I made something the other day which didn't turn out so well. I'm not even going to post exactly what I did for fear that you might try to copy me. What I will do is explain to you how to make what I should have made in the first place.
Alex once in a while eats burritos for dinner at school. The homemade kind, where he brings in pieces and puts them together and eats them. They usually look pretty good. How hard could that be to replicate? I know about food, and how to use fire to make it better. I figured I would just throw some things in a pan and end up with burritos.
False.
I ended up with something that is very nutritious but almost completely without taste. I'll run you through it step by step.
Rice is rice, I figured. Well, strictly speaking that's true but it's also completely unhelpful. I like the rice at Chipotle. I think what they do is just take their plain old rice, a sploosh of lime juice, some butter, and some minced cilantro then mix it all together. Probably a non trivial amount of salt too.
As far as beans, I really let my laziness mess me up here. I had some leftover beans from a chili I made a while back. I figured that beans are beans. I threw them into some water, boiled them until really soft, then took a potato masher to them (careful, the amount of water present when you start mashing determines how wet the beans will be). I has some onion, garlic, and jalapeño in there too.
Not good. First of all, I forgot salt. Second, I think that the beans were mostly black eyed peas, which do not belong in burritos. Pinto beans would be the correct choice. And beans are really bland. I used a whole jalapeño and a clove of garlic for about a cup of beans (reconstituted) and could not taste it. They really want to be hammered with flavor.
I had one link of andouille sausage left from a previous recipe so I cut it up small and threw it into a pan with some chicken and potatoes. I threw in another jalapeño as well, with half an onion and another two cloves of garlic. Then I added some salt and a bunch of black pepper. Keep in mind that this ended up being probably four to six servings. There was a bit of flavor here, but not a ton.
But I think that's ok. Chicken doesn't really taste like anything. It seems fine for the chicken to rely on the rest of the burrito for flavor.
You'll also see some tomatoes on the plate. Goodness gracious, these saved the whole meal. They were the most exciting part of the whole burrito. In my next entry I'll talk about homemade salsa, which is really what you'll want to use here. It would have really pulled the burrito together.
Alright, that's probably enough about burritos that don't taste like anything. Now for something a little more exciting.
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Rather than make the cake from scratch as last time, I used a boxed mix. There was an appreciable difference, but hey, it's still a cake covered with sugar, butter, and pineapple. I also swapped out the pineapple rings (which are more decorative, and appropriate for parties) for the more practical crushed pineapple. It has to be well drained in order for it to not make the cake soggy.
Conveniently, a can of crushed pineapple, well drained, will provide almost exactly 1.25 cups of juice. That's the same as the amount of water required to make a large boxed cake. It adds a little something extra to the batter. I've also heard that using the juice from the salad cherries is tasty, but I have not tried that yet.
I intended to make it all into cupcakes, but with only one pan it would have been three batches. So I made a dozen pineapple upside down cupcakes and the rest became a happy cake. The cupcakes were better, but also notably more work.
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