Flour Tortillas

I've been trying to do most, if not all of my cooking at home lately and on a budget. I typically feed 3 adults and 2 kids dinner for $5-$8. $10 dinners has nothing on me! I try to make sure my dinners are at least semi healthy also. I mean a person could feed a family of five Ramen noodles for dinner for under $1 but that wouldn't be very healthy! I also use my crock-pot a LOT since it means dinner is pretty much ready and waiting when I get home from work. Last night I made a Mexican chicken and beans in the crock-pot, it's sort of like an enchilada filling yum!

Crockpot Chicken with Black Beans and Cream Cheese:

Ingredients
2-3 boneless chicken breasts (mine are still frozen)
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes (or 1 large fresh tomato diced)
1/2 cup water
1 packet taco seasoning
1 (15 ounce) can corn
1/2 package cream cheese (most cream cheese comes in 8 oz bricks, you want to use 4 oz)

Directions
-Put frozen, yes, frozen, boneless chicken breasts into crock pot.
-Add 1 packet of taco seasoning, 1 can of black beans drained, 1 can of corn drained, 1 can diced tomatoes (or your fresh diced tomato) and 1/2 cup water
-Cook in crock pot on high for 4-5 hours or on low for 8-9 hours
-Break up the chicken, it basically falls apart into shredded chicken if you just poke at it with a spoon a bit
-Add 1/2 package cream cheese (just throw it on top!) and let sit for about 1/2 hour
- Stir it up and serve over rice or with tortilla chips or better yet with home made flour tortillas!


And so we get to the "bread baking" part of this post. I wanted to serve my Chicken and Black beans with flour tortillas, I was going to the grocery store so I could have picked up a package but I thought, hey I bet they aren't that hard to make; so I looked up some recipes and you know, they aren't hard to make at all!

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com submitted by LaDonna

Flour Tortillas

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons lard
1 1/2 cups water

Directions

-Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a mixing bowl. Mix in the lard with your fingers until the flour resembles cornmeal. Add the water and mix until the dough comes together; place on a lightly floured surface and knead a few minutes until smooth and elastic. Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.

-Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Use a well-floured rolling pin to roll a dough ball into a thin, round tortilla. Place into the hot skillet, and cook until bubbly and golden; flip and continue cooking until golden on the other side. Place the cooked tortilla in a tortilla warmer; continue rolling and cooking the remaining dough.

It took a little time but it was pretty easy. I think cooking them until they are "golden" is not a great idea because they get kind of crispy which wasn't what I was looking for. My second time around I cooked them covered and on a lower heat and I was happier with the result. I did use lard because I happened to pass right by it in the grocery store but from the reviews I read you can totally sub in shortening. Then you won't have a package of lard hanging around your house. I need to hide it somewhere I hate opening up my cabinet and seeing it there, it just feels wrong! Anyhow the tortillas are great and I will totally be making these again.