Breakfast.....It's What's For Dinner

My dear husband is a big fan of breakfast, so once in awhile I treat him to breakfast for dinner.  The other night I was having a fierce craving for Mexican food, and the thought came to me, why not merge my husband's love for breakfast and meanwhile satisfy my lust for Mexican food.   So the option that initially came to mind was.......breakfast burritos.
Now I have been making breakfast burritos for my husband for years with those rubbery pre packaged tortillas and with no hint of Mexican about them.  So the foodie challenge to me was very clear, learn how to Mexicanize (I know........Mexicanize is not a word, but if you can't be grammatically challenged on your own blog where can you be?) my un-Mexican breakfast burritos.  Let me be clear, there is no part of me that is an authority on authentic Mexican food, in fact I do not even know if they eat breakfast burritos in Mexico (they would be crazy not too by the way, so I am sure that they do), but my appetite drove me to make this possibly un-Mexican, Mexican food.
The first goal of this dish was to make my own tortillas, which I have done before, but needless to say, they were a disaster and I gave up on them.  I distinctly remember them being stone hard, flavorless, and a royal pain in the a#$ to make, but I was feeling a new sense of purpose, and homemade tortillas were once again front and center.  Again, since I am in no way an authority in Mexican cooking, I went right to the source for a good tortilla recipe.  My co-worker, who happens to be Mexican. 
So I tell her all about my past tortilla sins and like a brilliant tortilla Buddha she shows me the path to tortilla sublimity, and simply refers me to a YouTube video done by Robert Rodriguez, who happens to be a famous director (Machete, Sin City) and oh by the way, has a video on how to make breakfast burritos made with homemade tortillas! (he actually has several cooking videos).  So I watched, learned and made homemade tortillas and OMG, I will never buy tortillas again.  Not only were they delicious but this recipe is very easy to do, so it gets a double gold star for that!  I made one small change though to the recipe.  Robert calls for a combination of lard and butter in the tortillas and I just could not find that stupid stuff (lard) so I gave up and substituted it with vegetable shortening and it worked great.  I also tried them with just butter and not so good (the only time in history when butter alone doesn't work!), you really need the shortening to get a tender texture, so don't skip it.  I will try lard someday as I will now be on a lard hunting expedition. 

As for the filling for my burritos I didn't follow Robert exactly.   My filling consisted of fried Yukon Gold potatoes, Mexican Chorizo with some sauteed onion, of course eggs, and I topped the burritos with a little Queso Fresco and cilantro.  I also took the opportunity to make some homemade salsa for my burritos, and since I had previously found some gorgeous tomatillos at the farmers market , which were submissively lying in the crisper in my fridge, I decided to make Salsa Verde. 

I am going to digress here at bit, but this serves as a warning.  While buying the remaining ingredients for my salsa I also found some amazing locally grown purple jalapenos, which looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, so of course I had to add those, and I have to say I got a little over zealous when it came to the sheer number of peppers I purchased and therefore the sheer number of peppers I put in the salsa...........I don't know if my mouth or digestive tract will ever recover.  That was probably too much info, so forgive me, but ya...........it was too much, so don't overdo it on the peppers, unless you have a very large supply of Tums on you or you have a stomach made of steel.  Either way, this meal was delicious, easy to make, and what could be better than breakfast for breakfast?  Breakfast for dinner.................with Mexican flair.

Salsa Verde

2 lbs tomatillos husks removed
1 onion roughly chopped

1 clove of garlic
2 limes juiced
1-2 teaspoons salt
1-2 jalapenos roughly chopped
1/2 cup cilantro leaves

Preheat broiler.  Place tomatillos on a cookie sheet and broil until skins are charred, about 10 minutes.  Remove tomatillos from oven and cool.  Once the tomatillos are cooled place them into a blender and puree.  Add remaining ingredients and puree, until all the ingredients are finely chopped and the salsa is well blended.