Homemade Tortillas

I LOVE tortillas. I have been known to eat a whole bag of flour tortillas, plain, by myself. When I started reading ingredients, looking for healthier foods for me and my family, my heart sank. One of my favorite foods was full of junk! Seriously, some brands can have an ingredient list a mile long. Are these tasty flaps so complicated? Worse yet, it was hard to find tortillas without the potential for having trans fats (except for expensive organic brands).

My love affair with flour tortillas ended right then and there.

But after weeks and months without them, and even shelling out big bucks for a small pack of organic tortillas, I said enough is enough. There has to be a better way. I started making my own tortillas, which was the push toward more whole, from-scratch cooking in my home.

I was blown away, and even felt a little betrayed, that tortillas could be so simple to make. Four ingredients: flour, salt, extra-virgin olive oil, and water. Why did those companies have to shove 30 other ingredients upon me?

It has been about a year now, and I haven't bought a single bag of tortillas. I always have those four ingredients on-hand and with a little prep work, we have some delicious, fresh, hot tortillas made right at home.

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups flour
2. 1/2 tsp. salt
3. 3/4 cup water
4. 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Directions: (makes 8 medium tortillas)

• Whisk together salt and flour
• Add water and EVOO and mix with a wooden spoon until you can't mix anymore.
• Knead dough until smooth and not sticking to your fingers anymore. You may need to add more flour to accomplish this.
• Let dough rest a few minutes; meanwhile, get out your rolling pin and get your skillet or griddle ready.
• With a sharp knife, cut off pieces of the dough, depending on the desired size of tortillas. Cutting off a piece about the size of a baseball will give you a large (10") tortilla. Cutting a piece slightly larger than a golf ball will give you a medium (6") tortilla.
• Roll the cut-off dough balls into smooth, round balls.
• With a rolling pin, roll dough balls as flat as you can get them.
• When skillet is hot, carefully lay tortilla flat and let cook 30-60 seconds. Flip tortilla and cook an additional 5-10 seconds.

Enjoy these hot, fresh, slightly chewy tortillas. They freeze well and are so good!

4 easy ingredients

Let that dough rest!

In this batch, I doubled the above recipe. I ended up with 17 tortillas.

I'm still working on making them perfect circles

The cast iron skillet is my favorite, but any pan or griddle would work too!

 

Mmmmmmm

Corn Chowder

This is the best corn chowder recipe, ever. What's better than curling up with a bowl of creamy, hearty soup on a cold day? I have adapted my recipe from Ree Drummond's original recipe, but mine is healthier without the butter and by using skim milk in place of heavy whipping cream. This can easily become a Double Dinner--just freeze half of it or make a slightly larger batch and freeze the excess for later!

Ingredients:

• 2 slices bacon, cut into pieces
• 1-1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 4 cups frozen corn
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo, finely diced
• 1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies
• 32 oz low sodium chicken broth
• 1-1/2 cup milk (skim milk works well)
• 4 tablespoons corn meal
• 1 cup potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Directions:

1. Cook bacon in large pot or Dutch oven until crispy. Add onion and sauté 3-4 minutes.
2. Add corn and potatoes, stir and cook for a minute, then add chilies and stir well.
3. Add broth and milk and stir. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low.
4. Carefully sprinkle corn meal into soup (trying to avoid lumping), stirring constantly until incorporated. Let simmer 15 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked. If it still seems too runny, add more corn meal. Season with salt to taste.

Buffalo Chicken Pasta

A staple at our home. This meal isn't for someone who can't handle a bit of heat. It's adapted from Rachael Ray's original recipe, which she actually made for Olympians. My version of the recipe won a small cooking contest. If you're not heavy-handed with the cheese, it's quite a healthy meal, even though it tastes so hearty. Best yet, this recipe makes a large batch of pasta--enough for a Double Dinner! Freeze half of this recipe and there will be plenty to go around twice!

