Homemade Tortillas

Yesterday, we had taco night and one of the things that we wanted to do was to make our own tortillas. We had made them in the past and wanted to try them again, so we searched the Internet for a good recipe and came upon this one below by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman.

We found that each batch made 15 tortillas and followed the instructions word for word with the exception of the second wait time. My comments are also below in red.

Anyway, the recipe is below...

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2-1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 1/2 cup Lard Or Vegetable Shortening
• 2 Tablespoons (additional) Lard Or Vegetable Shortening
• 1 cup Hot Water

Preparation Instructions

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large wooden bowl. Stir together.

Add spoonfuls of lard or shortening (use 1/2 cup PLUS 2 tablespoons), then use a pastry cutter to combine the ingredients. Cut mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.

Slowly pour in hot water, stirring to bring mixture together. Lightly knead dough 30 to 40 times, or until it becomes a cohesive ball of dough and is less sticky. Cover with a tea towel and allow dough to rest for at least an hour.

Roll into ping pong size balls, place on a tray, cover with a tea towel, and allow to rest for another 20 to 30 minutes. (We did not wait the addition 20-30 minutes following rolling them into balls.)

When you're ready to make the tortillas, head a dark or cast iron griddle to medium/medium-high heat. (We used medium low heat in a cast iron skillet.)

One by one, roll out balls of dough until very, very thin.  (I didn't roll some too thin and they came out more like gordita shells from Taco Bell)

Throw tortillas (one by one) onto the griddle. Cook on each side for 20 to 30 seconds, removing while tortillas are still soft but slightly brown in spots.

Remove and stack tortillas, and cover with a towel to keep warm. Serve immediately or allow to cool before storing tortillas in a container.

To warm, nuke tortillas in the microwave, or wrap in foil and warm in the oven.

Helpful tips:

* Make sure the water you pour in is very warm.
* Allow the dough to rest, both after kneading and after forming into balls.
* Roll out very thin.
* Get the heat right on your stove: Too hot, and the tortilla will burn in spots. Not hot enough, and the tortilla will begin to crisp before you can get it to brown. I get my stove between medium and medium high heat; that seems to do the trick.
* Use a dark griddle or cast iron skillet to brown the tortillas.
* Cook just long enough to lightly brown the tortilla in spots; don't cook too long or tortillas will crisp. You want them to be soft and pliable when you serve them.
* Finally: Have fun! And enjoy them. They're absolutely scrumptious.

Mountainman Breakfast

Tonight we are having breakfast for dinner so I am making my "Mountainman Breakfast Casserole" in out 12" dutch oven. This meal can be made over a campfire of in the oven. Ours was in the oven tonight.

Ingredients:
2 pounds of sausage
2 pounds hash brown potatoes
8 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup of water
2 cups of shredded cheese

Step 1 - If using a campfire,heat fire to a bed of hot coals, else preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2 - Beat 8 eggs with 1/4 cup of water.




 


Step 3 - Crumble sausage and cook. I choose to do this in a separate pan, but you can do it in the dutch oven as well.


Step 4 - Remove cooked sausage and drain on paper towels, reserving sausage grease in the pan.



 


Step 5 - Using the sausage drippings, brown the hash browns.

Step 6 - Coat the bottom of the dutch oven with the layer of hash browns. Here is where cooking the sausage and hash browns in the dutch oven would've saved some time (and clean up).
 
Step 7- Place the cooked sausage over the layer of the hashbrowns.

Step 8 - Pour your eggs over the sausage layer


Step 9 - Sprinkle the top of the casserole with the 2 cups of cheese. We used Colby-Jack for ours.



Step 10a - Cover the dutch oven and place in the oven, or...

Step 10b - Cover the dutch oven and cook with 8 coals underneath and 16 coals on top

Step 11 - Cook for 20-35 minutes, until the eggs are done

Step 12 - Enjoy!


I hope that you enjoy this recipe!

 

Egg In A Basket

This morning, I had a craving for eggs so I decided to make a really cool comfort food. Egg In A Basket.

The dish is typically made as bread with an egg in the center, cooked with a little butter or oil. It is commonly prepared by cutting a circular or square hole in the center of a piece of buttered bread and cooking a egg in the middle.

Step 1 - Pre heat a frying pan to medium heat. Too high of heat and the bread will burn before the egg was done. (See below)

Step 2 - Butter the bread on both sides.

