Filling Up Little Bellies: Flawed Lessons

We're getting closer to Spring!

I made flour tortillas this week to have along side a black bean soup. Traditionally they are made with lard, but I used vegetable shortening instead and I think they still tasted pretty good. They were also super easy, the dough was so soft and easy to roll out it felt like it took no real effort to make them. The recipe that I used mentioned that because they had baking soda in them they were more Tex Mex than traditional Mexican and so I think I will try omitting it next time to see the difference.

The recipe is from Shared Appetite.

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons vegetable shortening

1 and 1/4 cups warm water

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then cut in shortening. Once the mixture is crumbly add in the warm water until a sticky dough forms. Knead the dough on the countertop until it is no longer sticky, a couple minutes.

Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest 20 minutes. Pinch off ping pong size balls and cover them again and let rest for another 10 minutes.

Roll out the first one, preheat a dry skillet over medium-low heat and cook a minute or two a side until golden. Roll out the second one while the first one cooks and so on until they are done. I wrapped them in foil and kept them in the warming drawer until they were all done and we were ready to eat.

They were pretty simple and mixed together easily, of course it's always easier with a helper.

There was a little kneading, but only for a couple minutes.

I tried my tortilla press but, as suggested, they were too thick and so I just rolled them out, it took a couple minutes for each one. I got 18 small ones out of the this recipe.

On my stove I started them at 5 and then turned the pan down to 31/2 after a couple and they browned quite nicely and quickly there.

We had them with black bean soup.

1 Tbsp Grape seed oil
2 onions, chopped
4 (large) cloves of garlic pressed
2 Tbsp cumin
Pinch of salt
3 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
3 ripe tomatoes
1/2 cup green salsa
1/2 cup cilantro
pinch of salt
2 Tbsp of Miso

Saute the onions in the grape seed oil until soft with a pinch of salt and the cumin. Add the garlic when they are just about soft and cook for a couple minutes. Add the black beans and cover with water (about three cups), bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile cut the tomatoes in half and whirl them up in the food processor with the salsa, cilantro and salt until liquid. Add this to the beans and pure the entire soup. If you like, add another cup of black beans whole, take out a small bowl of soup and dissolve the Miso paste in it and then stir into the rest of the soup.

Dance Break...

Sleepy Time...

We let Hannah stay up for the last Jet's game, once she found out they were out for sure - she didn't feel the need to watch the end.

Do you ever have those days where you cook all day and at the end of the day you end up with pretty well nothing? Yeah, I hate those days, although today ended on a high note. On the agenda today was crackers for a party that I'm going to tomorrow, bread and ravioli.

I made the bread and let it rise by the front window where it was nice and warm while I made the dough for the crackers, which needed to rest before being rolled out and cooked.

The long and the short of it is that I forgot about the bread which rose and fell, and I threw it out in frustration. Dave told me after that he thought I could have rerolled and let it rise again - oops.

The crackers turned out to be easy enough to make and good except, I didn't have any fresh rosemary and so I added dried, but not thinking, used the same amount as I would have fresh which was obviously, well just gross.

The ravioli was the last thing on the list to make, and it was for dinner. By the time I was ready to roll it out and make the fillings I was fully frustrated and kinda wishing I had planned peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. But then this kind of magical, wonderful thing happened.

Dave rolled out the first sheet of pasta. Hannah asked to help roll out the pasta.

Then of course Harper wanted to help too.

I was racing against the clock and paying little attention to what was happening, my ravioli looking huge and ridiculous with very little filling. I burned my hand and wasn't really paying very close attention that the sheets were too thick and quite honestly I would be kinda embarrassed to show pictures of them here, I'm not kidding some of them were as large as the palm of my hand, except that we all made them together. Sometime after burning my hand I realized how everyone had pitched in, and stopped to appreciate this wonderful chaotic rhythm we'd fallen into.

When I decided I wanted to make as much at home as possible it was for our health and of course the challenge. I want to know and understand the ingredients that we are putting in our bodies. Because of this, I have also switched over to purchasing some organic produce. This is always a little painful on the bank account, but if it's possible I think it's worth it. My main focus is to stay away from the dirty dozen. I was really frustrated because I couldn't find organic grapes and strawberries, a usual staple in our fridge, and was thinking I'd have to buy non organic ones. As I was heading for the green grapes it suddenly occurred to me that I could just forgo buying them, it was like an epiphany. I know, ridiculous, of course I could just not buy them, but I think that I'm not alone in this thinking. I think that we have become so accustom to the convenience of our food that we (and I'm generalizing here, of course there are tons and tons of people who have made this realization long ago), don't even really think about it.

Hannah and Dave just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together and she was amazed at the part where he gets a chocolate bar for his birthday and makes it last a whole month, starting by smelling it, then only having a tiny nibble each day. Of course it fascinated her, she lives in a time (and a socioeconomic bracket) where food is never ending, the fridge is always full and when we run out of something we just run out to the grocery store and buy it. If we run out of time to make something, we can run out to the store and buy it as well. Although a month for a chocolate bar is a little extreme and not what I'm suggesting, but the lesson is there. Start making your own bread and suddenly that loaf of bread becomes very precious, time and energy went into mixing it and kneading it. The poorly executed ravioli that we had for dinner tonight was delicious, even though it was thick and heavy (OK, perhaps delicious is the wrong word here), but we all ate it happily and decided that it was still better than store bought. The leftovers did not go in the garbage, but tucked away in the fridge for a lunch tomorrow.

My Memere use to tell the story about how when she was a girl on the farm her and her siblings wanted some ice cream and so they made it from scratch. The first step for them was to milk the cow. I'm not suggesting we get a cow, and I realize that being at home with an almost four year old affords me certain time luxuries that others don't have, but I would like to be a little closer to the cow milking ice cream and a little further from those Drumstick thingies. It is more than a challenge, it is a lesson in patience, appreciation and effort.

So here is our flawed, heavy ravioli in all it's homemade glory...