Absolutely Perfect Gluten-Free Flour Tortillas

(If you've linked over from Works for Me Wednesday or Gluten Free Wednesdays, I'm so excited for you to see this recipe. Let me know if you try it. It's really amazing. )

Oh yes. I. did! It's the holy grail people! They don't just bend. They ROLL. You could make those thin little taquitos out of these. And they're soft. I'm so EXCITED! You're not going to believe it. If you try these let me know what you think.

My decision to start developing this recipe began when I tried a GF flour tortilla recipe that turned out really good, but there were some problems. I wanted to see if I could make them better. I did a lot of research into what the traditional techniques were, as well as the ingredients. I watched YouTube videos with people showing how to make tortillas; everything from chefs to grandmas being filmed by their grandkids. All of that information helped me make a little change here and a little change there and I ended up turning it into a whole new recipe.

I've tested this recipe using shortening, lard and coconut oil. Every one of them works great. So no matter what you prefer to use, you're going to be able to make these.

The equipment I used that you may not have in your kitchen are a pastry cutter (you can use a fork), a griddle and a tortilla press. I only bought the tortilla press because it's faster when you're testing recipes. Rolling them out with a rolling pin was working fine.

To cook them I used my electric griddle and cranked it all the way up. Mine goes up to 400F. I cooked them right on the hottest part of the griddle. Right where the pancakes always burn. It worked perfectly.

Also, the damp towel seems to be one of the pieces of magic that makes these tortillas so soft and pliable. I'm sure it's the steam from all the heat in there after they're cooked. So don't skip that part.

Just to show you guys how good these are, I've made a little video. The only tortilla press I could find around here was a little six inch press. That's the only reason the tortilla is so small. I was making much bigger ones when I was rolling them with a rolling pin and they came out just as good.

Absolutely Perfect Gluten Free Flour Tortillas

2 cups Gluten Free Flour Mix for Baking

1-1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 tbsp lard, shortening or coconut oil

1 cup very hot water

Whisk the gluten free flour, baking powder and salt together to combine thoroughly. Add the shortening. Combine with a pastry cutter or fork until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the hot water a bit at a time until combined into a workable dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for half an hour.

Unwrap the dough and evaluate the texture. If the dough is too dry, add more water, a bit at a time. If too moist, add more flour. I good way to check the texture is to roll a pecan-sized piece into a ball and then squash it with your thumb. If it pretty much stays together, you're good. If it sticks to your hands it's too wet. If it crumbles apart and doesn't want to stay together, it's too dry.

Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll into balls. Cover loosely with plastic to keep them from drying out.

Take a resealable, gallon-sized plastic bag and use scissors to cut off the top and down the sides, so you have a rectangular sheet. Put a dough ball on the plastic sheet, folding the other end of the plastic over the top of the dough ball.

If using a rolling pin, flatten the dough ball with your hand, then use a rolling pin to roll it out.

If using a tortilla press, place the plastic-covered dough ball into the press, a bit off center and press.

Peel one side of the plastic off the tortilla and invert it onto your hand. Slowly and carefully, peel the plastic off the other side of the tortilla.

Place the tortilla on a very hot griddle. Cook on one side just until bubbles start forming throughout the surface of the tortilla. Flip it over and cook that side about the same length of time. Flip it back and forth every 20-30 seconds or so until you get a bit of browning on the bubbles.

Cover your finished tortillas with a damp towel as they come off the griddle.

Enjoy!

Taco Night!

This was one of the first things I realized I could make from mainstream ingredients. And, all it requires as far as cooking skills is browning hamburger. Which was right in my comfort zone. I make this at least once a week and used the taco meat for tacos, tostadas, taco salad, etc.

This is the type of recipe I think of when I think of the people who have just found out they have to eat gluten free, but don't really know how to cook. Like I was. So that's my frame of mind in writing this. It might be over-explaining for some, but for people just learning how to cook I hope it's helpful. As far as the product recommendations go, I'm sure there are other brands of these products that are gluten free. This is just what we've used for years. And it will make it easy for you if you just want to know what to get without having to make a bunch of phone calls to verify everything.

First you'll need a package of hamburger meat, or ground turkey, whatever you like. Brown that in a pan until it's done and drain the fat off. Add a packet of McCormick Original Taco seasoning.

Be sure to read the ingredients on the back of the package to make sure there isn't any gluten. Ingredients can and DO change. McCormick will fully disclose any gluten in plain English and won't hide it in vague language such as "natural flavors" or "spices". I know for sure the Original is GF. Not sure if the Hot or Mild is. I know the Cheesy Taco mix has wheat in it.

