Flour Tortillas. Mmmmm...

I love freshly made flour tortillas. I've been over in the kitchen several times when Rosy is making them.  They're used for baleadas, gringas, and sincronizadas, which the school often serves for merienda, our mid-morning break.  I have wanted to learn how to make the tortillas for a while now, but never managed to get to the kitchen before Rosy started the process.  I always seemed to come in somewhere along the way.  Even with that, I had learned what the dough should feel like, how to form the tortillas, how to cook them, etc.

Well, last night I decided to take off the training wheels.  That's right, boys and girls.  I, Susan Smith, decided to make flour tortillas by myself (and for myself).  I looked up a promising recipe on line and began gathering all the ingredients.

Right off the bat, I knew I would have to make a player substitution.  The recipe called for (and strongly demanded that you not substitute anything else) lard.  My bad  -- I don't have any lard in the house.  I also don't have any solid shortening or stick margarine, which were presented as acceptable substitutions by user comments on the recipe site.  So, I used what I had: Parkay spread.  I was already prepared for less than stellar results, based on my fat substitution, but consoled myself that at least the Parkay was mostly solid and would serve the intended purpose of 'cutting in' the solid fat among the flour.

I'll spare you the details of the step-by-step process and jump straight to the bottom line:  They came out great!  The recipe made 8 tortillas, the first two of which were less than round.  By the third one, I pretty much got the hang of it and they were actually round tortillas.  I was forming them by hand -- no rolling pin.  After I cooked them, I took the two most perfectly shaped and cooked tortillas, which happened to be #7 and #8, over to the Center for our folks there to try.  They all said they were very good.  That they looked good and tasted good.  Victory!

I think I'm going to make some more tonight, to refine my skills.  Then, who knows?  I might get really brave and venture on to corn tortillas.

Here's how my tortillas turned out.

Yup! Good enough to eat.  And I did!  The whole batch, except the two I brought to the Center.