Crispy Crunchy Beef and Bean Burritos

It’s amazing what a difference a short stay in the oven can make.  Feed your family regular beef and bean burritos and you’ll get, “Meh.”  But make the burritos crispy on the outside and, “OMG these are good!  Can I have another?”  You’ll definitely want to add this to your easy dinner repertoire.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• ½ lb. ground beef
• ½ onion, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1 can (16 oz.) refried beans
• ¼ cup taco sauce
• 1 cup grated cheese
• Tortillas
• Canola oil 

In a pan over medium heat, combine the beef, onion, salt, pepper, and chili powder.  I actually substituted dried minced onion for the fresh because I was feeling lazy. Either will work fine. 

When the meat is chopped up and mixed with the spices and onion, put a lid on for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice.  While it’s cooking, put the beans into a bowl and add the taco sauce.  I like La Victoria, but use whatever brand and heat level is your favorite. 

Stir those together. 

After 10 minutes, return to the meat.  Make sure it’s in fairly small pieces. 

Add the beef to the bean mixture. 

Stir that in.  (I know, this isn’t the most photogenic food ever.)

Add the cheese.

Stir. 

And now for the fun part.  Wait, first you need to preheat your oven to 375°.  Then, line a sheet pan with parchment and lay out a tortilla.  Mine were quite pliable, but if you’re worried yours might crack, just heat them for a few seconds in the microwave. 

Spoon on a bit of the meat/bean mixture.  It depends on the size of your tortillas, but I used probably about ⅓ cup in each one.  Don’t get too carried away or you’ll have oozing burritos before you’re done. 

Wrap the edge around and fold it under itself. 

Fold in the ends.

Then just roll it over and gently flatten.  Voilá! Err… ¡Ahí está! Beautifully rolled burrito.

This is easily enough filling for 8 burritos.  I only made 4 and saved the rest of the filling to use in a day or two.  This is also a small sheet pan, so you should be able to fill 8 burritos and fit them all on one regular sized sheet pan. 

Now here's the secret for making them crispy.  Drizzle on a tiny bit of canola oil.  Think ¼ teaspoon or less per burrito. 

Rub it around with your fingers to cover the entire surface of the burrito.  I prefer using my fingers over a pastry brush for this because it’s easier to get a very light coating, which is what we’re shooting for. 

See?  Nice and shiny, but just barely coated. 

Bake at 375° for 20 minutes.  They’ll be just starting to brown on top. 

Flip them over. 

Then back into the oven for another 10 minutes.  They should be nice and brown now. 

Crispy burrito goodness.  I’m pretty sure ovens are magic. 

What easy weeknight meal would you like to see have a facelift? 

Magic Cookie Bars

I grew up calling these Magic Cookie Bars.  But I’ve also seen them called 7 Layer Bars, as well as a few other things, which aren’t coming to mind just now.  Personally, I think the name Magic Cookie Bars is what best describes them, because they are just that.  Basically, you spread a few basic ingredients in a pan, drizzle on some sweetened condensed milk, pop the whole thing into the oven for a bit, and you end up with this amazing, chocolately, chewy, cookie bar goodness. 

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 1 Pkg graham crackers
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• ½ cup each of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chopped pecans, broken pretzels
• ¾ cup shredded, sweetened coconut
• ½ can sweetened condensed milk (about ⅔ cup) 

First, melt your butter and set it aside.  Then, for the crust, the graham crackers need to be crushed.  I have decided the easiest way to do this is to slide them into a ziplock bag.

Then just seal it up and go over them with a rolling pin.  See?  Perfect crumbs.   

The advantage to doing it this way is that you have no dishes to clean.  Just pour the melted butter right into the bag. 

Shake the crumbs until you have something that looks like wet sand. 

Dump that into a parchment lined 8x8 pan.

Spread it to the edges and press it with something flat, or even just your hand.  Place that into the fridge for at least 30 minutes.  Longer is fine.  During that time, preheat your oven to 350°

When you’re ready, pull out the crust and sprinkle on both chocolate chips, pecans, and pretzels.  Just a quick tip.  To get small pieces of pretzels, you’ll want to use the bag and rolling pin trick again.  I tried just chopping mine and ended up with some of them flying across the kitchen.  Not my most brilliant moment. 

On top, goes the coconut.

Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top. 

I only put pecans in half of mine because Hubby is allergic to them, so I marked that half with a pecan on top.  As you can see, they don’t look like anything special.  In fact, not really even that appetizing, but just you wait. 

Here comes the magic part.  Pop them into the oven for 35 minutes and you have gone from “Meh” to “Holy crap those look good!”

Allow them to cool completely before cutting them if you can.  It won’t be easy, because they smell every bit as delicious as they look.