I told you a year or so ago that I’ve taken to the practice of stretching my imagination to give a second life to yesterday’s leftovers in today’s breakfast burritos. Today, I want to share a few new ‘recipes’… You’ll no doubt think I’m nuts. But don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it!
Fads come and go, but the so-called experts maintain that breakfast is the most important meal of your day. I agree. I even had a family physician for a while, when I was much younger, who suggested that a slice of leftover ‘all dressed’ Pizza would be a great way to start the day. “It’s got all the food groups, including concentrated protein, veggies and a shot of carbs to get your motor ticking over. It’ll fuel you right through to lunch!”
Okay. I guess he was right, technically. But not for all people nor people of all ages. Especially me, now in advanced middle age with all the curses that brings. When you hit your 50s, you have to start working harder to maintain your accustomed svelte silhouette. That’s because your body slows down, and most of us become less active. If I ate Pizza first thing in the morning now, my stodgy old body would probably store most those nutrients away as fat.
But that doesn’t stop me from experimenting with ‘other meal’ foods at breakfast. And there are some rules, I’ve discovered, that one must follow, to make tasty, nutritionally balanced and structurally stable breakfast burritos.
Case In Point: A Beef Stroganoff Burrito
This morning, for instance, I dove happily into a breakfast burrito which featured leftover Beef Stroganoff. You heard right. And what a treat!
The Stroganoff had to have a thick, not soupy, sauce and not so much sauce that the noodles and beef morsels were swimming. That could cause nasty, messy leakage – especially if you’re accustomed to eating a burrito out of your hands. In fact, any filling component that exudes a lot of moisture when heated is also a no-no.
For rolling-and-tucking success, the fillings should be stacked horizontally across the width of the tortilla, in a strip no wider than the estimated finished diameter of the burrito. Leave a good allowance at each end of the stack for tucking-in the ends.
Unless my leftover dish has lots of veggies in it, I always start with a thin layer of shredded Romaine lettuce. Then, add a layer of shredded Cheddar, Mozzarella or Jack Cheese. Choose the cheese to complement the main filling.
Next comes the main filling. Don’t over-stuff with this key ingredient, or you may find you can’t close the burrito when rolling. I sometimes add sliced mushrooms and/or slivered onions.
Follow the main filling with another layer of cheese and another layer of lettuce. Roll your burrito the usual way, tucking in the end flaps and rolling away from you. Place it seam-down on a microwave-safe plate and zap for about a minute and a half. That should be just long enough to melt the cheese and heat all the other ingredients to proper eating temperature, and not give any moisture-liberating ingredients a chance to ooze too much.
Just to add a ‘restaurant presentation’ touch, I usually cut the finished burrito in half diagonally and arrange the halves artfully on the plate, displaying the fillings. This also makes eating the burrito with your hands somewhat easier. But you can just as easily leave the thing in one piece and enjoy it with a knife and fork.
As you see in the featured photo, at left, you can overlap tortillas (by about a third of their diameter), starting at the right and moving left, to make huge family-sized burritos. Just don’t make them longer than your largest cookie sheet or sheet pan. They’ll have to bake for 8 – 10 minutes in a 400 F oven (rather than microwaved) due to their size, but you can then slice off servings of appropriate sizes for your various diners, big and small…
Yesterday: Leftover Kraft Dinner
Follow the same procedure with the first lettuce and first cheese layers. then spoon out enough cold KD to cover.
Next add a slice (or three) of your fave leftover deli meat, folding it so it doesn’t flap over the sides of the stack footprint.
Depending on the meat, add another layer of complementary cheese and top that with the final layer of lettuce.
Roll, tuck and mic as before.
Last week…
I started with cheese and topped it with a chopped leftover Chef’s Salad. This I turned into a sort of ‘Julienne’ filling, adding strips of leftover chicken breast and deli ham, and topping that with more cheese. Quick, easy and well-balanced, jammed with fresh veggies, yet with that shot of pure carbs the doctor talked about, re.- pizza.
Next week?
I’ve also done breakfast burritos with:
- Leftover Turkey, stuffing and Cranberry Relish – with Mozzarella cheese.
- Leftover Ham and Scalloped Potatoes with leftover grilled asparagus. The cheese sauce in the potatoes did the trick for the salty, umami component.
- Leftover Jambalaya with layers of lettuce and Jack Cheese on the bottom and top of the stack.
- Leftover Hamburger Patties, chopped coarsely and arranged on a bottom later of lettuce and Cheddar Cheese. and topped with chopped burger toppings. Condiments optional; they might impart too much moisture to the creation.
- You can also go Tex-Mex with the Burger Patty burrito, changing out the regular burger toppings in favour of refried beans and a thin application of Salsa (heat level your choice). Change out the Cheddar Cheese in favour of Jack, or Jalapeño Jack. If you have leftover Mexican Rice, add a thin layer of that to the stack!
And that’s just the beginning…
Don’t hold back. Try anything you like for supper in a breakfast burrito the next morning. Just be sure you incorporate a significant amount of veggies (lettuce at the very least) for nutritional balance. And don’t skimp on the cheese; that’s one of the elements that makes it a true burrito!
~ Maggie J.