Potato, Chorizo, and Green Chile Burritos - Testing a Cooking Light Recipe

(Title photo: Dave's serving. Bottom: my serving. Go figure.)

Dave and I love to eat. And we really love to eat Mexican food. I'd conservatively say that 3-4 nights a week our meals are Latin-inspired. We love the warmth and heat of Tex-Mex, and the originality of authentic Latin food. So when a recipe brings both, and it's easy and inexpensive, we pretty much feel like we're winning.

Chorizo is the primary conduit of flavor in this dish, and that is a beautiful thing. The potatoes are cooked in the juice and spices of the cooked chorizo and peppers, which makes even a basic russet-variety hash into a delight.

After a first try that was decent but still had potential, I made some of my own alterations, listed below. This Cooking Light Recipe can be found here.

• The recipe calls for Poblano chiles, which are fine, but we added 1/2 a jalapeno (with 1/4 of the seeds) to add kick. And I actually had a spectacular garden-fresh green bell pepper on hand this go, so I used that instead of Poblano.
• The remaining 1/2 Jalapeno went into the pico de gallo to brighten it up and add more than just the mild heat offered by the onions.
• We used Cotija cheese, which we had on hand, and it was as darn tasty as queso fresco.
• Plain flour tortillas are only slightly less healthy than the price-equivalent in wheat, so if you only have regular, don't bother with wheat. Now if I could make my own whole-wheat tortillas... but alas, that's for a later challenge.
• Added avocado slices just to be awesome
• Lastly, Dave and I both felt that searing the burrito along the seam was unnecessary and skipped it the second time we made these. Just as satisfying.

I love, love, love Cooking Light and have nothing but praise for that fine magazine. But I do often find their Mexican food to be a bit over-cautiously mild. Still, that's an easy problem to solve if you have some fresh peppers on hand. I like to keep Jalapenos and Serranos in the fridge for just such occasions.

Chow!