Good Morning, Burrito!

To me, being an adult means that you are able to consistently wake up early enough in the morning to make yourself a real breakfast before you go to work. Logically, that means that despite what my birth certificate says, I am not an adult.

If I'm lucky, I manage to grab a banana and a glass of milk before I go to work, and if I'm really running late, that means I'm just downing coffee all morning in anticipation of lunch. What I have found doable in the past is scrambling up some egg whites (out of a carton, I'm not ambitious enough to separate the whites from an actual egg), which gave me a good jumping off point for a breakfast burrito.

To minimize the amount of preparation and shopping necessary for my first attempt, I used ingredients that I had around the house:

• 1 whole wheat soft taco shell
• ¼ cup egg whites
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 2 tbsp. Salsa
• ½ avocado
• ¼ cup cheese

The key to an efficient breakfast is spending as little time on preparation as possible, so I gave myself a head start by cubing the avocados the night before. I'm sure there's a better way to go about doing this, but what I do is cut the avocado in half (forcing the knife through the pit), remove the pit halves, quarter the avocado, peel off the skin, then cube the remainder.

From a nutritional standpoint, I'm a big fan of liquid egg. They're low-calorie, low-sodium, have no cholesterol, and are packed with protein. I cook mine in olive oil, which, while free of cholesterol, carbs, and sodium, packs a shocking amount of calories and fat per serving. One tablespoon of olive oil has 120 grams of calories and 14 grams of fat, so I reduce that to one teaspoon, which cuts those values by a third and is a sufficient amount for this recipe.

Since I'd chopped up the avocado last night, I was able to get through this recipe from start to finish in five and a half minutes - and I think I can get it down to under five. To start, put the olive oil in a small skillet and warm it over medium heat. Once the oil slides easily around the pan, it's time to add the egg whites.

Don't leave the egg whites alone, because an amount this small will firm up quickly. I use a wooden paddle to push the egg whites towards the center of the pan from the edges, but after a few pushes, it's just a matter of pushing around the mass of congealed egg whites until they're cooked to your liking.

Once the egg whites are ready, put them onto a soft taco shell, then add the salsa, avocado, and cheese. Fold it up so that at least one end is closed (I had some spillage on my first attempt) and enjoy. The salsa is the dominant taste here, with the avocados giving everything a slightly crunchy texture. From preparation to cleanup, this recipe only takes 10 minutes total, which makes it doable even if you're in a hurry.

I'd like to add a piece of fruit to this going forward, but my personal produce section didn't have anything that would have been a nice complement at the end of the meal this morning.

Here's the estimated nutritional value for the Good Morning Burrito, along with the percentage for the daily recommended amount. I know that fat content is a little startling, but most of that's coming from the avocado, while the cheese and the taco shell are the biggest offenders in the Sodium department:

Calories: 442g
Fat: 29g (45%)
Protein: 24g (48%)
Carbohydrates: 35g (12%)
Cholesterol: 25mg (8%)
Sodium: 482mg (20%)
Fiber: 7g (28%)

Have you tried this recipe? Do you have your own breakfast burrito recipe you'd like to share? Let us know by leaving a comment below or emailing us at thetacodiet@gmail.com.

NOTE: I took pictures for this post, but haven't added them yet in my haste to post something new. In the next couple of days this post (and the blog in general) should have more pretty pictures to look at.