Vegetarian Recipe 1: Black Bean Burritos

Seeing as it is 2 in the morning and will probably be close to 3 once I have this entry "publish ready" to my satisfaction, I am going to attempt to be brief. As has been commented before, I tend to be long winded. And as much as I find that to be one of my many charms, some people find it to be....overdone. I would like to comment that I am very passionate about this subject and rightfully so since I am writing an entire blog about it. If I weren't going to write much then there might as well be no blog. If all I was to do was copy and paste recipes into this here text box, well then I would be criticized for being too unoriginal or boring. Ah the critics. You just can't escape them. Oh well would you look at that, I'm already breaking my "I'm going to attempt to be brief" rule. Ah me.

A little while ago, I guess it would be a few months by now, I considered becoming vegetarian. I wouldn't say that it was for moral purposes so much as it was a gross out factor. After I started cooking more and more things for myself I started dealing with raw meats, something that 4 years ago I was NOT comfortable with doing. I can say that biting my lip and "dealing with it" is my current tactic for cutting and handling raw meat. But I guess that after dealing with it I became gradually aware of WHAT meat WAS. I know that's really stupid because we all know what meat is. But if we don't cook, we don't really have to deal with it in it's....grossest form....right off the animal bone. I started practicing the ritual of offering up a prayer for the animals that have given their lives for this food just to fill a void in me after I realized that I was eating a big, thick slab of animal body. I can safely say that NOW I have given up most red meats. I don't eat ground beef anymore (which is killing me), I don't eat pork...actually come to think of it I don't really eat ANY kind of beef. Oh...something really dumb I did the other day....I stopped buying bacon because it was red meat. I told my dad this while we were in the supermarket. And he said "Since when do you eat real bacon?" And I thought about it and realized that I've been eating turkey bacon my whole life so....it was indeed NOT red meat. Silly silly Katie.

So lately I've been sticking to just poultry. Chicken and turkey. Oh and seafood. I eat fish and shrimp and crab. I could never really give any of that up. I love seafood so much. And for some reason I am still eating two of the cutest animals in my opinion. I think fish and birds are so cute. I know weird right? So I definitely don't think it's a moral thing. Anyway. Since I've cut out red meats I have to supplement my diet with something else so I've been exploring vegetarian recipes. Back when I was on Trail One of this blog I got a request from a vegetarian friend to do more veg recipes. So that is why I implemented "Vegetarian Monday" into my blog.

I'm going to be brief now and just give you the recipe. This was something that I also found on Allrecipes.com but I changed it up A LOT. However, I will post the original recipe here. The Allrecipe's user that this recipe belongs to goes by the name of "jessie". This recipe serves two, so adjust accordingly.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Delicious-Black-Bean-Burritos/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

* 2 (10 inch) flour tortillas
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 small onion, chopped
* 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
* 1 teaspoon minced jalapeno peppers
* 3 ounces cream cheese
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Wrap tortillas in foil and place in oven heated to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through.
2. Heat oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Place onion, bell pepper, garlic and jalapenos in skillet, cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Pour beans into skillet, cook 3 minutes stirring.
3. Cut cream cheese into cubes and add to skillet with salt. Cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir cilantro into mixture.
4. Spoon mixture evenly down center of warmed tortilla and roll tortillas up. Serve

Katie's Edits:

Ok, so I made a few crucial changes to this recipe. I do recommend using a 10 inch tortilla because it helps portion better, but I used a 6 inch. So I made two little ones. I also added corn into the mixture instead of using jalapenos. You can use whatever you want really, it doesn't really matter. I just didn't have any jalapenos on hand. And I also used dried cilantro instead of fresh, I recommend using fresh. It's a much better flavor. The only real health edit I did on this was that I only used 2 ounces of cream cheese to cut fat. Anytime you have a lot of cheese there is going to be a lot of fat. I wanted the mixture to have a lot of flavor with the cream cheese but I also wanted it to be less fattening. It worked out just fine for me. Also, something I do whenever I make ANY kind of burrito, I take my George Foreman grill and I spray a little cooking spray on there. I put the burrito on the grill, seam facing down, and close it for a few seconds in order for it to toast and get a little crispy. This helps the burrito to seal so that all your filling isn't falling out. I made that trick up all by myself! *cue cheesy grin*

That's it guys! As I expected it's 2:55 now, so I really should be getting to sleep. I hope you'll like this first vegetarian recipe!

Eat Pray Love,

The Hungry Hungry Health Nut

PS: How'd I do for time?