Wednesday, October 29, 2008

breakfast burritos

This is a recipe Scott and I made earlier this month, and although it needs just one small tweak (in my opinion) I am very pleased with it.
Almost every Saturday from April until October Scott and I went downtown to the Farmers Market. And almost every Saturday we'd share a piece of bannock for breakfast. The mornings that the the bannock table weren't there always bummed us out. One morning when they were absent we were just too hungry to hold off until lunch time, so we walked a couple of blocks over to one of Scotts favorite places downtown, Cowboy Coffee. We were standing in line to order our coffee and tea when Scott spied a little pile of breakfast burritos in the glass pastry case. We ordered one which they warmed in the microwave and then crisped up in the panini press. It was wonderful, with egg, bacon, cheese, onions and some salsa. We gobbled it down and from then on were secretly pleased on Saturday mornings when there was no bannock so we could have a burrito.

But now the market is over, and those burritos aren't free, so we decided to try to make some at home. It was surprisingly easy, and we soon had 10 good sized burritos wrapped up in foil waiting to be eaten.

Here's our ingredient list:

1 1/2 lb potatos, cooked and chopped
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 bell peppers, chopped
salt and pepper
300 g cheddar cheese, grated
12 eggs
10 large flour tortillas
salsa
foil

I had planned to cook the potatos the night before, but forgot so while we were getting the other ingredients ready, I steamed the potatos in the microwave, then cut them into medium chunks. You don't want the chunks too big so they fall out of the wrap while you eat it, but not too small so they don't disappear into the mix.

Chop up the bacon. Heat a large pan over medium high heat and cook until the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon to a paper lined plate. Pour off all but 2 tb of the bacon fat, reserving the rest. Add the onion and peppers to the pan and cook until the start to color and soften. Add the potatos and continue to cook until the peppers are soft and all the ingredients have some nice color to them. If you think the pan needs it, add some of the reserved bacon fat. Stir in the cooked bacon.


Crack your eggs into a bowl. Add 1/3 of the cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Whisk until the eggs are all broken up.


Turn the heat down to medium low and carefully pour the eggs in over the meat and veggies.


Cook slowly, stirring and turning as needed, until the eggs are set; not runny but not hard. Remove from the heat and set aside.

While the eggs are cooking, set out your 10 tortillas on foil, or just on the counter if you are going to store them some other way. When your eggs are done, divide the eggs between the tortillas.


Top the eggs with the remainder of the cheese and some salsa.


Then wrap them up.


I'll mention the one adjustment I will make for next time. My tin of salsa was small, about 200g, and it wasn't really enough. It was ok, but not great. My parents were our only testers on this recipe (I thought taking breakfast burritos to my co-workers was a little weird), and we all thought it was a little skimpy on the salsa. Next time I'll start with maybe 1 1/2 times that and see how it looks. But that's totally a taste thing, and what I think is not enough salsa someone else might think is perfect.


But how did they taste?


FANTASTIC. We loved them. Other then the salsa issue, there is nothing I would change. We ate one that morning after wrapping all those other ones up, and then a couple of days later I tried the coffee shop method and nuked one a little before finishing it off in our counter top grill. It was so, so good.


We tossed the rest in the freezer, and I'm happy to report that they still taste great! I was afraid that freezing might affect the taste or texture, but not at all.

When we went to the last market of the year, the bannock guys weren't there. We headed down to the coffee shop and tried their other flavor of breakfast burrito - Southwestern! Look for a recipe here soon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy Crow! That is alot of burritos. They look super good Sara!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

No idea why when I love potatoes I've not thought to add them into this mix! That will change NOW!
These are great.

Deborah said...

Breakfast burritos were my favorite breakfast before I got pregnant. I'm hoping I'll love them again once the baby comes!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

By not sharint too many of these treats you were able to freeze them and have them for another day:D