Burritos with re-fried beans

My kids love burritos, but only if they can have guacamole with them. In San Francisco it was easy enough. Just trot down the road to any old Mexican restaurant and buy some. Things are not as simple here in Germany. Yes we do have Mexican restaurants but we have not yet been able to find a good one. We have tried. The best one is run by a Sri Lankan and the food tastes like you would expect Mexican food in Sri Lanka to taste like!

Of course you could just eat it without the wrap!

So there is no choice but to make everything from scratch. At least I have found places to buy the tortillas because making them is a pain in the .... Salsa and guacamole taste really bad here in DE, so we have to make that from scratch. As a result we only make this when the tomatoes are red and ripe and the avocados are on sale.

Here is what you need to put together a burrito:

• Tortilla wraps
• Re-fried beans
• Guacamole
• Salsa
• Sour cream
• Grated cheddar cheese

Optional

• Mexican rice
• Grated iceberg salad

And of course tortilla chips on the side. 

Refried beans sprinkled with cheese

Chunky salsa

Vegetable skewers

These skewers are another product of trying to use up the leftover vegetables in the fridge. They turned out really well and are perfect for a BBQ. But even if the weather is freezing you can fix them in an oven.

Ingredients:

1	Sweet potato, large
4	Potato, medium
2-3	Beetroots, boiled
500g	Broccoli
	Olive oil
1 tsp.	Garlic paste
1/4 tsp.	Roasted curry powder

1/4 tsp.	Chili flakes
	Salt and pepper
20	Bamboo skewers

Method:

Fill a basin with cold water and allow your skewers to soak. This will prevent them from catching fire when you put them on the grill or in the oven. 

Put the fan oven on at 200 C (220C convection oven).

Peel the potatoes and cut into 2 cm dice. I made 20 such cubes. Each of the vegetables is going to have a different taste, thus you'll need two roasting dishes. One for the regular potato and one for the sweet one. You can't really just grill the potatoes on the skewers, that would take forever and the other vegetables would be over cooked. So I pre-baked them. I did this in the oven. The sweet potato I tossed in olive oil (less than 1 tablespoon), salt and the chilli flakes. The regular potato I tossed in olive oil, garlic paste (make it fresh) and salt. Put the potatoes in a baking dish and bake until just tender. You should be able to get a fork about halfway through. If you want to do this on a BBQ just wrap the cut and marinaded potatoes in foil and grill them.

If you use fresh beetroot you'll have to boil them until they are barely cooked. If you live in Germany you can buy precooked ones in the store. This will save you a lot of time, however, the quality of the beets may note be great. I always buy organic ones from Lidl. I've tried other ones but they don't taste good. 

Cut your beet into 2 cm dice, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and roasted curry powder.

Wash your broccoli and cut into 20 pieces. Again drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

Once all the vegetables are ready skewer them and grill them for about 5 minutes. After this time some of the surfaces will start to burn giving it a nice "grilled" look. Then turn off the grill and put on the oven and leave for another 5 minutes or so. Just enough so that the broccoli is tender.

We found the broccoli a bit dry. That would have not been an issue if I hadn't forgotten to make a the dipping sauce! You can find the recipe here. Another nice accompaniment would be sauce hollandaise. 

Coconut Mango Tart

 This is still a draft of the recipe. Once I get another can of mango pulp I'll try it again and post the exact amounts.

The tart has 4 layers. A biscuit crumb layer at the bottom, then a cake layer, a coconut cream layer and finally a mango cream layer at the top. 

Preparation time: depends!; made 6

Ingredients:

Biscuit layer:
	Biscuits
	Butter/margarine
Cake layer:
	Sponge or white cake
Coconut layer:
250 ml	Coconut cream
	Pinch of salt
2 tbsp.	Cornstarch
2 oz	Sugar
1	Egg
Mango layer:
250 ml	Unsweetened mango pulp
	Pinch of salt
2 tbsp.	Cornstarch
2 oz	Sugar
1	Egg
1oz	Butter/margarine

Method:

Crush the biscuits (about 200g?) and add some melted butter (or margarine if you need it to be dairy free) (about 2 tbsp?). Stir well to combine and press into the bottom of the dish.

These are some Santa cookies leftover from Christmas

Take a pre-baked sheet cake. It can be any kind. I used some left over cake from my daughters birthday. You can use sponge cake or any butter cake. It should not be very thick. About 1 cm should do. Cut it to shape and place it on top of the biscuit base. If you have some left over cake "crumbs" you could mix them with a bit of buttercream and press them on top of the biscuit base.

Here you can see that the biscuit layer is very thin approx. 0.5 cm and the cake is about 1 cm. The "pudding" layers are also about 1 cm. Notice that the coconut layer is thinner in the middle than on the sides. This is because the cake layer was not flat

Make the coconut pudding. This is just a pastry cream substituting the milk with coconut milk and leaving out the butter. Coconut milk is very fatty. You don't need any more fat. If you don't have coconut cream just use any type of coconut milk. Just be aware that you may have to add more cornstarch to make the pudding thick enough. In a small saucepan bring the coconut milk/cream and the salt to just under a boil. While it's heating whisk together the cornstarch and the sugar. Add the egg to the mix and whisk until smooth. Then take 1/3 of the hot milk and add it to the egg mixture whisking continuously. Once well combined pour the egg mixture back into the hot coconut milk and whisk. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking all the time. Once it thickens remove from the heat and allow to cool. Pour the coconut pudding on top of the cake while it is still warm and allow it to cool.

While it is cooling make the mango pudding. The process is the same as above just substitute mango pulp for the coconut. If your mango pulp is sweetened omit the sugar from the recipe. Add the butter (or margarine for a dairy free variety) once you remove the pan from the heat. Add a tablespoon at a time and whisk each time until well combined. 

Pour the mango pudding on top of the coconut pudding. Cover with cling wrap and allow to set. Decorate with fruit and some mango pulp and serve.