winter burritos

Tonight's dinner was really delicious!! We went running today and had a very light start to our day foodwise, so we opted to make an early dinner. I felt like making burritos and wanted to make them winter style since it's winter. We had a wonderful burrito at a Belfast restaurant called Chase's Daily which was affiliated with a local Maine farm (I think owned by the restaurant owners). They served all vegetarian fare, very artsy and fun, in a great space where they also sold fresh bread, cookies, pastries, local art, and tons of flowers and vegetables from their farm. It was a great place, one we enjoyed many good meals at, one of which was a burrito dish in the winter time where they added roasted squash and potatoes. We both loved it and now I enjoy making winter bounty burritos very much. They are as good as summer bounty burritos, but instead of sweet from fresh corn, peppers and tomatoes, the sweetness comes from dried corn in the tortillas plus deliciously sweet winter squash and roasted potatoes and grated carrot in the winter salsa.

First I roasted diced acorn squash and taters from a friend's garden (thank you!!!). I tossed them in a little bit of oil and roasted them for about an hour with some sea salt, chili powder and a dash of mild red pepper flakes. While these were cooking I rinsed and drained long grain brown rice and got that cooking. I had been cooking some pinto beans with a nice dried chipolte and some diced onion since morning and they were really delicious by the time everything else was ready. For a veggie salsa, I marinated a quarter of a red onion (grown in skagit valley!), diced small, in lemon juice and a bit of sea salt for an hour and then mixed it into shredded carrot and some steamed lacinato kale (also skagit grown!). The final treat was to grind up the last of our dried Maine grown corn and make corn tortillas. The tortillas were quite good. The base I used a bit of leftover sourdough starter in (about a cup worth), and then mixed in about 1.5 cups of freshly ground corn flour, it made for a really nice combo. Nice consistency and a bit of spring due to the sourdough. Once the squash and taters were done, I mixed them in with the pinto beans, topped with a little grated Vermont extra sharp cheddar and we served it up and enjoyed a great tasting dinner.


Shawn is back to working on his workbench layout. Tomorrow we head into Vancouver to Lee Valleyto pick out his vises. The workbench is going to be our first piece of furniture. Should be a blast. There will be postings to come on it. He's been drafting it out for the last week, and is nearly done with the final touches and decisions. He's designing it loosely based on a Danish style bench, which he likes due to the compact sizing. We're making it "knockdown" style (or easy to dismantle and portable) so that we can work on some small ideas here at the rental and learn some new things and also use it easily when we're building (hopefully this summer!!!!) Exciting!