Anatomy of a Wild & Crazy Saturday Night


9:20 Leave track meet, NYC. (Dream come true: watching both girls run a 4×800 relay, literally one handing the baton to the other) Kids will take bus home after meet is over
9:21 Barely pull onto highway when Andy asks What should we do for dinner? My mind instantly goes to eggs when the kids aren’t home. Breakfast burritos.
9:46 Arrive home.
9:47 Andy assembles Gin & Tonics; I dice an avocado
9:50 Text from kids: Bus will be at the school in 8 minutes
9:51 Rock-paper-scissors; Andy loses, chills his Gin & Tonic in the fridge, heads to school five minutes away for pick-up
9:52 I add can of beans to pot; scramble four eggs in another skillet
9: 59 Remove eggs from skillet, fry up a few tortillas and cheese
10:05 Andy back, drink removed from fridge.
10:08 Tortillas topped with eggs, warmed beans, salsa, avocado. Dinner served.

Breakfast Burritos for Two

1/2 a 14-ounce can refried beans (save the rest)
2 tortillas
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1 tablespoon butter
4 eggs, whisked and seasoned with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 avocado, diced as shown below
salsa and cilantro (chopped) for topping

Heat beans according to label instructions until warmed through, about 5 minutes. In another nonstick skillet, over medium-low heat, add butter and cook eggs until scrambled and still slightly wet (or to taste). Remove eggs to a bowl. In the same skillet, add tortilla and cook 30 seconds. Flip and top with half of cheddar. Once cheese has melted, remove to a cutting board or plate, and repeat with remaining tortilla and cheese.

Top cheesy tortillas with eggs, a few dollops of beans, avocado pieces, salsa, and cilantro to taste. Wrap up as artlessly as you please and eat.

Enjoy with Gin & Tonics.


Related:
Anatomy of a Weeknight Dinner, the Series.

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37 Comments

Annie

I love it when you post things like this. I need more of these ideas in my life. Some people don’t post this kind of stuff because they think it’s “too easy.” I am here to tell you, I need more! Thank you!!

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Jenny

Annie – I would have been out of business a long time ago (the food writing business and the actual dinner-making business) if I didn’t post/make these kinds of recipes. It’s how we cook during the week and the main reason why family dinner is such an entrenched ritual. Thanks for the comment. xx

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Awads

At that hour, i would have gone straight to bed! (and the G&T would have been consumed from a travel coffee mug at said track meet much earlier). cheers!

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Lori

Thank you for the real (and delicious). I am weary of Internet pictures and ideas that bear no resemblance to my very real life. Thank you for never being one of those people, Jenny! Even though we are now a few years removed (empty-nesters) from this schedule, I remember juggling three kids, multiple sports, dinner!

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Leigh-Anne

I love this series! Thank you for another great episode – I always looks forward to reading these – food always looks great and accessible.

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Aine

Love this! Also I remember you picking up the Shalane Flanagan cookbook, how have you liked it??

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Jenny

I really like it, but to be honest, I haven’t made it very much past the superhero muffins. I will say, though, that there is ALWAYS a batch of them in the house. Both Phoebe and I are addicted.

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Alyssa

Just curious – am I one of the only people who eats dinner early? I grew up in the “dinner at 5/5:30” household. And I have a hard time straying from it. My friends can occasionally convince me to eat dinner at 7:00, but that’s only if I had a HUGE lunch and a sizable snack around 4:30. Otherwise I’ll be sick and crabby by dinnertime. I literally am asleep by 10PM.

Am I the only grandma-in-a-28-year-old-body? Or are there others out there?!

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sara m.

I am also an early-eating weirdo! I eat lunch at 11. I prefer to eat dinner at 5:30. My kids are always starving so it’s not hard to convince them to eat “early.”