If you like to make your own taco seasonings, all McCormick single ingredient spices are gluten free. We're talking the little jars of "Cumin" or "Cayenne Pepper" or "Garlic Powder". Anything else you need to read the ingredients label to make sure McCormick hasn't included gluten of any kind.

So once your hamburger meat is done and you've drained the fat off, follow the package directions - dump the seasoning in, put in some water, let it cook until the water and seasonings are absorbed and the taco meat looks dry-ish. You don't want it watery. If it's still watery, let it cook some more.

Let's move on to the fixin's. Mission Taco Shells, Kraft shredded cheese, Daisy sour cream, Herdez salsa, Fresh Express shredded lettuce, Rosarita Traditional Refried Beans and Mission Tortilla Chips.

You can use any kind of fresh veggies to add to this. Chop up some tomatoes or onions. Make some fresh guacamole. All fresh veggies and fruit are gluten free.

Enjoy!

Recipe Development

I spent most of the day researching, developing and testing a recipe I'm working on.

Let me just say how surreal it is for me to say that. By the time I graduated from high school, I didn't even know how to brown hamburger meat. I knew how to bake. Mostly cookies. I made bread several times. It was even edible once or twice. (badumpbump!)

I learned a few things over the years, but just enough to get by. Before I went gluten free, I barely cooked at all. I could make dinner, but I never really knew how to cook. Let's just say that I could do everything they asked me to do on the back of a box of Hamburger Helper. There were a couple "from scratch" recipes I knew how to make, but the only additional skill those recipes required was chopping an onion. Which I didn't even do most of the time because they sell prechopped onions right by the bagged salad at the grocery store. I did make pot roast using the bag and season packet a few times, so I quartered some potatoes for that.

I was comfortable browning hamburger meat, chopping an onion (if I had to), doing that bag and season roast, cooking pasta and... I think that's about it. I couldn't have told you what I was supposed to do with a steak. As for chicken.. Chicken scared the heck out of me. You have to be careful with raw chicken or you could DIE. You have to cook it all the way or you could DIE. Seriously. I can't deal with that kind of pressure. When I did cook chicken I was so freaked out about making sure it was done that I cooked it so long it was dead all over again.

When I went gluten free, I spent the first few weeks just trying to figure out what I could eat that wouldn't make me sick. I ate like a teenage boy trapped in a convenience store. Cool Ranch Doritos are gluten free? Awesome! I also discovered that most flavors of EZ Cheese, that aerosol spray cheese, are gluten free. So are cheetos, lots of different candy, some chips and salsa, peanut butter, soda, some mixed nuts, etc.

I've come a LONG way since then. There isn't much I don't know how to do as far as basic cooking goes. And more advanced cooking techniques don't intimidate me like they used to. I'm willing to try just about anything.

I'm not so worried anymore about wasting food. I used to be so worried about it that I wouldn't try making anything. I figured whatever I made wouldn't be as good. Now I figure why not try something. It might be awesome.

My husband is even more adventurous than I am. He's the better cook in the family. He likes the process. The chopping, the prepping, the simmering, the stirring.

The waiting. And the more waiting.

(...)

I'm not so much with the waiting.

I'm more of an end result kind of girl. I want to see if what I'm doing is going to turn out like I want it to.

This recipe that I'm working on is a baking recipe actually. It's the first time that I've tried to take something that was pretty darn good, but I wanted to see if I could make better and more dependable from a gluten-free standpoint. It's a traditional recipe that has been made from scratch for probably hundreds of years. So I'm going back to basics and figuring out some of those traditional techniques and see if they transfer to the gluten free version.

That's one thing that I've learned. Sometimes it's not the gluten, but the technique that makes the recipe do what it does. It's really quite amazing. One of these days I swear I'm going to try pita bread, which I've never been a fan of, JUST to see if I can get it to do that splitty thing.

I had a lot of fun today. I'm not quite there with this recipe. I've done a pretty standard, modern version of the traditional recipe. The one that most gluten-eaters who make this from scratch use. But then there are some people who go really old school with it and use an ingredient that I've never used before that they say is the key to an even better result. So I'm going to see what I can do to find that final ingredient that I need.

I did do some pretty successful temperature testing today though. Now I know cooking it hotter and faster is the technique I need to use. So we'll see if the traditional ingredient helps our gluten-free flour do it's thing just a little bit better.

