Tortillas

Last night it was as if the clouds parted, a choir of angels descended and began singing, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!  She did it.  Made tortillas!  Hallelujah!!!"  Ok, I might be exaggerating a tad, but seriously my quest for decent from scratch tortillas has been a multi-year quest.  It has finally come to an end.

I have tried several recipes and while they were all tasty, I hadn't found "the one."  Most of the time, I couldn't get them rolled thin enough and they ended up being more like flatbread than a tortilla.  I posted my problem on the kitchen forum on Diaperswappers a while back and Nikki offered her recipe.  It was super simple, required no special ingredients, was whole wheat... what more could I ask?  Tortilla making has been on my "to do" list for a while and last night I finally got around to making them.  The dough mixed up very easily, and rolled out really well.  I don't think I had my skillet hot enough for the first couple tortillas, but once I got going it was super easy.  While I had one cooking in the skillet, I rolled  the second and so on.   Once I was finished, I made myself a bean and cheese quesadilla that was so yummy.  It was just refried beans, cheese and tortilla.  Please do keep in mind that it was nearing 9 pm and I still hadn't eaten, so that could've been part of the reason it was soooo good.

I bagged those bad boys up in a Ziploc bag and into the refrigerator they went.  I was a bit worried this morning when I pulled them out and there was condensation all over the bag (oops, didn't let them cool completely), but when I got them in the pan this morning for sausage, egg and cheese quesadillas, they crisped up nicely.  I also had a little extra spaghetti meat from earlier this week and thought, "Heck, why not?"  So I made up some egg, meat and cheese burritos.  Now, it's not something I would have every day, it wasn't half bad.  I added extra cheese and we all know that cheese makes everything better!

So, without further adieu, I present my tortilla recipe (and Nikki's and anyone else who might have decided to try it)!  LOL

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. oil (I used EVOO)
2/3 cup warm water

I placed the flour and salt in my food processor and gave it a quick whirl to combine it.  Then I drizzled in the oil, followed by the water.  The dough was slightly sticky when I pulled it out of the processor, but a quick dusting of the counter and kneading it a couple of times, it became very workable.  I rolled it into a ball, placed it in a bowl, covered it with a towel and let it sit on the back of the stove for 20 minutes. 

When the 20 minutes was up, I scooped the dough out of the dough and kneaded it a few times.  Then I separated the dough into equal portions.  I even went so far as to weigh the dough and divide it into 11 equal portions (but you definitely don't have to do that)!  Roll each portion into a ball and place on a plate, cover and let rest for 20 minutes.  I just threw them together in a pile on a salad plate and well they REALLY stuck together.  In the future, I will be sure that the dough balls don't touch.

OK, 20 minutes is up and you are ready for some tortilla making.  Let your ungreased skillet get hot, and by hot, I don't mean warm, been there done that!  Take a ball of dough out and on a lightly floured surface roll it out to a 6-8 inch circle.  I didn't need to flour the counter, they weren't sticking so I skipped that part.  Also, my tortillas weren't really circles, but I figure  practice makes perfect on that.

Lay the tortilla in the skillet and grab another piece of dough to roll out while you count to 20.  Flip the tortilla in the skillet, continue rolling and count to 20 again.  Remove the tortilla from the skillet and place on a plate and cover with a towel.  Place the tortilla you've been rolling into the skillet and start all over.  Toward the end, my skillet was hot enough that it only took 15 seconds to adequately cook a side, so I was speed rolling to keep up, but all of them managed to get done and I didn't burn any (surprise, surprise)!