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Jenny

We’ve always been late-eating weirdos. In the early days, neither of us would be home from work before 6:30 so dinner was never earlier than 7:00. We stuck to that schedule even though my schedule is more flexible now. Mostly we are at the mercy of the kids’ athletic commitments (as you can see by this post; a Saturday night!) as opposed to our own demands. And I’d be lying if I said we all ate together at the same time every single night. Some nights soccer starts at 8:00, so one kid eats before the others; on another night a track meet doesn’t get them home until 10…so we have to be flexible.

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Jenny

I will also add that 99% of the time, even if someone has to eat ahead of the family, the rule is that he/she does not eat alone.

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Awads

Also an early eater (we try to hold out until 6:30 pm). I was raised in a 5:00 supper household, so i feel like i’m evolving 🙂

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Heather Kinsler

I have a 29 YOA friend who must eat by 530 pm or she is HANGRY and it starts to get ugly by 515.

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Hannah

Don’t ‘most’ people work until 5/6pm? How is it possible to eat dinner so early? Unless you’re a teacher or wfh or something…?

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Alyssa

I work a ‘normal’ office job where I can be there 7-3 or 8-4 or 9-5 depending on my mood and my meetings. So I try to get homemade by 4/4:30 to allow for said early hunger pangs.

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Awads

I also have a “normal office” job with flexible hours. I am in at 7 a.m., out at 4:30 p.m., home by 5:00….dinner on the table by 6:30.. “Most” work places have become much more flexible.

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Tammy

Man I love this. I love the simplicity, the real looking photos and the ritual. Well done!! I know what I’m making this weekend…

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Clarissa

but what I want to know is this – what did the kids eat, when they got home? Given how quickly Andy had to go get them, it sounds as though the bus did not stop for food on the way home. (Even if the team bus does stop on the way home, my teenager needs a second supper upon arrival home. And, of course, that is the problem with eating early, a whole second supper would be required a few hours later!

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Velma

This was also the burning question for me. I know four eggs won’t feed four people, especially if two of them are teenagers that just completed a track meet.

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Jenny

haha. we were too. The track meet was on at the NYC Armory, which is Upper Upper West Side (and an amazing place) and we are right up the River. If we hit the lights right, and it’s off hours, we can do it in 11 minutes from the minute we turn onto the Saw Mill Parkway. (Of course, once we are in the city, finding a parking spot takes three times as long.)

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Ttrockwood

I make something similar with a tofu and salsa scramble that is just as crazy fast, unfortunately my avocados never seem ready the night I really need some!

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Heidi Aronson

I have the same chrome tins! (and the matching bread box and wall-mounted wrap caddy)

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William Smith

Hi, Thanks for sharing the recipe.
I’ve a query related to this recipe. What did you mean by ‘medium-low heat’ in the article? Can you please specify this?

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Krista

I saw the words “breakfast burritos” randomly this morning and had a total obsessed freak out over making one. I love your version (crisping up the tortilla in the egg skillet is genius) and if it wasn’t 7:30 in the morning I’d be pairing one with a gin and tonic too. So simple and so perfect. THANK YOU.

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Brigid

How, praytell, do you magically have avocado RIPE and ready to go during the week? This seems unattainable.

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Jenny

Brigid – We declare it a state of emergency if we are out of avocados in our house. There are always three or four on rotation, some ready today, some ready tomorrow, some that we missed (hate those) and are gray through and through. But we pretty much always have them because my kids survive on avocado toasts.

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Tori

I know this is older but I have a quick tip. Sorry if this is obvious but my ripe avocados last SO long in the fridge. We also always need them in hand and I keep them in a bowl on the counter (I store bananas on top of them as somehow this ripens them faster?? I do not question the magic.) Once they reach that perfect ripeness (which can be detected by if they squeeze slightly from top to bottom or if you pop the st off and the spot beneath is still green -brown usually means they are gone) they go into a bowl in the fridge. I can’t rwmemwbe the last time one went bad.
Yours truly,
A serial avocado eater

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