Taco Surprise

I do not eat most food found on Mexican restaurant menus.  I also don't eat most food on pretty much any restaurant menu, but that's beside the point.  Joey very much enjoys Mexican food.  Miriah practically lives on refried beans.  So last night, we made Traditional Beef Burritos.

This recipe has a couple of things that are "Do Not Eat" foods.  The first one is cumin.  Cumin is still a bit too spicy for this kid.  I've realized that chili powder isn't actually so bad, but cumin just fans the flames of any other spice in a dish.

The second big "Do Not Eat" food is refried beans.  While they are essentially the life force of my sister, I maintain that beans are gross.  If you're not going to let your kid eat paste, why are you going to let them eat beans?  Same consistency, same taste.  And before you ask, yes, I have eaten paste.

Same adhesive properties?  Who knows.  Miriah won't let me "waste" them in order to find out.

And of course, "Do Not Eat" food number three.  Taco sauce.  Mainly by virtue of the fact that it is sauce specifically designed for a food that I find too spicy and too suitable for an art project.  In fact, after looking at the ingredients, I decided taco sauce was innocent till proven guilty.

Look at that!  It's even mild!  Maybe it won't be so bad....

We browned the meat (yum), added garlic (yum) and onion (eh), and then the recipe started getting gross.  But it also started smelling awesome.  I was even starting to feel a little excited.  How could something with so much garlic turn out bad?  I hoped (since this was dinner) that it couldn't.

After trying to roll the burritos, Joey passed the task to me.  I treated it like a Potbelly sandwich, and it seemed to go just fine.  Our tortillas were slightly too small, but we managed.  We popped them into the oven to bake.  Remembering those way-too-ambitious pork chops, I started brainstorming back-up dinner options.

After we took them out of the oven, I put more cheese on mine.  Once again, cheese is delicious.  I had forgotten to buy sour cream, so we had to skip that part.  The burritos looked good but scary.  Who knew how much the cumin and taco sauce would burn my mouth?

The potential dangers are so well hidden....

The meat was a little spicy.  But I could totally handle it!  I'm quite proud.  I think this is proof that I'm maturing as an eater.

More surprising though, I preferred the beans to the ground beef mixture.  Beans go well with cheese.  I don't know if that's the magic of cheese or my continuing personal growth.  I guess the next step would be to try refried beans on their own.  I wonder if Miriah would be willing to part with them.