Black Bean Burrito Bake

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I hope your Thanksgivings were just like mine: full with family, friends, laughter, stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey, and pie.  We had 32 people at Thanksgiving dinner and 11 different types of pie at Thanksgiving... plus some cookies, dessert breads, and cakes.  I might have tried 4 different kinds of pie.  Whatever, that's showing restraint -- I had to pass on 7 pies!!!

While I was away for Thanksgiving (up in New England) I managed to get in 2 work outs - one was calisthenics and strength exercises inside, and one was a three mile run!  We got 8-10 inches of snow on Wednesday, but that didn't stop me from running off some pie on Friday morning.  The snow wasn't too bad to run in, but look at the elevation for part of the run I did:

That hill is not a joke.  I had successfully avoided ever running up this entire hill before, but family member J talked me into tackling this beast for the first time.  It was rough, but I can't wait to get back up there and tackle that hill again - maybe without on the ground?


Anyway, if you recall, I had the goal of trying four new recipes this month.  Before we left for Thanksgiving, I managed to complete RECIPE #4!

Today's recipe was also from Cooking Light, and was another nice vegetarian meal - Black Bean Burrito Bake.  I am kinda digging the "no meat at lunch" thing I've been doing lately (not totally on purpose, but it has happened that way).  Don't get me wrong - I have no intention of giving up meat, but I kind of feel healthier if I don't eat lots of meet all of the time.

So, I'll go through this step by step, but I will say that I made one really big mistake while preparing this meal, and it made it infinitely harder to enjoy.  Chipotle Chili Peppers are spciy, yes, but not that spicy.  They get a 2,500-8000 on the Scoville Scale, which is like Tobasco sauce.  I like Tobasco sauce, and I like spicy food.  So I was not at all worried about the spice from the chipotle chiles called for in this recipe.  I WAS WRONG TO NOT BE WORRIED.  This s*** was SPICY.  I don't understand.  WHY?  It burned.  Burned SO BAD.  I literally had to pick all the peppers out of the burrito in order to keep myself from dying.  So sad.  I don't know if all brands of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are this spicy or not, but here's a tip:
0.  Don't buy this kind of chopped chipotle peppers unless you like dying.

Anyway, now that I've done my best to warn you about that stuff (my only friend of Mexican descent, when I showed her what I used, was like "YES, that s*** is spicy," so I must be right), I can move on to the cooking and reviewing of the recipe.

1.  Mix chilis and sour cream, let stand for ten minutes... I had to use WAY more sour cream than the recipe called for in order to cool this down.

2.  Mix black beans, corn, and sauce.  Mmm black beans and corn!  Okay, so this is obviously not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but just roll with it!

3.  Put 1/4th of the mixture into each tortilla... again, it might not look pretty but I promise (once you remove some of the peppers) it is tasty!

4.  Wrap and place in a baking dish seam side down... this pyrex baking dish from the grocery store was possibly the best investment I ever made - I use it every week I think!

5.  Top with salsa and cheese... luckily I had medium salsa to top the burritos, so I didn't have to subject myself to too much extra spice.

6.  Bake

7.  Enjoy - made four lunches worth for me!

Optional: garnish with lime wedges and cilantro sprigs.  Or, if you are me, squeeze on some lime juice over the burrito and sprinkle it with dried cilantro.

So, overall thoughts: This was SO EASY TO MAKE.  Toss things together. Throw in oven.  Done.  I love how little time I had to spend making this!  It was also really filling, which was awesome (for less than 400 calories!).  In the future, I'd probably use adobo sauce with some hot sauce to go in the burrito, and maybe some cooked bell peppers instead of chili peppers?  Or I could just find chili peppers that don't make me feel like I have fireball in my stomach for the next three hours.  (I literally told my spin teacher "Don't be offended if I leave early, I had spicy food for lunch... luckily I did make it through spin!).  In the future, I also might use a more fun salsa (instead of the medium generic store brand) to switch things up.  Otherwise, stick to the recipe as is - it's AWESOME!