Tortilla Heaven

Plato was right; necessity is the mother of invention. Not that I invented these tortillas, but I've never really considered making them until this week when we ran out of our gluten-free rice tortillas. True, I've never been a huge fan of the store-bought rice ones, anyway. They're relatively flat as paper, difficult to fold even when warm, and they get hard as soon as they cool--a frustrating scenario for a slow-eating toddler. Still, I was feeling rather sad about our lack of already-prepared food inventory--one more thing we didn't have to make lunch prep less of a scenario. I couldn't help feeling a bit ho de ho de hum about this whole budgeting and food thing.

However.

These tortillas are sooooooooo good. So good that I am having difficulty writing this rather than running upstairs to eat another one.

Okay. So just imagine you haven't been able to eat flour tortillas in a long time. Like, pretty much since you were 12 except for a gluten phase in college when all the same symptoms showed up but you tried to ignore them and eat pizza and drink beer instead. And then imagine it had been 12 years since you ate a flour tortilla, and instead you were relegated to the joy of discovering flat-as-paper brown rice tortillas in the refrigerated section of the health food store, and you diligently chewed through them with the usual ability to balance the benefits and flaws.

And then imagine you spend 5 minutes mixing up some flour and water and flipping a few tortillas on the stove while your kid zooms around the kitchen with her frog, asking you to please help her undress it even though the frog is meant to be dressed, the vest doesn't come off, that's the way it's made.

And then zip. You are suddenly transported to this heavenly place where a soft, puffy, warm tortilla is on your plate, rolled with melted cheddar cheese and chicken and covered with salsa. You would be speechless, too.

Cora loved them. It was seriously a joy to see her eating a quesadilla without having to tug and tear at the tortilla.

Even if you're not gluten-free, I think you'll like these. And if you can eat regular ol' flour tortillas, I say get theeself to another page on the interwebs and find thee a good recipe and start cooking. It's heaven. Tortilla heaven. Save yourself from the monotony of dry, packaged goods and make them yourself, even just once.

Mary Frances Pickett's Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Recipe
This recipe was inspired by Bette Hagman and adapted by Mary Frances Pickett. I followed it almost exactly except:
*I used her suggestion to substitute garbanzo bean flour for the soy flour.
*I sprinkled the counter with a mix of rice flour and garbanzo bean flour when flattening/rolling the dough.
*I didn't roll them as flat as possible. I left them a little bit thicker than the average tortilla, going for the more "handmade" tortilla thickness, if you've ever stumbled upon one of those delectable disks at a restaurant or grocery store.
*Lastly, I used a copper skillet and didn't use any shortening. An ungreased pan on medium-high heat worked great.