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Thursday, April 1, 2010

Flour Tortillas & hummus-carrot-almond spread





See that? That's me attempting to look bad-ass with a freshly made tortilla. I know, it's not working.

It's a beautiful 79 degree day outside. Perfect for bike riding and a picnic. So I pulled my schwinn (Don't get too excited, I bought it used and it's technically a girls bike. Easier on and off I say!) out of the living room closet for the first time this season and found that my tires needed pumping. So I ran to the store, bought a new bike pump (as mine has some how found its way into the lost world of lost things) and pumped up the tires only to discover that there was rip in the valve of the tube. I'd like to say I was all pumped up for the day, but today that pun falls short on multiple levels.
Luckily, I also picked up a few odds and ends at the grocery while I was out so instead of going out I'm staying in with the windows open and cooking up some homemade flour tortillas. I have yet to decide what to put in them but I'm sure the inspiration will come eventually.

Here's the recipe I'm playing around with:

Flour Tortillas


Makes about 10-12 flour tortillas.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups of unbleached flour
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoons of salt
  • 4-6 Tablespoons of vegetable shortening or vegetable oil
  • 1 1/4 cups of warm water

  • Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
  • Mix vegetable shortening or oil with a cup and a quarter of warm water in a separate bowl. Make sure everything is mixed well.
  • Add the wet to the dry a little a time until the dough is soft and not sticky.
  • Knead the dough with your hands for a few minutes.
  • Now you will pull off pieces of dough to form about 12 small dough balls. Let them
  • rest for at least 10 minutes, longer if you like.
  • Heat up a non-stick frying pan on medium heat. You don't want the pan to be too hot or the tortillas will cook too quickly.
  • Now you can roll out the dough with your tortilla rolling pin. As I've never owned a rolling pin I use a heavy duty drinking glass. It works well! It helps to dust each ball with a little flour before rolling them out. Also putting a little flour on the rolling pin helps too. Roll out the dough on one side, flip it over and roll again. The goal is to get a nice circular and thin end product.
  • Gently pull the freshly pressed tortilla up from your working surface and lay into the dry frying pan. It's only going to take 30 seconds or less to cook. Heat it for 30 seconds on one side and flip the whole thing over and let cook for another 20 seconds before pulling off.
  • A good tortilla will be slightly brown with speckles.
  • That's it! You're ready for some "om nomming!" (If you're new to my blog that means they're ready to eat!)
So I have a stack of flour tortillas, waiting to be consumed by my famished self, but I have yet to make anything to go in the tortillas. Yes, I'm doing this backwards.

The last potluck I went to my friend Liz brought a delicious hummus dip. I decided I'd attempt to duplicate it and use it inside my tortillas. This wasn't your usual boring hummus either, it was full of shredded carrots, almonds, and other surprises!

So I pulled out my food processor and went to work.

Hummus-Carrot-Almond Spread


Ingredients

  • 1 cup of garbanzo beans
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tomato
  • Salt to taste
  • Lemon Juice to taste
  • Olive Oil to taste
  • Franks Hot Sauce to taste
Throw it all into the food processor, lock it up and turn it on.
You may want to add a bit more of the 'to taste' items afterward until everything is to the liking of your taste buds. What could be simpler?



Okay - now I'm off to eat.

Cheers.

** EDIT ** The next morning:


That's a homemade tortilla spread with the hummus concoction and some freshly fried up homemade black bean burger mess!

4 comments:

  1. Found you on lj and totally added you to my blogger feed like a creepy stalker chick. Oh, & I am now officially starving. ;)

    Btw, you are SUPER adorable!

    Thanks for the foodspiration.

    <3
    Courtney
    http://blog.lovewilllead.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi! I just saw you post on LJ, so I'm adding you to that and on here if that's cool!!

    --Caitlin / thehardcoreherbivore.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. I added you back! That's a wicked zebra cake!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Courtney! I'm happy to have real readers!

    ReplyDelete