Burrito Thursday!

We attempted to replicate Qdoba burritos last night with pretty yummy success. We are going to try and increase our vegetarian dinner options for a couple reasons. Meat is expensive. And we hear you shouldn't have too much of it. I think all of us could eat steak every single day, but if we keep coming up with these delicious vegetarian meals, we won't miss steak (much)!

First though: healthy snack alert! Much like in olden times (or...you know, childhood), we had ants on a log. Big hit with the kiddos, super awesome snack to eat while you are slaving over a hot stove waiting for your rice to cook. In case you've been living under a rock, or didn't have a childhood, ants on a log is celery, peanut butter (all natural! TIP: get the kind that doesn't require refrigeration - cold peanut butter is hard to spread), and raisins. In case you think natural peanut butter (that would be peanut butter that has only one ingredient - peanuts - or maybe peanuts and salt) is going to be gross, think again. It is yummy! Have you looked at the ingredients on a normal jar of peanut butter? Check it out. That's too many ingredients for what should be a simple, healthy food.

So, we tried a new ingredient with the burritos. Black rice, also called forbidden rice. Nathan found it at whole foods in the bulk section. It takes longer to cook than the good old-fashioned instant white rice (about thirty minutes). But it tasted great and was fantastic in the burritos. We also had black beans (from a can! we are going to start trying dried beans instead of canned, but you know, baby steps), corn, colby jack cheese, flour tortillas (we actually had whole wheat tortillas, but we didn't use them for some reason - at some point I want to try and make our own), tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and onions.

These burritos were delicious! 1 cup of rice, almost two cans of beans, half a bag of corn, and part of one tomato was enough to feed six people, and have some for leftovers. The kids devoured all of the separate parts, including the rice.

Overall, dinner was a success. BUT, we had one more success for Thursday.... we made two loaves of whole wheat bread! From scratch! And it tastes great!

How pretty is that dough? This is the recipe we used. She has a lot of good tips for using whole wheat flour. Our first round of whole wheat bread, from a different recipe, did not work out at all. We learned the reason - lack of gluten! Eventually we will try some flours that are gluten free. We are lucky that none of us have any food allergies, but I have lots of friends who have various intolerances, particularly to gluten. I like to be able to have food that is allergy friendly for getting together with friends!