Butternut Squash Burritos

Two things inspired this post: one, the disgusting tofu burrito wrapped in foil, wrapped in plastic bag, that sat in my fridge uneaten all weekend and two, when my friends, Sean and Candace, told me a story about homemade sweet potato burritos. (The story being that they made them.) Backing up to the disgusting tofu burrito, I’d just like to say: “No” and “Can we please stop pretending tofu can just go into anything we want it to go into?” Michael made the god awful mistake of buying one from Calexico last week, and when I came home super hungry that night, asking for a bite of his burrito, I took that one bite and said out loud: “Yeah, that’ll do.” (Thanks, but no thanks.) The burrito went uneaten – he disguised his real opinion by saying he’d take it for lunch the next day – but when I came home that night… disgusting tofu burrito was still there, wrapped in foil, wrapped in plastic bag. With Michael having fled for a bachelor party in Cleveland.

Next up was the story Sean and Candace told me about that time they made homemade sweet potato burritos. Wow! People put sweet potatoes in burritos? Really? Because Michael recently bought a burrito with tofu in it and I swear, I might be off burritos for a while. No, these were really good, they said. Sweet potatoes and black beans! That did sound good. I didn’t want to steal it though. So the next day, I came home with some butternut squash, ready for roasting, ready for wrapping. The end product was (high-pitched sing-song voice) awe-some! To be honest, I didn’t have a plan. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about adding brussel sprouts to my burrito. To be honest, I don’t know the difference between a shallot and an onion. To be honest, I stopped in at Calexico the next day and paid four dollars for a large salsa. Yeah, that’s right. Not everything gets to be homemade.

I think that’s the beauty of the burrito. No need for a plan. Wrap up whatever you’ve got, whatever your palette loves, because in the end it’s all going to the same place. Which explains why the owners of Calexico felt no shame adding “tofu burrito” to their menu.