I really want to get to the point in our food journey where we make most of our food from scratch. We do pretty good with most meals, cooking at home with fresh ingredients, and mostly un-processed foods. But I feel like there is a lot of room for improvement. I would much rather look at a cupboard full of mason jars filled with grains and homemade mixes than to look at a cupboard full of cans and boxes. One thing I have found with radically changing the way you eat, going from a typical American diet to a more natural, homemade diet is that it takes time. Its a journey that cant be completed overnight!
With that in mind, I have been trying to tackle making new foods one at a time. Something that I have been wanting to make from scratch forever is flour tortillas. We love having tacos, fajitas and burritos for dinner, but I hate buying tortillas from the store. What held me back was thinking that I needed a tortilla press (and even that's not a great excuse because they are $20 and you can buy them anywhere). But then I realized you can make flour tortillas without a press, and with all my excuses gone I sat down to find a recipe. Most called for lard, which I am not opposed to using. Turns out that lard actually isn't all that bad for you - compared to modern day "shorting" (ala Crisco) lard is easily the lesser of two evils. However we don't eat meat from conventionally raised animals, and I feel fairly confident that lard in a can at Winco is going to be from a factory farmed pig. I need to search for it at our local natural food market, but I have been forming my own plan to get my hands on some "safe" lard.....I am going to make it myself! Rendering your own lard is not a complicated process, I have a couple friends who have done it and said its very easy...with a wonderful result. I will ask the butcher for the fat from the 1/2 pig we ordered from our favorite local farmer, but we wont get that until the fall so I am searching for other local options.
Back to the tortillas! I used a recipe here (also posted below) that called for only 5 simple ingredients; Flour, baking powder, salt, vegetable oil and milk. The directions were easy to follow, mix the dough, let it rest, roll it into balls, let it rest, then roll it out and cook it on a cast iron comal. I need to find a traditional rolling pin like these ones because the one I have with handles was a little unwieldy. The recipe also says to heat the pan on high, but that torched the tortillas, I found that medium heat cooked the tortillas without burning them. When I laid them on the griddle it only took a couple seconds for bubbles to start forming, and after about 20-30 seconds I flipped them over:
Soon I had a little stack of tortillas going, and towards the end I got much better at making them round, instead of the blobby shaped one above!
The kids went crazy for these - after eating their tacos, they both wanted to eat more tortillas plain! I think that they could have had a tad more flavor to them, and that's probably where the lard will come in. There are a lot of recipes out there to try, I am looking forward to experimenting with them so we can find our favorite recipe. Next up is learning how to make homemade re-fried beans....then we can have a real Mexican fiesta!!
From the Homesick Texan:
Texas Flour Tortillas (adapted from The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison)
Ingredients:
Two 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
Method:
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.
With that in mind, I have been trying to tackle making new foods one at a time. Something that I have been wanting to make from scratch forever is flour tortillas. We love having tacos, fajitas and burritos for dinner, but I hate buying tortillas from the store. What held me back was thinking that I needed a tortilla press (and even that's not a great excuse because they are $20 and you can buy them anywhere). But then I realized you can make flour tortillas without a press, and with all my excuses gone I sat down to find a recipe. Most called for lard, which I am not opposed to using. Turns out that lard actually isn't all that bad for you - compared to modern day "shorting" (ala Crisco) lard is easily the lesser of two evils. However we don't eat meat from conventionally raised animals, and I feel fairly confident that lard in a can at Winco is going to be from a factory farmed pig. I need to search for it at our local natural food market, but I have been forming my own plan to get my hands on some "safe" lard.....I am going to make it myself! Rendering your own lard is not a complicated process, I have a couple friends who have done it and said its very easy...with a wonderful result. I will ask the butcher for the fat from the 1/2 pig we ordered from our favorite local farmer, but we wont get that until the fall so I am searching for other local options.
Back to the tortillas! I used a recipe here (also posted below) that called for only 5 simple ingredients; Flour, baking powder, salt, vegetable oil and milk. The directions were easy to follow, mix the dough, let it rest, roll it into balls, let it rest, then roll it out and cook it on a cast iron comal. I need to find a traditional rolling pin like these ones because the one I have with handles was a little unwieldy. The recipe also says to heat the pan on high, but that torched the tortillas, I found that medium heat cooked the tortillas without burning them. When I laid them on the griddle it only took a couple seconds for bubbles to start forming, and after about 20-30 seconds I flipped them over:
Soon I had a little stack of tortillas going, and towards the end I got much better at making them round, instead of the blobby shaped one above!
The kids went crazy for these - after eating their tacos, they both wanted to eat more tortillas plain! I think that they could have had a tad more flavor to them, and that's probably where the lard will come in. There are a lot of recipes out there to try, I am looking forward to experimenting with them so we can find our favorite recipe. Next up is learning how to make homemade re-fried beans....then we can have a real Mexican fiesta!!
From the Homesick Texan:
Texas Flour Tortillas (adapted from The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison)
Ingredients:
Two 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
Method:
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.