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Meatless Monday: Grilled Bean Burritos

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Here is another easy dinner idea for you Meatless Monday this week- Grilled Bean Burritos! We just love the simple pleasure that is a bean burrito. They use only 3 main ingredients: Refried Beans, cheese and great flour tortillas from Trader Joe’s.  Then you can use your imagination (and any leftovers) and jazz them up.

Trader Joe's Bean Burrito Fixings

Trader Joe's Bean Burrito Fixings

We love to eat them either plain (just beans and cheese) or with additional ingredients such as diced tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, green chilies or even leftover cooked vegetables.

This week, for this Meatless Monday post, we made the easy, bean and cheese version. But then we grilled the finished product for a minute (in a tiny bit of butter) to crisp up the outside and sorta toast the tortilla- YUM!

What you need:

  • Refried beans (Trader Joe’s has pinto or black- use the one you like best)
  • Cheese
  • Flour Tortiallas
  • Optional ingredients: salsa, sour cream, green chilies, green onions
  • Butter for browning (if you want)

How to:

1. Warm the refried beans in a small pan. Slice or grate cheese. Heat a non-stick skillet and warm up the tortillas for a few minutes for easy rolling.

2. Place a warm tortilla on a clean, dry cutting board and spoon some  hot beans in the middle. Top with grated cheese and fold in sides. Finally fold up the bottom and then fold down the top, making a nice little burrito- package.

3. Add small nob of butter to non-stick skillet and when melted, add the burrito- flap side down. Cook for a few minutes until it is golden and toasty then toast up the second side. YUM!!

A Toasty Grilled Burro

A Toasty Grilled Burro

You can serve these grilled burritos with some spicy vegetables, like the Calabacitas, or with some cool, crunchy coleslaw (that is our favorite way)

We hope you enjoyed this Meatless Monday Menu idea. Let us know what you are cooking on Meatless Monday this week. Leave a comment in the box below

Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese

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Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Trader Joe's Feta Cheese

Now that the weather is consistently warm here in Tucson, we are enjoying more salads. So when we had a hankering for a chopped Greek Salad we also had an opportunity to check out the selection of Feta cheeses at Trader Joes. We have tried a couple of other kinds of Feta in other stores, but this Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese is just top of the list.

This 8 oz brick of cheese can be cut up into cubes and marinated in olive oil and oregano and served as an appetizer or as Tapas.

But we prefer to break it apart with our hands, and crumble it into chunks both large and small and use on top of salads. Especially those chopped Greek Salads… YUM!!

What we do is to chop or dice up cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions (small chop!)  and then mix these all up with light, lemony vinaigrette. This can be served up in bowls as-is or on top of a bed of lettuce.

Then just before you serve, sprinkle the top with the Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese crumbles, so they stay on top and make a beautiful contrasting picture against all the red tomatoes and green cucumbers.

If you have not tried this salad before we urge you to get chopping! They are truly refreshing and light and yet full of flavor for a hot summer night.

Do you like Feta Cheese? Have you tried Trader Joe’s Feta Cheese? What did you think? Please take a minute to leave a comment after this post. Even if you just want to say hello we  love to hear from all our readers!

Trader Joe’s Manchego Cheese

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Trader Joe's Manchego Cheese

Trader Joe's Manchego Cheese

Another great product discovered in the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer, May 2010. To view The Fearless Flyer online, go to Traderjoes.com. You will see the information right on the home page.

We actually re- discovered this cheese by flipping through the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer. We both love Tapas, those little bits or snacks typical to a Spanish bar or restaurant. We have enjoyed many different kinds of cheeses that are served for Tapas- and really did not know their names. This cheese is fairly distinctive, as it is dry-firm and has a distinctive dark rind.

So we read about this nutty, sharp tangy cheese from Spain, and thought OK sounds fantastic, right? So we had to laugh when we arrived at Trader Joe’s to discover that we already knew about the cheese, just not by the official name. HA!

So anyway this is a great cheese. It is firm and nutty and kinda crumbles when you cut it into thin slices. It makes a great cheese to go on a cheese tray maybe with a soft, ripe pear and some crackers.

According to the Fearless Flyer, this is a sheep’s milk cheese (hey news to us) and has been make in Spain for hundreds of years- Even mentioned in Don Quixote! (OK, yes I am curious now, and will have to seek out the book to check).

Another source for all things food, The Food Lover’s Companion,   mentions that this cheese melts easily. Then this got me thinking about a fantastic cheese sauce or even a yummy macaroni and cheese- Spanish Style. Hmmmm….  Maybe I will need to switch up some menus this week to sneak in a potato-cheese –thingy… What do you think??

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Easy Recipe Bean Dip

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Easy Recipe Bean Dip

Easy Recipe Bean Dip

Here is a simple recipe that you can quickly make when you need to bring an item to some kind of gathering. OR, we will admit, this is a great item to snack on while you are watching a game or a movie some night… We were planning to bring some food to a meeting on Tuesday and we thought a bean dip would be just the item!  We also thought you might be interested in learning how to make one of these dips from scratch as well.  Are you reading the Food Revolution and looking for easy recipes to cook? Here is a good one!

Not only is Easy Recipe Bean Dip delicious, it is a great recipe for beginners because there are not that many main ingredients. Also, it is not hard to make (heat, stir & chill). Finally, it is flexible- you can make it a day or two before you need to serve it or it can be ready just an hour before hand.

Even better…. This recipe is very flexible and easily modified so  you can easily add more or less of an ingredient to make it “your Special Recipe Bean Dip” that everyone will ask you to bring etc.. They might even want you to Pass It On to them! Nice!!

By the way, all the main ingredients for this recipe you can easily find in your local Trader Joe’s or your favorite grocery store:

Main Ingredients:

  • 1 can  re-fried beans (pinto or black –use what you like)
  • 1 jar salsa (your favorite- we like Trader Joe’s Salsa Authentica)
  • Shredded cheese in a package (we like to use a “Mexican Blend” but Colby or Jack is also good)
  • Taco chips for dipping

Optional Ingredients:

  • Taco seasoning
  • Sliced olives
  • Sour cream
  • Sliced Avocados

Lets Cook!

Heat the refried beans in a pan on the stove.  When warm, stir in some of your favorite salsa. We add about 1/3 of a cup of salsa to the beans. Then add ½ a cup of your shredded cheese to the pan. If you are using the taco seasoning, add about a spoonful of that too.

Stir all this together, until everything is warm and blended.

Heat beans, salsa & cheese

Beans, salsa & cheese

Pour the hot bean mixture into a serving pan (we like to use a glass pie pan) and let cool. At this point you can let it cool in the refrigerator overnight and finish it in the morning.

Easy Bean Dip

Easy Bean Dip

When cool, you can spread a thin layer of sour cream on top, and then sprinkle some of that cheese on top of the sour cream.

Bean Dip

Bean Dip

At this point, you can add olives or avocado to the top of the dip if you are using these items.

Ta-da! That’s it! You are finished … and ready to eat!

Dig into this dip with some taco chips and enjoy.

Have fun with this recipe. The next time you make it, you can tweak it a little and make it your own signature dip….Use hotter salsa, more cheese, less cheese, more taco seasoning, sliced green onions or even jalapenos on top! (eeks!) Use whatever stuff you like.

That is the great part about cooking from scratch; you are able to add your own personal creativity to your recipes.

Enjoy!

Hey drop us a note to tell us what changes you made to this recipe to make it more your own…