Friday, December 18, 2009

flour tortillas


One of the easiest , simplest money savers a family can do is to begin making their own tortillas. Once you make your own, you will never buy store bought ones again. I can make us 15-20 large tortillas for about 50 cents and my time and I know just what I am eating.

The biggest problem newbies find when making tortillas the first few times is they are too fat.This is not always the problem of the tortilla roller but the recipe itself. Any tortilla recipe that has baking powder in it is going to make a fat tortilla no matter how thin you roll it.

We eat a lot of tortillas here and not simply because we eat alot of hispanic foods. I will put anything in a tortilla and call it a wrap. Spaghetti in a tortilla with cheese is surprisingly good as is scalloped potatoes and ham. I always wonder what you call chinese stir fry in a tortilla other than really good?

Keep in mind that when you make your own tortillas there are no preservatives in it so they will not keep anywhere near as long as store bought tortillas. If I keep mine in an airtight bag in the fridge, they will last about a week, however, they dont seem to be as flexible as the store bought ones after a few days, so they tend to be hard to use.


my recipe

3 cups flour
2 tbsp oil or lard
dash of salt
1 1/4 cup water or there about

mix all ingredients until dough forms. Flour hands and knead about 10 times. Let dough rest with moist towel covering for 15 minutes. Heat pan, griddle or stove top til very hot. Break off ping pong ball size ball dip in flour and roll thin.It should roll out to about 7-8 inches. They will not be perfectly round like store bought either, so get over it. Place tortilla in pan or on surface and cook until it begins bubbling and turn.Cook until bubbling again and remove.

all total it should take 2 -3 minutes per tortilla, if it takes longer your surface is not hot enough

2 comments:

  1. These are a family now. I have three kids and they absolutely love these! I make them with 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat flour. I've tried them with 100% whole wheat and they become very tender and tear easily. Thank you for this recipe, I have passed it on to many others! I cook many of my meals during the winter on my antique wood cook stove. My kids always look forward to cold weather so I will start the stove and cook these on top. I do make them in the summer using a cast iron skillet on my gas cooktop stove, but they say they aren't quite as good. Thank you also for the inspiration from your blog!!! Keep it coming!

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  2. Thank you so much for sharing this post with your readers.

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