Too-Hot Sauce and Bean and Cheese Burritos!

A couple weeks ago I was so inspired to make bean and cheese burritos after reading this post on Alexandra's Kitchen.  Alexandra made making homemade flour tortillas look easy, so I decided to give it a try - and it was so simple and so worth it.  I won't reblog about her post, so click here if you want to learn how to make your own tortillas.  I will say that the making the dough is very quick and easy, especially if you make it in a food processor like I did.  The hardest part of making the tortillas is rolling them out into a nice circle.  Luckily, the dough is much more forgiving than a pie dough and it is really easy to get it as thin as you need to.  The end result is a soft, more flavorful dough than you can get by just purchasing some flour tortillas in your grocery store.

To go along with the burritos I wanted to make a delicious hot sauce, so I went to my newest favorite cookbook Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless.  There is recipe called Roasted Fresh Chile Salsa which has options for which chiles you prefer based on heat level.  I thought I liked things pretty hot, so I wasn't really thinking how hot 24 habanero peppers would be (I doubled the recipe).  What a surprise when I was choking on the fumes from just roasting the peppers.  In fact when I threw out the left over sauce today I had to open the window to stop from coughing (finally stopped coughing after an hour off and on).  When I licked my sauce off the spoon, I instantly knew it was HOT.  That didn't stop my friend and I from putting it on our burritos (very sparingly).  There were points during my meal where I had to literally stop eating and just sit there and let the pain leave my mouth.  The whole point I am trying to make is - be careful!  I will definitely be using different chiles next time - or at least a combo.  Also, wear gloves - capsaicin can stay on your skin for a couple of days and that can really hurt when you are putting contacts in the next day (um yes I have experienced that).  So here is the recipe (with chile options - use habanero if you dare!

Prometheus Springs Elixirs

On Friday, I hopped over to Whole Foods to pick up some goodies for work and I was lucky enough to get a couple of samples of Prometheus Springs elixir. Now I don't know if this "elixir" is really a cure-all, but to me that doesn't matter much because the flavors are so delicious. Prometheus Springs comes in three flavors: Pomegranate Black Pepper, Lychee Wasabi, and Lemon Ginger. All of them have spice in common, but I especially loved the Pomegranate Black Pepper and bought myself a bottle to share with friends. Prometheus Springs states they are "the world's first capsaicin spiced elixir." What is capsaicin you may ask? Pronounced (cap-say-sin), it is an active ingredient in chili peppers, which creates the heat in these drinks. At the beginning of your sip, you taste the sweetness of the pomegranate, but by the time you swallow, you feel the heat of the pepper in the back of your throat. Prometheus Springs describes the health benefits of their beverages better than I can, so click here if you want to read up on it. They recommend drinking one of their elixirs to kick your cold or flu, but I think you shouldn't wait to be sick, and just drink it as a special treat or mix it with your favorite spirit for a fancy cocktail. Here are some suggestions here. Enjoy!