Recipe Spinach And Bean Burritos

TastyReuben

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SPINACH AND BEAN BURRITOS
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups lightly packed baby spinach, chopped
1 (15-1/2oz) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup chunky salsa
1 TBsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 (8-inch) whole wheat tortillas
1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese

Directions
Spray large skillet with nonstick cooking spray and set over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in all remaining ingredients except tortillas and cheese. Cook, covered, until spinach is wilted and tender, about 4 minutes. Uncover and cook until liquid is evaporated, about 2 minutes.

Remove skillet from heat and let stand about 5 minutes. Place on-fourth of spinach mixture down center of each tortilla, sprinkle each with 2 TBsp cheese. Food each tortilla over to enclose filling.

Recipe courtesy of Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook.

Note: I added salsa and sour cream to mine.

 
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Not bad for a Weight Watchers recipe. Good choice of beans.. I hope you made your own salsa -- it's a a five minute job. If you use a bold Mexican cheese, you can reduce the amount and skip the reduced-fat, IMO.

How are whole wheat tortillas? I've never tried them.

CD
 
Not bad for a Weight Watchers recipe. Good choice of beans.. I hope you made your own salsa -- it's a a five minute job. If you use a bold Mexican cheese, you can reduce the amount and skip the reduced-fat, IMO.

How are whole wheat tortillas? I've never tried them.

CD
It wasn't bad at all, I'd make it again.

I didn't have any tomatoes, so I turned to the good people at Pace for my salsa needs. I don't use jarred salsa much, but when I do, I usually drain it because even the "chunky" stuff is way too watery.

That cheese is Tillamook, from Oregon, and is quite expensive. I don't usually get pre-shredded cheese except for the dog, and I'm sad to report, the extra money for this cheese isn't worth it. It's the one pre-shredded cheese where the anti-caking agent is very noticeable when stealing a pinch from the bag - cheese with a dry dust component. Not good.

The whole wheat tortillas...those were the hardest for me to buy, because my experience with 100% whole wheat anything is that it isn't fit for consumption (too firm, too dry, too grainy, too bitter). I put them back a couple of times, then I got them, because the wife is really trying to drop a few pounds.

I must say, they were pretty good. I like soft flour tortillas, soft like Wonder bread soft, and these were pretty soft, and after heating them for a few seconds on my pizza stone, they stayed pretty pliable.

The taste...frankly, apart from the color, I probably wouldn't have guessed these were 100% whole wheat. They blended right in and didn't stand out (in a bad way). I guess whole wheat technology has advanced considerably in the last decade or so.

Now if I could only find a whole wheat pizza dough I like. :)
 
The whole wheat tortillas...those were the hardest for me to buy, because my experience with 100% whole wheat anything is that it isn't fit for consumption (too firm, too dry, too grainy, too bitter). I put them back a couple of times, then I got them, because the wife is really trying to drop a few pounds.

Are they significantly less calories than other tortillas? In principle, whole wheat flour (wholemeal in the UK) has more or less the same calories as white flour, I believe.
 
Are they significantly less calories than other tortillas? In principle, whole wheat flour (wholemeal in the UK) has more or less the same calories as white flour, I believe.

The promoted benefit of whole grains are fiber, but you still have to read the label, because that isn't even true in every product. The more you process grains, they more you take away from them, including fiber.

CD
 
The promoted benefit of whole grains are fiber, but you still have to read the label, because that isn't even true in every product. The more you process grains, they more you take away from them, including fiber.

CD

Yeah - I know - but TastyReuben indicated the choice of whole grain was due to MrsTasty wanting to lose a few pounds. The calories are more or less the same so it won't aid weight loss.
 
Yeah - I know - but TastyReuben indicated the choice of whole grain was due to MrsTasty wanting to lose a few pounds. The calories are more or less the same so it won't aid weight loss.
50 calories/11g fiber per tortilla for the whole wheat ones, 140 calories/2g fiber per tortilla for their regular flour tortillas.
 
50 calories/11g fiber per tortilla for the whole wheat ones, 140 calories/2g fiber per tortilla for their regular flour tortillas.

Wow, that's actually pretty good. If they are least tolerably tasty, that is a pretty good trade off.

CD
 
50 calories/11g fiber per tortilla for the whole wheat ones, 140 calories/2g fiber per tortilla for their regular flour tortillas.

That is quite a saving and a good find if they taste OK. But, hmmm... it can't be the flour that is making calories so much less. I wonder what is going on here. Thinner tortillas, perhaps? Sorry I'm so curious!
 
That is quite a saving and a good find if they taste OK. But, hmmm... it can't be the flour that is making calories so much less. I wonder what is going on here. Thinner tortillas, perhaps? Sorry I'm so curious!


I'm guessing it is what they are using as a fat. The loss of calories is mostly a loss of calories from fat.

CD
 
Wow, that's actually pretty good. If they are least tolerably tasty, that is a pretty good trade off.

CD
That is quite a saving and a good find if they taste OK. But, hmmm... it can't be the flour that is making calories so much less. I wonder what is going on here. Thinner tortillas, perhaps? Sorry I'm so curious!

I'll get the back label posted at some point today. As far as the size, etc - they're exactly like the flour ones I buy, so they're not "skinnies" or "thins" or some other marketing name that lets them charge you twice as much for half the product. I'll check the weight on them, too.

On second glance, they're whole wheat, not 100% whole wheat. My mistake.
 
I'll get the back label posted at some point today. As far as the size, etc - they're exactly like the flour ones I buy, so they're not "skinnies" or "thins" or some other marketing name that lets them charge you twice as much for half the product. I'll check the weight on them, too.

On second glance, they're whole wheat, not 100% whole wheat. My mistake.

It seems they are around 45g each (if I have the correct ones) which seems to be a standard weight for tortillas. I'm somewhat mystified. I don't think I could make a tortilla from scratch weighing that amount for less than 100 cals, even without the fat. The flour alone would be more calories. And these contain olive oil.

I found some fat free ones by the same company and they were much higher calorie.


37958
 
I reckon it must be down to the cellulose fiber:

Cellulose is commonly used in foods and bakery formulations as a source of dietary fiber or to improve their texture. It is also used as a bulking agent in low-calorie and gluten-free baked products.

They must be adding quite a lot of cellulose to bulk out the flour. I made a mini tortilla earlier - carefully weighing 50 calories of whole wheat flour which amounted to 2 tbsps. No way could I make a standard sized tortilla from this. The resulting tortilla weighed in at 18g as opposed to the 45g of your tortilla. They must be adding a lot of cellulose fibre. It is very low calorie.

I still don't really understand it though - its a big leap from 18g to 45g.
 
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