Corey's Cosmic Veggie Burritos

Corey’s Cosmic Veggie Burritos 

A bit of a twist on an old standby: these burritos are delicious, very nutritious, and completely vegan. They're so good you'd trade your shirt and your ticket to get one of these babies in a parking lot.   

Ingredients:

• 1 Package of extra firm cubed tofu
• 1 Can of pinto beans
• ½ Cup of frozen sweet corn
• 1 Onion (red or white, your call)
• 1 Tomato
• 3 Fresh jalapeños (or, if you’re like me, habaneros)
• 3-5 Cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• Canola or peanut oil
• Sea salt
• Spices: Black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin, crushed red pepper, oregano
• Tortilla Wraps

1.   Begin by dicing your onion, garlic, tomato, and chilies. Combine the onion, garlic, and chilies set them aside together. Set the tomato aside by itself.
2. Drain the water from your tofu. If you were not able to find pre-cubed tofu, cut your tofu into bite sized pieces. Also, open, drain, and rinse your pinto beans and set them aside.
3. Fill a frying pan with a light layer of frying oil (canola, peanut, etc), toss in one of the little cubes of tofu and raise to a high heat. Once the tofu starts sizzling, reduce the burner to a medium heat and add the rest of the tofu. Let the tofu brown on one side, and then begin stirring it around until each little cube is gold brown. Remove the tofu once it’s finished, set it aside on a paper towel, and dispose of your frying oil.
4. In a separate frying pan, bring a tablespoon of olive oil to a medium heat and add the onion, garlic, and chilies. Stir periodically.
5. Once the onion starts to become translucent, reduce to a low heat, add the tofu and continue to stir. After about a minute or two add the pintos, then sweet corn, and finally the diced tomato.
6. Wait for the water left by the frozen corn and tomato to reduce and then add salt and spices to taste. As far as the spices go, “a dash” of each should be fine.
7. Lay out your tortilla, add the filling, and roll it up.
8. Enjoy! I recommend serving it with an avocado half and/or a simple salad.

Yield: 3-6 (It all depends on the size of your tortillas and how much filling you want per burrito.)

Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Veggie burrito not pictured.

The Numbers Behind Sen. Coburn's Outrage Over Grateful Dead Archive

So, I'm sure you've heard the buzz about Sen. Tom Coburn's outrage over the federal government's contribution of $615,000 to the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz, which he ranks as the 4th most wasteful government expenditure in his Wastebook 2010.

If you haven't, it goes a little something like this:

Grateful Dead chose a public institution to archive the band's memorabilia "because the whole idea of it being public and free was important to them," yet taxpayers are paying $615,000 to make the band's archives "free" and "public." The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded the University of California at Santa Cruz the federal funds to digitize Grateful Dead photographs, tickets, backstage passes, flyers, shirts, and other memorabilia. IMLS notes  "this is one of the first efforts to preserve and share cultural and historical artifacts of the baby boom generation, a group that includes 76 million Americans."

Rolling Stone magazine listed the Grateful Dead in the top 100 Greatest Artists of All Time,and estimates place the net worth of two prominent band members, Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh, at roughly $40 and $35 million, respectively.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

At first glance that seems like a pretty penny, but it's really a mere pittance when put into perspective. In 2009 the federal budget was $3,518 billion. $615,000 is about 0.00000001748% of that figure.

But let's look at it from another perspective. Over 236 million tax returns were filed in the same year. $615,000 divided among 236 million taxpayers ends up costing each of them $.0026 or roughly one forth of a cent a piece. 

So, when put into perspective, how much federal money is really being used here?

Thank you Senator.