Fresh and Fast Homemade Tortillas

Fair warning: Once you try making tortillas from scratch, those store-bought ones will taste like cardboard. You'll never go back. Good thing these are so easy to make.

This recipe was not taught to me by my abuelita, nor anyone else's abuelita, for that matter, and it makes no claim to authenticity. A fresh tortilla made with silky-soft white flour and lard is incomparably delicious ... but I can't bring myself to make it that way. In this version, white whole-wheat flour and a small amount of oil make for a soft, flavorful tortilla with a little more nutritive value. I made it as healthfully as I could—pushing it any further, I found, ruins all the pillowy gorgeousness of a homemade tortilla.

Once you've made these once or twice, you should be able to crank out a batch within 20 minutes. It's all hands-on work, which can be tough to manage with young ones underfoot. The best way to pull it off is to have them join in: Let them mix up the dough by hand, and watch and giggle as the tortillas puff up on the skillet. 

Yep, that's funny-looking.

A few tips:

• More hands = more fun. Enlist little ones to blend the dough. If you have more skilled help available, have one person roll out tortillas while the other mans the skillet.
• Preheat your skillet. Make sure it's hot before you throw your first tortilla on there. But not too hot—you want gentle browning, not smoky blackening.
• Keep 'em soft. When you take the tortillas off the heat, wrap them in a kitchen towel. To store for later, pack them in a zip-top bag or airtight container while they're still warm.
• Make extra. These are irresistible fresh off the skillet, but they store well. Make a larger batch and save some for easy snacks and lunches later in the week. 
• Add flavor. Try incorporating pumpkin, tomato paste, spinach, or red peppers. To see how to do it, check out this recipe for Pumpkin Tortillas.

Leftover stir-fry wrapped in fresh tortillas—yum!

Homemade Tortillas

This goes very light on the oil—if you wish, you can add a little more; I rub a few drops of olive oil on my hands when I knead the dough. Makes 8 to 10 tortillas.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole-wheat flour (or substitute all-purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
¾ cup warm water

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt with your fingers or a fork. Drizzle the oil over the dry ingredients and blend well. Add a spoonful or two of water, mix in, and repeat until the dough starts to come together in a shaggy ball. You might need a little more or a little less water.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a few minutes until it’s smooth and elastic. Divide into 8 to 10 pieces and roll into balls—about the size of ping-pong balls.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Roll a ball of dough out into a very thin circle, about 7 to 8 inches. If the dough is resisting, cover and let it rest for 10 to 20 minutes.

Put the rolled-out dough onto the heated skillet and cook for about 15 seconds; you should see some puffy spots and browning. Shake the skillet a little to slide the tortilla around if it gets too puffy. Flip every 15 to 20 seconds—it shouldn't take more than a minute or so.

Wrap cooked tortillas in a kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft, or store in a tortilla warmer while you cook the remaining tortillas. If you have leftovers, store them for up to a week in the refrigerator in a zip-top bag or airtight container, or in the freezer.

Lunchbox Tricks with Pizza Treats

We've been back to school for a few weeks now, but we're only just beginning to get back in rhythm. A new year inspires a renewed commitment to sending our kids to school with healthy, fun, and tasty lunches to fuel them through these busy days.

Darienne and I  found out lately that pizza dough is great and versatile way for lunch boxes. They make a good alternative to sandwiches and the kids like to eat them cold, which is a good advantage. Here are some links of how creative you can go with them: 

Pizza Lollipops: These are a favorite for Darienne's kids! If you have a small lunch box or just don't want to bother with lollipop sticks, they're equally entertaining as little wheels.

Ham and Broccoli Calzones: These calcium-rich pocket sandwiches are fun—and fast to make if you have pizza dough ready to go.

Beef and Spinach Pockets: Loaded with lots of higher nutrition ingredients, these are easy to eat and freeze well. Do a whole batch and warp individually so that you can send to lunch when running out of ideas. 

Mini Hot Dogs  aka Pigs in a Blanket - Sounds like a party? Maybe good for one special day of the week. This is fair competition with the cafeteria, does well eaten cold, and you choose the best type of frank, tomato sauce, and even one or two green ingredients to be wrapped in it. 

The magic about playing with pizza dough is that by making them different shapes you can be creative with the fillings. From chicken to grass-fed ground beef, using chopped vegetables and including all sort of seasonings and some good cheese, the pockets, calzones, and lollipops can be a complete meal, guaranteed to vanish from the box. 

For a very delicious homemade dough recipe, you can use this one by Darienne: 

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (one package)

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for baking sheet

optional: fresh or dried herbs, ground flax seed

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine the flour, yeast, and salt, along with herbs or flax seed, if using. Process the dry ingredients briefly, then pour in 1 cup of lukewarm water and the olive oil. Add more water, just a tiny bit at a time (you might not use the entire amount) and continue to process until the dough forms a ball. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead for a minute or so to form a ball. Set dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Divide dough into as many pieces as you plan to turn into pizzas, pizzas, calzones, lollipops or blankets. Shape each piece into a ball and set on a floured surface. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and let rest for 15 to 20 minutes. Use the dough as desired, following the recipes above. 

Food blues

“I don’t want to be hot lunch!”

I should be thrilled: My second-grader actually wants me to pack his lunch every day. Really? After all the whining last year about having to bring his lunch three days out of five?

Instead, I feel desperate. I have no idea what to send to school with him.

I should be full of ideas. That’s my job here—to have good ideas about feeding our kids. This blog boasts more than three dozen creative ideas for stuffing a lunch sack, and that's in addition to traditional sandwiches, meat-and-cheese skewers, and the usual fare.

But my kid isn’t eating much of anything these days. His list of acceptable foods has grown pitifully short. The only chicken he’ll eat is in nugget form (only fast food, not frozen and certainly not homemade). He balks at beef except in tacos, satay, and sometimes Trader Joe’s Bool Kogi. Beans, pork, and fish are out. So are vegetables except romaine lettuce. Cheese pizza is OK hot, but not packed cold. Pasta must be hot, plain, and only in certain shapes.

Peanut butter, Nutella, and fluff sandwiches are good, except when they aren’t. Quesadillas, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, pot stickers, eggs, yogurt that isn’t in a tube, cheese, nuts, and most fruits—fresh and dried—are all on the reject list.

I’m burned out. Fed up. Seriously annoyed.

It was a relief and surprise when he recently asked to make sourdough bread, using a starter recipe from a cooking class he took two years ago. He didn't need to ask me twice. That afternoon, we got our starter going. Five days later, we baked two huge, gorgeous loaves of bread. A few days after that, he sold homemade sourdough baguettes at a lemonade stand to benefit his school. An extra cup of starter yielded the tastiest, laziest waffles I've ever enjoyed in my kitchen.

His starter, nicknamed "Cutie," is now almost a month old. He's feeding it regularly and cheers to see it bubble and rise.

It's just white bread—plain, simple, bad carbs and all. But it's nourishing, in so many ways.

What do you do when you have the lunch box blues? If you have any ideas, please share in the comments!