Dinner Spoiler Alert: Burrito Recipe

Okay, in the spirit of sharing recipes, I'm having a burrito tonight.

First thing to do was roast a chicken. Cut it in half, put olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper on both sides, cook skin side up in an oven at 350 F, about an hour.

While that's cooking, make your pico de gallo: Dice a red onion, two or three Roma tomatoes, depending on size, three or four good scallions and 1/4 of a bunch of cilantro, well washed. Add all ingredients together and sprinkle with olive oil infused with fresh garlic--which, as you know if you read this blog, you should always have in the kitchen and on hand. Good fresh garlic, minced by hand, not garlic press and not pre-chopped at the supermarket. Nice stuff, chopped and put into olive oil. Do three or four heads of garlic every three days or so and you will never run out, even though you need it for everything you do other than pancakes or banana bread or basic scrambled eggs--though it adds something to that as well. To the garlic oil, cilantro, tomato, scallions and red onion add enough fresh squeezed lime juice to moisten well, or even cover, maybe the juice of two/three ripe limes. Put in a bit of pink sea salt and cracked black pepper.

When the chicken is done, pull some out and put it in your burrito/wrap. Add jalepenos if you like it hot. Add a couple of slices of fresh avocado or jungle guacamole if you have it. Add good tart beans (black beans, red beans, whatever beans you like). Add pico de gallo, without too much lemon juice. Add no-fat sour cream. Add freshly shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

Fold burrito skin so that it's closed. Put a paper towel around it (doubled over) to keep it from opening. Put a second paper towel around it to keep your hands from melting with the heat.

Place in a 350 F degree oven for 5-6 minutes, until cheese is bubbling.

Eat.

Whole thing comes to 600 calories and will fill you up for a dinner alone.

For a treat, I always steam spinach, then saute it in garlic/olive oil and add that. Just to make sure I've got some leafy green.

So the whole thing takes an hour, if you're starting with fresh chicken. If you're starting with left over cooked chicken, it takes about 15 minutes from start to clean up--and you have time to clean up while it cools off enough for you to eat it.

Which ain't bad for a basically very healthy meal. I mean, you can even skip the chicken, but if you include it you've got maybe 2-3 ounces of skinless chicken, two tablespoons of beans, two tablespoons of no-fat sour cream, , a tablespoon each of fresh tomato, scallion, red onion, cilantro and lime, two thin slices of fresh avocado, three ounces of steamed spinach in olive oil and garlic and two ounces of good cheddar in a 140 calorie piece of bread.

Eating good can be quick. And if you add a side of steamed broccoli or cauliflower or zucchini or yellow squash, well, you've got maybe three servings of veggies at one meal. And that's a good thing. Particularly if at least some of them are organic.

Manga!

PS: And if my friend Morgan, who doesn't eat meat unless he's in the jungle, was here, I'd probably put some hummus in the burrito instead of chicken.

And if my friend Emily (glucose Intolerant) was here, I'd probably use a corn burrito instead of a wheat one.

And if Sky Saxon, former lead singer of the Seeds ("You're Pushin' Too Hard" from a million years ago) who's a fructarian was here, I'd probably substitute organic apples, strawberries, peach slices and tangerine sections for everything and then wrap it in a fruit rollup!

See how easy it is to accommodate people?

Have a good night everyone. I'm having a blast.

P