These days, we check in almost daily with our son, on the Mercy ship, and our daughter, isolating in Los Gatos CA. And my brother, alone in his NYC apartment. There’s an underlying current of anxiety in my mood. In everyone’s mood!

And so, we cook! But I have chosen not to respond to requests to join a recipe exchange, aka a “chain letter” as we called them many years ago. Too much trouble for low ROI. Please don’t take personally my lack of participation.

That said, here is my recipe for Raisin Burritos. We’ve been making them since the early 1980s when we lived in Hatch, NM, and learned about red and green chile. Bruce gets credit for finding the recipe on the back of a raisin box and suggesting we make it. At first, I scoffed. Who puts raisins in burritos? But when we tried it, we loved it. I lost the original recipe so had to reinvent it some years back, but this has worked for us. Recently, I googled on “raisin burritos” and there are some interesting recipes out there, but not this one.

Cook/brown 1 lb ground beef with chopped up 1 onion and 1 green pepper, in a large pan with a bit of oil; add in as much garlic as you like. I use a lot.

Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. I also add Mrs Dash’s seasoning, which I use in almost everything.

Add 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 can of corn, 2 small cans of chopped green chile to pan with meat & veggies; mix well, allow to simmer until liquid is gone.

Use about a dozen large flour tortillas; spread each with some refried beans, add some of the meat mixture, grated cheddar cheese, taco sauce. Then roll up the burrritos and arrange them in a baking dish. Heat 30 minutes or so at 350 degrees. I like to top them with sour cream once they are ready to serve, and sometimes add more sauce — taco, salsa, or chile verde.

They freeze well. To reheat, I put them in a toaster oven (for crispy tortilla wrapping) rather than a microwave (which makes the tortillas mushy).

So, that’s gonna be the extent of my recipe-sharing for the time being! Let me know if you like them.