Five Fold Burrito

Oh yeah baby!

The long awaited Beans and Rice with BBQ Squash was worth every second of the three week delay.

This recipe has five parts, which could easily feel overwhelming if you attempted to do it all in one shot. I chose not to feel that way - and after all, I am the master of how I choose to feel - so I worked on the pieces to this puzzle over the span of a few days.

I will post the various peices in separate posts for ease of readability. This blog post would stretch from here to the Baltic Sea if I included it all in one place. Click on the links below for the items that you should prepare ahead of time.

First item of business - The Slaw - I did this two nights prior.


Second item on the agenda - Butternut Squash - I did this the night before.

Third piece to the prep puzzle - Chicken Marinade - I did this at lunchtime the day of.

If you don't think this is a quick meal, I'll have you know that I started cooking this meal at 3pm. The kids were eating by 3:45pm. All four of us were out the door to soccer practice by 4pm. That's about as quick as they come when cooking from scratch. Once everything got rolling the swiftness of the prep surprised me!

So, whenever you're ready to start cooking this is what you'll do...

Fourth item - Rice - This is the first thing you'll put to heat as you start to pull this meal together.

Put the rice on to cook. However much you think you're family likes to eat. We use two cups of rice for our family of five.

Fifth and final item in the Five Fold Burrito - Pinto Beans - Get these going after the rice is on the stovetop.

Sorry, no pictures for the beans. But don't worry, it's easy. All you have to do is saute half of an onion, one clove of garlic, and 1/4 tsp cumin in 2 TBS vegetable oil. Once soft, pour two cans of pinto beans (drained and rinsed) into the pot, add 1/4 cup water and 1/8 tsp salt. Stir and heat it up. Done.

Now that the rice and beans are cooking on the stovetop it's time to head outside to the grill to lay down the squash and chicken.

Simple.

Flip halfway through, about 8 minutes. Continue grilling until all items are done. Perhaps 5 more minutes. Chicken should no longer be pink in the middle. Squash should be easy to penetrate with a fork.

Cut the chicken and squash into one inch pieces. Layer all items: rice, beans, chicken, squash and slaw. Yummmm. 

You could even put it into a tortilla for the true burrito effect. Gluten-free tortillas are expensive and nasty. We choose to eat ours as a burrito bowl to maximize pleasure in the experience.

Attention all vegetarians: To make this a meatless burrito, you know what to do.