corn burritos and a birthday week

in our house, when your birthday rolls around, you get an entire week, not just a day. one full week of getting out of dishes, being allowed the privledge to pick as many meals for the weekly menu as you want, enjoying multiple dinners out with family and friends (birthday person picks where, of course) and just generally a week all about you.

i, of course, installed this tradition (after i tried out a birthday "month" a couple years ago and it didn't quite fly). 

this week was the mister's birthday week and so we had lovely dinners out at sierra nevada brewery and 5th street steakhouse. at home, we had corn burritos. twice. (pretty sure we would have had them 3 times if i hadn't put my foot down about the whole fried foods thing).

for the mister, this qualifies as comfort food- it brings up all sorts of happy feelings for him, as soon as he gets that first bite. it's worth all the effort (and crisco) to see that smile light up his face.

the mister grew up eating these with his family down in the ojai/ventura area in southern california. there are food stands down there that have these on the menu, and we have yet to find them anywhere else but down there. basically, its a bean taquito, covered liberally with shredded cheddar when it is still hot-as-hell straight from the fryer, then doused with el pato tomato sauce. i served ours with some guacamole and a black bean, cilantro, red pepper and charred corn salad.

with the suggestion of our friend, we have decided to declare august 4th (the mister's birthday), NATIONAL CORN BURRITO DAY!

here's how you celebrate...

heat corn tortilla in skillet with a bit of crisco (i did the first few in a dry cast iron pan and they kept effing cracking-learn from my mistakes).

smear about a tablespoon of refried beans, straight outta the can, onto the tortilla.

grab a handy dandy toothpick.

 

roll it and stab it. then fry it in about an inch of crisco shortening, over medium/med high heat, turning a couple times, until golden brown. immediately remove from pan, remove toothpick and cover with shredded cheddar so that the heat melts the cheese, and douse with el pato sauce.

el pato can be found in most grocery stores in the ethnic or mexican food aisle, near the canned enchilada sauce.

*sorry for the blurry, not quite in focus photos lately, i accidentally changed some settings on my little camera and didn't notice it until yesterday*