Making Tortillas

I love making homemade tortillas.  Some people argue that homemade tortillas are a waste of time, because you can buy them pretty inexpensively, and they can take a while to make.  While both of those are true, I still choose to make them myself because all of those "little" costs still add up.  Plus, I like that I can make them to suit our tastes.  I like to make them healthy, but I really don't enjoy 100% whole wheat tortillas.  So I make them half whole wheat, half regular flour, which is a good compromise for me.  They do require a bit of a time investment, though, especially since I like to make double batches.  For a while I dreaded making them because they did take quite a bit of time to roll out and cook.  But then I discovered a couple of tricks that cut my time at least in half, and I enjoy making them again!  The first thing I did was to start making them smaller.  The smaller tortillas roll out much quicker, and, as a bonus, I get more!  Then, I started using two pans at a time to cook them.  Since the smaller ones roll out quicker, I can easily have two tortillas ready to cook by the time the first two are done.  When I was doing just one at a time, I would always have a backlog of tortillas waiting to cook, which meant I was cooking for a while after I was done rolling out.  These two things greatly simplified my tortilla-making!

Another reason I like making my own tortillas is because it's a great project for the kids to "help" with.  I just give them a piece of dough and they have fun with it while I roll out the rest.  They each received their own wooden rolling pin (real ones!  just smaller) for Christmas, which adds to the fun, since they're not having to wait to use mine (and I don't have to share).  They stay involved for quite some time, and there's little mess involved, so we're all happy!

See that little shaker with the green lid?  My mom gave me that idea  - it's full of
flour, which is awesome for jobs like this!