Cooking Therapy

the etsy site that i mentioned in yesterday’s post is not quite ready, but as soon as it is, i’ll post the info.

i’ve found, lately, that cooking has been theraputic! so here’s a fun recipe that we make all the time with our freshly ground whole wheat flour. check out www.breadbeckers.com for more info on that. someday, i’ll go into more detail, but basically i’ve come to believe that its super super healthy, and i like cooking and baking, so why not?? you just have to grind the wheat berries into flour in a Grain Mill, or a Vitamixor a Blendtec …any appliance that specifically says you can grind grain (food processors, unfortunatly, do not work! wish they did though!)

here’s what the wheat looks like before and after…Wheat berries on the right (before grinding)….and freshly ground flour on the left:

you can use this flour for anything, and substitute it in any recipe that calls for regular flour, but i most often use the recipes in a small book i got from breadbeckers.com. so today i’ll share the recipe for homemade tortillas with you. our family is crazy about any and all mexican food…so i’ve been making these tortillas out of the “healthy” flour, and they are so good! you can use them for anything…tacos, enchiladas, quesidillas, wraps, etc. i don’t even buy regular tortillas anymore!

here’s a brief tutorial: (ps: don’t get scared off by how imperfect they look. if you use an electic tortilla press, it makes them look alot better, but i don’t have one…would love one!…but until then, i’ll just keep rolling them out by hand…i have, after all, been praying for God to “heal” me of my perfectionism…maybe this is one way He’s refining my rough edges!)

ingredients: (should yield 10-12 medium tortillas)

1 Cup warm water

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 TBSP lecithin (optional), i’ve made it with and without, but i think it makes it a bit softer to use it…this can be purchased through www.breadbeckers.com, along with the grain

1/4 tsp baking powder

2-2 1/2 cups flour (i use hard red wheat ground into flour)

What to do:

Measure water and oil into bowl. Add salt, lecithin, and baking powder. slowly add flour, stirring with a spatula, until soft dough forms. (you can do this in a kitchen aid mixer, and let it mix for 4 minutes or so, but i find it way easy to just stir it all together.) the key is a soft dough, but not too sticky. so add flour until you reach a good consistency…but you do not want it to be dry!

(Try to not let your 2 year old lick the spatula…she snuck in there, but no worries…i did wash it off!)

it should kinda look like this. i actually did add in a bit more flour after this. you’ll know you need more if you try rolling it out and its just too wet and sticky to roll out.

Shape the dough into a log. measure off about 1/2 inch, and cut into disks (should be about the size of hockey pucks).

at this step, if you have a Tortilla Maker then the rest is pretty easy. but if you are like me, and don’t own one, you can roll them out by hand.

one at a time, roll each disk into a tortilla shape, as thin as you can, without it stretching and ripping. this actually is fairly easy if your dough is the right consistency. if its stretching and not rolling out easily, knead in a little extra flour…i had to do that this time:

the bug was occupied this whole time by rolling out her “tortas”

i cook mine on a big electric griddle, but you can get the same effect by using a pan over the stove, or even the oven. you want them to be pliable and soft, easy to roll up, so you don’t need to cook them very long at all…about 1-2 minutes on each side…basically, the time it takes you to roll out another tortilla. so i’m constantly rotating tortillas off my griddle.

the finished product! we used them for tacos this night.

if you happen to have any interest at all about learning about the freshly ground whole wheat flour thing, contact me and i can tell you more. i have to say…its become a huge part of our life now!! and i’d love to share it with you if you’d like!