Step 3 - Cut a circular hole in the bread. I usually use a small cup or mason jar.

Step 4 - Select a fresh egg. These are eggs from our chickens.

Step 5 - Place the buttered bread with the hole in it in a pre-heated pan

Step 6 - An egg is cracked into the "basket" cut into the toast. 

Step 7a - Don't burn the meal. I had the heat set too high and burned my first attempt at breakfast.

Step 7b - When the underside is grilled nicely and the egg white is a bit solid, flip it over.

Step 8 - Serve on a plate with pepper and enjoy!







 I hope that you try and like this. I know of a lot of people (myself included) that consider this dish to be a really good comfort food.

Meals in a Jar - BOOK REVIEW

I recently had the opportunity to review the book Meals in a Jar: Quick and Easy, Just-Add-Water, Homemade Recipes by Julie Languille. The book describes "Ready-made meals" as a jar or bag with everything you need to create a complete meal with no additional ingredients. The book strives to focus on meals that combine taste, quality, convenience with preparedness and cost-efficiency.

In reading through this book, one quickly realizes that the meals listed could replace the standard MRE with the simple addition of water. The one caveat that I would mention is that the meals listed take a lot of advance planning and preparation (and in some cases a lot of food) especially since some of the ingredients listed in some of the recipes would need to be ordered online.

One thing that stands out when reading this book is the breadth of meals that are covered. There are over one-hundred meals from breakfast to dessert and everything in between that are not only good for practical preppers, but are also good for people who enjoy outdoor activities such as camping, hunting, fishing or hiking excursions.

In reading through this book, I immediately recall the simpler times when grandmothers would give the gift of meals in a jar as wonderful, tasty treats. Along that vein, the meals described in this book would make great gifts for new moms, holiday gifts as well as housewarmings. In addition to those events, ready made meals are great for when you need a quick prep meal for times when life gets busy with kids' sports, music and academic activities.

Although most of the recipes call for items that you may not have on-hand, they are easily found on the web. Once you have the ingredients and equipment needed, you should be ready to go. I should mention that the author uses plastic bags, called retort pouches which is similar to what the military uses for certain MREs.

All-in-all, this was a good book. If you are looking for a book that helps you create dried and dehydrated ingredient meals to store in mason jars then this book is for you.

The Prepper's Cookbook - BOOK REVIEW

Recently, I had the pleasure to review The Prepper's Cookbook, 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food Into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals by Tess Pennington. This book contains practical information for the beginning as well as for seasoned preppers, but doesn't stop there. It's more than a cookbook of great recipes. It's a how-to guide for preppers and newbies.

In the introduction to the book, Ms. Pennington sets up a beautiful and rich story of the history of these recipes from tales of her great, great grandmother, who traveled across Oklahoma in a covered wagon with seventeen children. They not only lived on the food that they produced, but also put a portion of their harvest aside for future use.

She addresses homesteaders and preppers as neo-pioneers and begins her book by starting with the basics of prepping, food storage and rotation. Topics such as how much food to store, how to rotate your supplies and why you need to store certain types of foods are covered. There is even good advice offered on how to economically stretch your meals.

Ms. Pennington then addresses how to store and treat potentially unsafe water for use.

In the next section, food preservation is tackled. This section contains information on water bath and pressure canning including considerations for "Canning Off The Grid". It also covers the topic of dehydration, including some delicious recipes for jerky.

The Prepper's Cookbook then moves on to the mouth-watering recipes which encompass everything from breakfast to dinner and from snacks to desserts. The meals listed go from from simple to complex and include a great variety of cultural (Southern, Italian, Greek and Tex-Mex) recipes as well as comfort food. This book is packed with a lot of different ideas and recipes for food that would suit even the pickiest of eaters as well as those with special dietary needs, such as diabetics.

When I received this book, my wife saw it and literally ran with it, looking through it, noting various recipes for us to try. One of our personal family favorites is King Ranch. Thank you, Tess!

I'd like to conclude this review with some thoughts from my wife, who is a great cook in her own right.  My wife read the book as well and when I asked her her thoughts, she commented, "It is a great cookbook and is not just for preppers. It's a great cookbook in general and the author was brilliant in creating it."

This book is kid friendly and contains something for every palate, from drinks to full meals. As the author recommends, "Don't just survive, thrive!" This book will definitely help you to do just that and belongs on your list of "must haves."