Gluten Free Croutons

In my early days of being gluten free, I found replacement products for a lot of stuff, but never did find croutons. As far as I'm concerned, a salad isn't a salad without croutons. This was the first thing I ever figured out and made on my own. This was also the first gluten free recipe that my husband really liked. It was the beginning of hope for a truly delicious gluten free future.

These croutons are very popular around here. Not just with us, but with our gluten eating friends. I just put these out in a bowl and people eat them like snack food.

If you live near a Whole Foods, most of the work that goes into making these croutons is done for you. In the Gluten Free freezer section, with the breads, scones, etc, you should see Gluten Free Stuffing cubes.

I usually get two containers of them so there's plenty for first night snacking and then some left over for the next few days. They come frozen so make sure you set them out to thaw before making them into croutons.

In my early gluten free days, Whole Foods didn't have these, so I was just using my favorite gluten free bread. Just bake a loaf, let it cool and cut it into crouton-sized cubes.

Dump the two containers of stuffing cubes in a bowl. Melt a whole stick of real butter, or your favorite butter substitute. Add garlic powder to taste. We like our's really garlicky, so we add quite a bit.

You can also use real garlic instead of garlic powder. But I'm all about making cooking as easy as possible. I figure I'm already making croutons from scratch so I'll just use the garlic powder.

Pour the butter and garlic powder mixture over the stuffing cubes. Even that goo at the bottom. Especially the goo at the bottom. It's not pretty, but it's going to be yummy. Trust me on this.

Stir it all up and wait about five minutes to let the butter and garlic soak in a bit. Then stir it again to make sure you're not leaving any of that garlicky butter at the bottom of the bowl.

Pour the croutons onto a foil-lined baking sheet. Put them in a 250 degree oven and just keep an eye on them. I use a big plastic spoon to turn the croutons over so they cook evenly. They'll turn a deeper golden brown when they're done.

If you're using fresh gluten free bread rather than Whole Foods' stuffing cubes, which are already crunchy, you'll want to reduce the oven temp down to 200 or as low as it will go. With fresh bread you not only need to bake the butter and garlic into it, you need to get them dried out and crispy. Just keep an eye on them, taste occasionally to test the crunchiness and be patient with it. It's worth the wait.

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Cooking Tutorial for Gluten Eaters - Part 3 - Jump!

Okay. You've got your recipe. You've asked your gluten-free loved one if it's okay for you to cook for them. You've gotten their advice and recommendations on ingredients. You've verified that your ingredients are gluten free. You might have even bought a new cutting board or a new strainer. You're ready.

So let's get started.

1. Take a Deep Breath. We're going to take this step by step. Everything is going to turn out great.

2. Inform the Other People in Your House What You Are Doing. Let everybody know that you're making a special dish and there will be no touching or tasting of anything in the kitchen until you are done.

3. Re-Read Your Recipe. Make sure you have all of the ingredients and all of the food prep items (bowls, knives, cutting boards, measuring spoons and cups, etc.) you need. Make sure all of your food prep items are clean and ready to go.

4. Wash Your Hands. I'm only saying this once, but you should wash your hands a LOT when cooking gluten free food in a non-gluten-free kitchen. Use gluten free soap and use a clean dishtowel to dry your hands. You could completely clean your whole kitchen and wipe down every surface to make sure there isn't gluten on it, but who wants to do that? Not me, that's for sure. Need to get your kid a snack? Wash your hands when you're done. Answer the phone? Wash your hands when you're done. The way I've learned to navigate in a non-gluten free kitchen is just wash my hands before I touch my gluten-free food or food prep items. Once I've had to break the "gluten free zone" and handle something I'm not sure is gluten free, I wash my hands.

5. Clean Your Food Prep Surfaces. Clean off the counter you will be working on. Even if the food won't directly touch the counter, your hands and other food prep items will.

6. Put All of Your Ingredients and Food Prep Items Out on Your Counter. You don't want to have to break your "gluten-free zone" if you don't need to.

7. Do Your Magic. It's cooking time baby!

8. Guard The Food. Walking away is asking for unknown fingers to gluten the food without you being aware of it. When the food is cooking and the whole house smells amazing, that's when your family will be tempted to sneak a bite without realizing it can cause a serious problem.

9. Promise the People in Your House That They Can Have Some When You're Done. If you're making your world famous chili, dish some out for your family. If you're making cookies, set some aside for them. Remember, we're just one person. We don't need the WHOLE THING. Although we probably could polish off a whole batch of cookies, we're definitely not going to be able to eat the whole pot of chili on our own.

