Thorough planning is my mother's forte, while my near misses are what sets me apart. Mark teases me about this often, but when putting together a grocery list, I typically forget one vital ingredient to a meal for people. It's sort of a running joke that I hope trips and falls really soon.
Missing ingredient for enchiladas today was the most necessary of them all: the tortillas.
I quickly texted two neighbors, one right after the other, and when first said she had just used all of hers, and the second neighbor was busy throwing a birthday party for her 5 year old (happy birthday, Coral!), my problem-solving kicked in and thought... I'll just make them!
(because Heaven forbid I ask our guests to bring over the missing ingredient .. which I've done before, but let's not get into that)
Things I learned when doing this were:
First: I really, really like working my hands through flour.. have you ever done it? It feels like how I'd imagine a cloud to feel, so cool and unbelievably smooth and soft. TRY it. I felt like a moron telling Mark how nice it was over and over again! Really, truly, I almost never wanted to stop.
Second thing: the dough balls really just need to be torn from the dough and placed down. At first I was rolling them into individual balls, realizing quickly that they were drying out before I could finish all of them.
Third: cover said dough pieces with plastic wrap so they don't dry too quickly.
Fourth: don't use a tortilla roller, just use an American rolling pin. Mark's Turkish friends gave him one while he was deployed once and my hands felt like I had been clapping too long after just 15 minutes of rolling. (i'm sure you know that burning/itchy feeling after a good long clap at a sports game or play, right?)
Fifth: they were delicious. The first was too thick, the second was cooked too long, but after those two it was smooth sailing.
Sixth: There is something so primitively beautiful about a stack of homemade tortillas. The inner pioneer / frontier woman inside me was so proud. Ya ya.. just work your hands through flour and see if you can avoid the same feelings.
Here's the recipe I used. I substituted the lard (gross.) for shortening (still gross, but it's what I had.) and they turned out wonderful.
5 comments:
haha! Dan hates it when I do that ALL the time too! In fact just today I asked to borrow a spice that I forgot that is essential in the dish I was making. That is impressive that you made them! I have not attempted that and hopefully I won't ever have to. Glad they worked out great for you.
And I thought I was good for cooking the premade uncooked ones...way to step it up a notch! Jk I think that's awesome and I really want to try it now. So glad you posted the recipe!
Good to know! Homemade tortillas have been on my list of things to try, but I never have the time. Way to be proactive!
Yum, yum!!! I always make mine super thick on purpose! (ok I really hate rolling them out so they end up thick and my kiddos like them just fine) :)
I could go for some homemade tortillas right now.
I'm so impressed that you just whipped these out last minute, that would have totally stressed me out. These look amazing! I'm definitely going to have to try making them myself now.
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