Friday, February 26, 2010

Foodie Friday: Homemade Tortillas

I have a confession. I have been lazy lately. I have not been good at menu planning at all. I have been taking the buy and see approach. This isn't good for the budget or supper time in our house. Oh well. Maybe next month will be better. 
I was planning on having chicken, bean, and tomato tortillas the other night. I cooked the chicken. I added the beans and tomatoes and then realized that we didn't have tortillas. I really didn't want to run to the grocery store. I knew that M would be getting home late and didn't want to have to make him go to the grocery store. My friend Google came to the rescue. I searched for homemade tortilla recipes and found this one. Sure it took some extra time, but it didn't involve a trip to the grocery store as I had all the ingredients on hand. 

Ingredients:
-2 cups of all-purpose flour (can make them whole wheat by substituting one cup of whole-wheat flour for white flour)
-1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
-1 teaspoon of salt
-2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
-3/4 cups of warm milk

Directions:
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and oil.
Slowly add the warm milk.
Stir until a loose, sticky ball is formed.
Knead for two minutes on a floured surface. Dough should be firm and soft.
Place dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap for 20 minutes.
After the dough has rested, break off eight sections, roll them into balls in your hands, place on a plate (make sure they aren’t touching) and then cover balls with damp cloth or plastic wrap for 10 minutes. (It’s very important to let the dough rest, otherwise it will be like elastic and won’t roll out to a proper thickness and shape.)
After dough has rested, one at a time place a dough ball on a floured surface, pat it out into a four-inch circle, and then roll with a rolling pin from the center until it’s thin and about eight inches in diameter. (If you roll out pie crusts you’ll have no problem with this.) Don’t over work the dough, or it’ll be stiff. Keep rolled-out tortillas covered until ready to cook.
In a dry iron skillet or comal heated on high, cook the tortilla about thirty seconds on each side. It should start to puff a bit when it’s done.
Keep cooked tortillas covered wrapped in a napkin until ready to eat.
Can be reheated in a dry iron skillet, over your gas-burner flame or in the oven wrapped in foil.
While you probably won’t have any leftovers, you can store in the fridge tightly wrapped in foil or plastic for a day or so.
Makes eight tortillas.

While I probably will make these again sometime, I did pick up the big double pack of tortillas from Sams Club the other day. Always be prepared.

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