Tortillas from a Norskie

It's my first attempt into making whole wheat tortillas. Not exactly lefse but maybe they're a very distant cousin. Note to self...next time try lefse. I always have plenty of potatoes and of course you all will be along for the ride. However tonight, it's tortillas. Here's how this whole thing started...

We have this leftover Spanish rice that was not quite enough to be split into two portions for Nut and me, so I thought it would make a good burrito filling. Here's the thing... we have no tortillas. however as our sister site Dirt Poor Survival promotes, if you don't have it, make it or improvise. So I decided to make tortillas. It was surprisingly easy.

I decided to pair the making of the tortillas with making Tucker's dog cookies. Both are heavy whole wheat doughs, so I made the tortilla dough first, divided them into balls and while they are resting for their ten minutes, I would get started on Tuckie's cookies. (For more on dog cookies and dog food, click here.)

Cookies done. Tuckie is one happy camper. He got his cookie dough rations, and some cookies fresh from the oven...well cooled, of course. He's now outside waking up the neighbors LOL. Good time for tortillas.The recipe I tried for our whole wheat tortillas I discovered on ehow.com.

The dough itself was way easier than I anticipated. I did add a bit more water than the recipe called for. This is my dough, inspired by the recipe on ehow.com.

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup cold water
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
4 1/2 tsp. oil

Mix up, then knead together until it's a non-sticky ball. Divide into 12 balls and let sit.

(this is where Tuckie got his cookies made)

Rolling them out.

I happily found this dough to be really easy and forgiving. I set myself up on the couch with a cutting board (my favorite... Nut made it in 6th grade... little did he know!) and I rolled out my 12 dough balls.

• I tested this recipe cooking them three ways. First was simply cooking in a dry fry pan. It came out toasted, nutty, with still a bit of bend to it. Good for soft tacos, wraps or any other flat bread use.


• Second, we fried a couple in oil. Wow! Those were so yummy. We just lightly salted as it came out of the oil. When they were cooking, the dough would really bubble up. So crunchy, so good... Addicting!


• The third way was making burritos. That leftover Spanish rice was the filling, mixed with extra green chiles, black olives and cheddar cheese. I wrapped the burritos with the dough uncooked, then baked them in the oven: 400 degrees for 1 hour. (Note the oven in our trailer bakes a bit cooler than more up to date ovens, so less baking time may be needed. Just start keeping an eye on them after 1/2 hour of baking time.) The tortillas in this usage, came out crust-like, almost like a pie crust. The burritos kept sealed well, and only one out of eight had any kind of split, and even that wasn't too bad.

I know I'm going to be playing with this recipe a bunch in the future. This dough is easy to put together, and easy to work with, and the possibilities on using this are endless. This could well become one of my base recipes.