Leftovers and homemade frozen burritos

One of our family's favorite go-to lunches are frozen burritos. During our unprocessed October, we had to give them up; their ingredient list reads like this:
WATER, WHEAT FLOUR (ENRICHED WITH NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), BEEF, BEANS, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, SUNFLOWER, CANOLA AND/OR CORN OIL), CONTAINS 2% OR LESS TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN (SOY FLOUR, CARAMEL COLOR), ISOLATED PEA PRODUCT, SALT, RICE FLOUR, YEAST, CELLULOSE GUM, GUAR GUM, WHEAT, SODIUM BICARBONATE, WHEAT STARCH, FOOD STARCH, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (SODIUM METABISULFITE, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, L-CYSTEINE, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, DICALCIUM PHOSPHATE), MICROCRYSTALLINE CELLULOSE, SILICON DIOXIDE (TO PREVENT CAKING), CHILI PEPPER, YEAST EXTRACT, MALTODEXTRIN, FLAVORS, SPICES, SOY SAUCE (SOYBEANS), AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, LACTIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR, CALCIUM LACTATE. ALLERGENS: WHEAT, SOY.

Yikes!


At the beginning of October Unprocessed, I saw this blog post on Good Cheap Eats about making your own homemade frozen burritos. I finally tried them at the end of the month (the process, not the actual recipe), and we were big fans. I heated up a little olive oil and sauteed some onion. Then I added a bit of spice (cumin, salt, pepper), a defrosted jar of chicken meat from the freezer, and a defrosted jar of black beans from the freezer. I cooked it until everything was warm, dolloped the filling on large flour tortillas, added some cheese (cheddar for the kids and me, pepperjack for the hubby) and wrapped them up. Onto a tray, into the freezer, into a baggie. The next weekend, we threw them into the microwave, just like our old processed kind, and they were soooo much better. Best part about it - it's such an easy process, you can adapt it to such a wide variety of fillings…spicy salsa for the hubby, nothing added for the kiddos….


Well, last night, as I looked into the fridge, there were way too many leftovers...especially considering that we only need lunches for a few days this week...and that there's a fairly big holiday coming up that's going to make quite a bit of leftovers on its own. :)

I'd tried two new recipes from this month's Cooking Light over the past couple days: Slow-cooker Cuban pork shoulder with beans and rice and Chicken and mushroom empanadas. The pork shoulder was ah-maze-ing! We loved it, and it made an absolute ton. The empanadas were good (I hear)...hubby liked them, but they were too spicy for the rest of us. Thus, a lot of leftovers.

So then I thought, why not turn the leftovers into more frozen burritos?! And now we have a freezer full of easy, healthy, and delicious weekend lunches. :)