I really like making my own foods, and I like to start as from as far back in the food chain as possible. After all, we have a grain mill and we know how to use it! I’ve made bread, crackers, bagels, pretzels, cakes, foccacia, cookies, granola, muffins, breadsticks, pretty much every sort of grain type thing you could think of… everything except tortillas. The most recent issue of Fine Cooking had an article on making flour tortillas which promised that it was easier than one might think, so I thought I would give it a try. The first attempt a week or two ago was decent, and it seemed like it worked well enough to warrant another attempt. I tried again tonight, and now those little plastic bags from the store are looking awfully tempting… I am fairly certain the problem lies with me, rather than the recipe, but that creates a problem too. I like to use whole grains, and I try to use them as much as possible. I’ve been known to make brownies with whole grain pastry flour, which perhaps gives you an idea of just how much I like whole grains. :-) The Fine Cooking recipe uses all-purpose flour, and I think it is vital to the success of the recipe. The first time I made the tortillas, I used half white and half whole wheat, and they were pretty good - I just think my technique needed a little work. The second time though I had run out of white flour, so I tried to use all whole wheat… and that was not all that successful. They were really more like flatbread than tortillas, and only flexible when very warm. So… now I’m wondering - all whole wheat tortillas from Trader Joe’s, or homemade white flour or half and half tortillas made at home? They are awfully time consuming to make too… maybe if I had a nice big griddle it would be a little faster, but cooking them one at a time really takes a long time.

Today I’m leaning towards just buying the darn things, but I think that is perhaps frustration speaking!

And I wonder… will I still be doing stuff like this in 10 years? 20 years?