"To Arms"

Lately I have been thinking about renaming my blog. At first I was considering this for superficial reasons. The thing is I did think up what I consider to be a pretty hip title that combines my love of science with my apathy for the word vegan- a term I find to be both vague and pretentious. That is a topic for another blog though. The title I came up with was: "Floraphage". I was very eager to share my new word that would surely transform our gentle movement with the rest of the world. I had visions of five star restaurants with the word gracefully italicized over the no meat or dairy portions. Teenage girls would be instructing their mothers on how to cook for their new boyfriends as they drawled out the following phrase all over America, "No, mom! He's a Floraphage!" Of course, I was rocketed back to reality when I tried my new word out at work trying to nonchalantly use it in conversation. I received more than one strange look but no one was brave enough or, more likely, interested enough to find out if this was joke or just some vague pretentious term I was tossing around. Oh well, dodged that bullet!
The new idea I was tossing around today was the title: "The Frugal Vegan". Of course this is joke. I am well aware of the not soon forgotten show about the gourmet with a similar leading adjective and I'm not referring to the man who gallops. The reason I've even made you read this last nonsensical passage about balding PBS chefs who cook in poorly lit studio kitchens is that I am totally and completely freaking out about the cost of food! Never being the kind of citizen who sits back and waits for someone else to take action I am calling us vegans, or floraphages if you like, to arms. And here is what we're gonna do. We're gonna make some frozen burritos! If wheat and soybeans keep going up in price we will have money hiding in our freezers disguised as delicious gifts from south of the border.

Paul "Floraphage" Revere's Minute Man Frozen Burritos:

12 large flour tortillas
2 tbsp olive oil
6 ounce can tomato paste
8 ounce can tomato sauce
2 cups cooked in vegetable both brown rice
16 ounce firm tofu finely cubed
1 large russet potato finely cubed and fully cooked (I just stuck my in the microwave)
16 ounce can black beans rinsed and drained
16 ounce can refried beans
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 tbsp Bragg's liquid amino acids
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cayenne
4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

Place the olive oil in a very large skillet and heat to medium. Add the tomato paste and whisk until the paste is slightly caramelized. Add the potato and both kinds of beans and stir. Add the tomato sauce, Bragg's and spices. Let simmer one minute. Add the frozen corn, rice, tofu, and fresh cilantro. If you have run out of room you can transfer your mixture to a large bowl to stir everything together. Spoon your mixture onto the tortillas and fold them up in a way so the filling doesn't leak out. Once you have finished filling all the burritos you can place them into freezer bags and freeze. Who knows, in three months they could be worth a fortune.