I’m still trying to drag myself out of what I’m calling my Plaguetimes Languishment, but it’s sure an uphill battle. Most days I spend a few hours in the kitchen puttering about–making bread or buns or seitan or some new culinary discovery–and feel like a semi-productive human being. Yesterday, however, was a particularly languishing day, so I was disgusted with myself at dinner time when I had to dig through the freezer for a couple of burger buns and some veggie burgers. Fortunately, I did have a rather delicious potato salad I’d made a few days ago, so I didn’t feel like a complete failure.

Today, I decided I needed to replenish my supply of seitan pork roasts, so I had an enjoyable hour or two making those. I then decided I’d shred part of one little roast for burritos this evening. I spent another hour making lentil-mung-bean tortillas while listening to a couple of episodes of my new favourite podcast: Heavyweight. Now I always get into the zone while cooking, but there is something particularly contemplative about making the batter for lentil tortillas and then cooking them one at a time on the stovetop.

If you recall, when I first learned about lentil tortillas, I thought they were the greatest thing ever invented and made them at every opportunity. Since then, I’ve experimented with different combinations and my current favourite is a combination of lentils and mung beans. Here’s the recipe, which makes about eight good-sized tortillas. I prefer this version because the mung beans seem to give the tortillas greater tensile strength during both cooking and stuffing.

Lentil Mung Bean Tortillas

Blend in the Vitamix or other high-speed blender until as smooth as pancake batter. If you don’t have a high-speed blender, you’ll need to soak the lentils and beans for a few hours.

1/2 cup dried red lentils

1/2 cup dried mung beans

2 cups water

1 tsp salt

Heat a non-stick pan and pour 1/3 of a cup of batter into the pan. Use a spoon to spread that batter out into a large, thin circle. When the top becomes bubbled and dry, flip and cook the other side for another minute or so.

The burritos are more of an assembly than a recipe. First, make the filling (which is enough for six burritos):

Saute until brown:

1/2 sliced white onion

Add to the pan:

1 jalepeno pepper, julienned

1/2 yellow pepper, julienned

250 grams of seitan pork, shredded

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Saute until the vegetables are soft and the seitan pork is slightly seared. Sprinkle over the top and mix:

2 TBS Taco Seasoning No. 19

Saute for another minute or two. Taste the mix to see if you need to add more taco seasoning.

Next, make some brown basmati rice, grab an avocado, fresh cilantro, and some salsa and start assembling! I schmeared a bit of cashew-dill dressing on the tortilla to start, but it’s not really necessary.

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James loved these so much that he snarfed down three burritos and asked for one more (which was fortunate since I had only enough of the mixture to make one more!).

And the song of the day is The Weakerthans’ “Sun in an Empty Room” because it’s the theme song to Heavyweight, which, as I mentioned above, I’ve been listening to compulsively since I discovered it only a few days ago. Anyway, the song has been a constant refrain in my head for the past few days…