Vegan Burritos

There’s not always time for an elaborate vegan meal. There are some fallback easy-to-cook nutritious vegan foods to fill the belly. Burritos are one of them. I had to work all day (from home), so I started soaking some white beans early in the day. They hadn’t gotten bigger after a few hours, so I heated them and let them soak some more. Then I poured off the water and added fresh water. I put them on the back of the stove to simmer for a few hours. 

 

Another way to do this, if you couldn’t check on them during the day to stir them and add more water because you work outside the home would be to use a slow cooker — to have your beans hot and ready when you return, after soaking them overnight. Use your instapot or pressure cooker if you have one. Or, of course, open and heat a can of beans!

Ingredients

1 package whole wheat tortillas

1 can white or pinto beans, seasoned

2 cups cooked kale and onions, stir-fried

3 tblsp. gomasio

Chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado — 2 small ones of each

Creamy miso dressing to taste

Rice — optional

Method

I stir-fried some kale and onions. I dry-roasted some sesame seeds and salt to make gomasio. I chopped up some tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado. I heated whole wheat tortillas in the toaster oven until they were soft. None of this took very long. I added seasoning to the white beans (see previous post recipe for white bean soup). 

 

I assembled my burrito, adding a dollop of Creamy Miso Dressing (see previous post recipe) on top of the beans, kale and onions, tomato and avocado. I sprinkled it with gomasio. I took a picture. I called the boys to come and make their own. They heated up some rice and added that to their burritos, as they wanted an even more hearty meal. We all ate and were happy. Healthy vegan meals can be made without a lot of effort.

Samosa Style Pasties/Pastries

One of my daughters said she couldn’t make pie, so I wrote down the recipe again and mentioned she could make it sweet or savory — which led to my wanting to eat a SAMOSA. The crust was easy to make. I made a double recipe and rolled out two big crusts. Then, because I don’t attend to the fancy details of life, I cut them into random blocky shapes. I got about five per crust — ten in all.

Now, for the filling. But, oh! There were no potatoes in the house. What to do? I began by sautéing a large onion in olive oil. I sprinkled on some tamari. That’s always a good start. I opened a can of green peas and dumped them in. But I still needed something more substantial. Luckily I had made some of the okara patties the night before — the ones seasoned with Indian spices and basil instead of cilantro. They also had carrots, onions, and peppers in them and a bit of tomato sauce with big chunks of oyster mushrooms in it. So: plenty of fodder for a samosa. I threw it all in the pan.

I had to contain myself to keep from spooning too much of the filling onto the pastry shapes. I found it easiest to rest the flattened dough shape on my palm, with the center cupped down. That gave me a better idea of how much filling to glop in the middle. Then I folded the sides up to the center and pinched it closed. I placed all the samosas on one baking sheet and baked them in a preheated oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.