Our favorite Mexican style meal is a burrito fried in a cast iron skillet and served topped with a mild Taco sauce, chopped green onions, sliced black olives, sliced avocado, chopped tomato, and chopped romaine and spinach greens. Every Monday is Mexican night at our house, and this is what we eat.
Producing it at home involves several steps, which involve much more time than many people will be willing to take. But the outcome is superior in taste, wholesomeness, and cost. And the recipe yields enough burrito filling to feed us many Mondays over. Just store it in the freezer. The basic steps involved include: preparing the pinto beans, brown rice, and meat filling, and assembling the dry seasoning mix. In this post we'll start with the last thing first.
Basic Mexican Dry Seasoning Mix
2 t salt
2 t chili powder
1 t crushed dried red pepper
.5 t dried oregano (or 1 t fresh oregano, chopped, see note)
1 t ground cumin
Mix together thoroughly in a small bowl. The mixture can be stored like any spice in a glass jar if you're not yet ready to proceed. This basic mix will be used to season the full recipe, which will include one pound of dry pinto beans prepared, one cup of dry brown rice prepared, and 1.25 pounds of raw ground turkey prepared. On those occasions when you choose not to include the ground turkey, the seasoning mix can be reduced by up to half to tone down the heat of it.
Note: The cumin and the oregano in this recipe are considered "superspices" by Steven Pratt. To get the full effect in the case of the oregano, however, it is best to use fresh oregano, in which case you'll want to prepare the spice mixture at the time of cooking in order to preserve the volatile oils. Chop the oregano and use 1 teaspoon.