Ingredients:

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" pieces
• 4 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 large carrots, chopped
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 box whole wheat pasta (like penne)
• 1/4 cup Sriracha sauce
• 1/4 cup Frank's hot sauce
• 1 cup shredded Monterrey or Pepper Jack cheese

Directions:

1. In a large pot, cook pasta according to package. Drain pasta while it still has a little bit of a bite to it, as it will continue to cook in the meal. Draining pasta when it is fully cooked will result in it becoming over-cooked once added to the rest of the meal.
2. Put extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper and cook in skillet until done.
3. Add onion, celery, and carrots to the skillet and sautee until veggies are tender.
4. Add tomatoes and stir everything together. Turn heat down to low.
5. Add pasta to the skillet.
6. Add both hot sauces, using more or less depending on the level of heat desired.
7. Add shredded cheese and stir until all cheese is melted and well-blended. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Zucchini Lasagna

This sounds like an overly-healthy lasagna, which might make veggiephobes run and hide, but it's actually a pretty basic lasagna recipe with thin layers of zucchini instead of noodles.

I plant zucchini every year and this year, they did pretty well. I usually let the squash get to be 1-1.5 feet long, so we usually have a lot of zucchini in the summer and fall! There's really only so much zucchini bread you can make to get rid of it, so I had to get more creative this year. This lasagna recipe became a favorite and something I will look forward to along with zuke bread.

Ingredients:

• 1 large zucchini, sliced long-ways into 8" strips
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 15-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1.5 tablespoon dried oregano
• 15 oz ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1.5 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1.5 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Get out an 8x8 baking pan
2. Using a mandolin, slice zucchini long-ways into 8" strips. You'll need roughly 12 strips.
3. In a skillet, heat some extra virgin olive oil. Sautee onions until tender. Add ground turkey and cook completely, until meat is no longer pink. Add the can of crushed tomato and season with the oregano, salt, and pepper to taste.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the ricotta, egg, basil, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
5. In the 8x8 pan, layer the ingredients: zucchini, ricotta mixture, meat mixture, mozzarella and parmesan. Repeat once more. Top with another layer of zucchini and top with mozzarella and parmesan.
6. Cook, uncovered, until lasagna is bubbling on the sides. Let rest about 10 minutes before serving.

Greek Salad

I love my homemade Greek salad. I never had anything like this growing up. It wasn't until our honeymoon on an Alaskan cruise that I had Greek salad for the first time. When we got back into the real world, I had to try and replicate it!

We love this recipe because, really, we just feel so healthy when we have this for dinner! (Extra piece of dessert, anyone?) It's part of my growing search to incorporate meals into my regular list of recipes that reflect the ideas of the Mediterranean diet, where the greatest portions of food are plant-based, replacing bad fats with healthy fats, and eating more fish and poultry over red meat. Whole, healthy eating.

I don't measure anything for this recipe; it depends on how many veggies you use and then how you want the dressing to taste, but I'll give a general recipe.


Ingredients:
Salad:

• 1 large cucumber
• 1 can black olives
• 1 small red onion
• 3-4 medium tomatoes
• Feta cheese

Dressing:

• Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• Red wine vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Dried oregano
• Dried thyme
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Chop vegetables and toss into a large bowl.
2. To make dressing, combine about  1/3 cup EVOO, 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1.5 tablespoons oregano, 1 teaspoon thyme, 0.5 teaspoon pepper, and a little bit of salt to taste. Mix these ingredients well in a separate bowl. Tweak dressing with these ingredients until it tastes perfect.
3. Pour over veggies, toss, and crumble on Feta cheese.

Variations:
To make this feel more like a "meal," we may add chicken and/or quinoa. Cut 2 chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano, and cook in a pan with a little bit of EVOO until done. Add to salad. Another great ingredient to add, with or without the chicken, is quinoa. Add about 1 cup of cooked quinoa for more fiber and protein!