Another Crazy Dinner Recipe: Dairy Free Burrito Night

Honest forewarning: This recipe gave me the worst heartburn I have ever had. Everyone at the dinner table ate it, including my seven year old daughter and I was the only one affected by it, so I'm not sure what it was, but I was in some serious pain. That said, here's what you'll need to make some dairy free burritos of your own...

Tortillas ... check the package for allergen concerns, some have milk products in them, (whey, etc.,) and others do not.

Coleslaw Mix... Fresh Express makes a great one, it's simple, cabbage and sliced carrots. You'll use this in lieu of the usual shredded lettuce topper. Why? It was on sale and it has carrots in it, which seems a little healthier than the browned mushy iceberg lettuce my local grocer was trying to pass off.

Potatoes... Yep, that's right! Potatoes are highly versatile and tasty delicious, so why not add them into your burrito?

Garlic... 'Nuff said.

Onions... Also fairly self-explanatory.

Celery... Because it was in the fridge and needs to be eaten.

A couple of pounds or so of hamburger meat... While pulling this out of the package last night I dropped a huge chunk of it on the floor. Since we've a cat and I have no idea how to "rinse" off hamburger it went straight from the floor to the trash. So, I really don't know how much I used exactly, it was less than two pounds though and made more than enough for a family of three to have left-overs for one or two people to have another round of burrito's.

Homemade Pico de Gallo and Guacamole... I live in a highly Latino community so this is easily available from my local deli counter.

One package of dairy-free taco seasoning... Check the pack for allergen warnings just to make sure.

So, now that you've your ingredients, what comes next? In order to cook everything through evenly, you'll probably want to follow these instructions...

First things first, begin by adding some oil, (olive, corn, whatever you like to use,) in a deep skillet or wok. I used the wok for mine, if you don't have one IMUSA makes a fantastic and inexpensive carbon steel wok. Next, rinse and chop your potatoes. Cut them in half and continue cutting them in half until you're in danger of losing a finger. This will make them cook more quickly and easier to distribute throughout the taco meat. Add your potatoes to the oil and cook on low while continuing your prep work. This will ensure that the potatoes do not get brown and sickly looking while you're cutting everything else up.  During the rest of these steps, make sure to come back and stir your potatoes to avoid them sticking to the skillet.

Next, rinse your celery, chop off the ends and make one long slice down the middle of the stalk. Then chop up and down the stalk into small less-than-bite-sized pieces. Add finished pieces to potatoes, for a "like green peppers" taste and texture without the green peppers. (Family members are sensitive to these so I always have omitted green peppers, wondering if there was a good replacement. Celery works great!)  Stir celery and potatoes together, making sure they don't stick.

Next, chop your onions up similarly sized to the celery pieces, you don't want them grated, but relatively uniform smallish sized chunks. Add this to the potato / celery mixture, stir, and pull out a mixing bowl for your taco meat to be prepared in.

Finely chop your garlic and in your mixing bowl add 1 packet of taco seasoning, ground beef, finely chopped garlic and however much water your seasoning packet calls for. Spend a good five minutes or so working the water, mix and finely chopped garlic through.  When your finished the water should be soaked up into the meat which is now laced with garlic pieces and has turned a lovely neon orange or red color which looks unfit to eat.  That's how you know it is ready.

Slowly add chunks of your meat mixture into the skillet, turning and stirring other ingredients into the meat.  Immediately you will see where all that water went to as it comes up the sides, so be careful not to lose your meat or chunks of veggies, your skillet will be very full.

I never really time my cooking, and this has a really easy way to tell if it's done. A. All the water has evaporated, and B. The ground beef is cooked through. You can tell the beef is cooked through because it's brown and crumbly. This will probably happen well before all the water has evaporated, so you're safe to go once the mixture has firmed up and is no longer swimming in water. Continue stirring occasionally while waiting for this to happen and pulling out your condiments / heating your tortillas. After making the meat, I usually just like to heat the tortillas covered in white paper towels for 45 seconds or so in your microwave, but you can also toast them up in a separate skillet.

Pull out guacamole, pico de gallo and cabbage mix, with separate serving spoons for each on the table, place tortillas on a plate with paper towels still covering them so they stay warm and move taco meat mixture to a heat-safe serving dish w/ own spoon so everyone can serve themselves right from the table.  This is a really easy dairy-free dish that the whole family can enjoy, and believe me, with all the flavors going on in this dish you won't even miss the sour cream and shredded cheese...  (Believe me, your waist-line won't either!)