Recipe of the Week: Flour Tortillas

Lately, quesadillas have become my go-to dinner for a quick, easy meal. There's always a few veggies rattling around my fridge, ready to be sauteed, and I've been buying rotisserie chickens to keep on hand for quick sandwiches and salads. Toss in some cheese, and you've got a quality dinner in under 15 minutes. My favorite combination of late is sauteed mushrooms, grilled yellow and red onions, spinach flash sauteed with garlic and dabs of fresh mozzarella. Non-traditional? Yes. Tasty? Double yes. (It's also a good meatless dish for Lent.)

But today's recipe isn't for quesadillas. It's for tortillas, the base of a good quesadilla. As a kid, I loved helping my mom make tortillas from scratch. I would wait for the dough to bubble slightly in the pan, then quickly flip them over. For desert, my sisters and I would slather them with butter, cinnamon and sugar and let them puff up in the microwave for a few seconds.

These warm, soft, homemade tortillas are so easy that you'll wonder why you ever bought prepackaged ones in the first place.

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups all purpose flour (white, wheat, or mixed. I like to do a combination of the two.)
• 6 tablespoons shortening (Crisco)
• 1 and 1/4 cups water

Instructions:

1. Cut salt, flour and shortening with fork or process in food processor. (If you have a food processor, bust it out. It will make things go a lot faster.)
2. Add 1 and 1/4 cup (or more if needed) and mix until no loose flour remains in the bottom.
3. Roll dough into egg sized balls. Cover, and let sit for 15 minutes.
4. Roll flat. Try to roll them as thin as you can without cracking the dough.
5. Heat a skillet over medium low heat. (I like to use a cast iron skillet, because it holds consistent heat well, but any medium sized skillet will do.)
6. Fry without grease until light brown on both sides. When you start to see the dough bubble, it's time to flip them (kind of like pancakes.) 
7. Enjoy warm with butter or with your favorite taco or quesadilla recipe!