Mission brand is what I usually use.

More than anyone ever wanted to know. LOL

jt

I like the Mission brand, as well as the Tyson brand but even make my own. I choose the biggest diameter ones Simple to make as a dough, and I even add a bit of ground up corn meal to it. The corn meal is put in a small food processor and pulsed/whizzed a minute, then is added to the flour and water dough. To help the skins to stay most and soft, adding some corn oil to the dough is a good idea too. To quickly heat and soften, I put a single round on a preheated non stick skillet. It sits on there only about 15 to 20 seconds and then gets flipped. After that, I fill, roll and thats it. Mine are filled with veggies, and meat, of all kinds, including salsa, onions, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, ground beef, pork, poultry, and of course a nice cheese, usually a Montery Jack type, or a well aged cheddar.