10. Contain, Cover, Label and Secure. Once your food is cooked, put our portion in a container that can be covered. Label the container in some way. I love bright Post-It notes for this. I've found that just writing gluten free on the note doesn't give enough information if you need to keep other people out of the food that might not understand cross contact. Writing something like "UNCLE JIM ONLY - DO NOT OPEN" is more effective. I also recommend securing the lid in some way. A rubber band or tape usually works well. People tend to not read labels or notes when food is involved. Just about every container of food in your kitchen probably has words on the label, and it may not stop someone who is just going through the fridge on automatic looking for something to snack on. A rubber band or tape is just unusual enough that it will make someone stop and look at what they've got in their hands.

11. If Something Goes Wrong, Don't Serve it to Us. Just about every gluten free person I've ever encountered has glutened themselves in their own kitchen many times. Especially the first few weeks. All of this stuff is a lot to remember. If you're getting ready to put the chili in a container and you turn around to find your son dipping a piece of gluten bread in the chili to take a big bite, it's just over. There's nothing you can do. Don't worry about it. Your loved one will be grateful to you that you're putting their health above everything else. Hand your son a bowl and tell the rest of your family that dinner is ready.

Gluten Free Flour Mix for Baking

I use this mix as a 1 to 1 exact replacement in all of my cookie recipes, including my old family recipes. It’s never let me down. It’s also good if you like to eat some of the cookie dough because it doesn’t have any bean flour. If you’re using a flour mix that has bean flour in it don’t eat it. I know it smells good, but seriously. Don’t. I still have flashbacks from when I did that about four years ago. {shudder…}

I found the flour mix on page 6 of Annalise Roberts’ book – Gluten-Free Baking Classics. Make sure you get the extra fine rice flour. It is the reason this flour mix works. It’s very powdery. Not gritty at all. I think that one of the many reasons that GF products tend to fall apart is because the gritty rice flour doesn’t stick together well. With all of the other roadblocks to good GF baked goods, why not take one out of the equation. :)

For three cups of this flour mix you need:

2 cups Superfine Rice Flour (made by Authentic Foods)

2/3 cup Potato Starch (not potato flour)

1/3 cup Tapioca Flour (tapioca starch is the same thing in this case)

3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

Mix all of this together thoroughly. I use a whisk to get it all mixed.

Now go make some chocolate chip cookies. And eat some cookie dough while you’re at it. Or dig out an old family cookie recipe and give it a try.

Locals note: If you live in the Sacramento, CA area, you can find the superfine rice flour at Sunrise Natural Foods in Roseville. For the tapioca and potato starches, as well as the xanthan gum, I use Bob's Red Mill (be sure to look for gluten free on the label), which can be found at Sunrise Natural Foods, Elliott's Natural Foods and some Raley's and Bel Air locations in their natural food section.

Gluten Free Cooking Tutorial for Gluten Eaters - Part 2 - Analyzing and Modifying Your Cooking Environment

Today we're going to talk about how to prepare gluten free food and protect against cross-contact, usually referred to as cross-contamination. These are the things that are vital for you to do when preparing gluten-free food.

1. Understand Cross-Contact. When I first started eating gluten free, someone explained it to me in the best and simplest way I've ever heard. Treat gluten the same way you'd treat raw chicken. That means, (a) anything that comes in contact with gluten has to be washed thoroughly before touching gluten free food, and (b) if it can't be washed thoroughly, a new item that is used ONLY for gluten free food must be used.

2. Believe Completely that Protecting Against Cross-Contact is Vital. Okay.. We know that cross-contact sounds completely over-the-top. It sounds paranoid. It sounds self-involved. We know. We really do. That's probably why we haven't mentioned it and just bring our own little container of food when we come over. We don't want to sound azycray at the family arbequebay. (Do people speak pig latin anymore..?)

3. Don't Be So Freaked Out by Cross Contact That it Keeps You From Trying to Cook Gluten Free. By now you probably are. But you really shouldn't be. We had to take our own gluten-riddled kitchens and transform them into the gluten-free oasises (oases..? oasi...?) that they are today. We had to go grocery shopping for the first time, make a safe spot for ourselves in our kitchen and figure out cross contact. You can too.

4. Let Yourself Off the Hook if You Need To. Even though I said in #3 that you shouldn't be scared about cross contact, if you read this series and know that you can't do what's required, it's okay to back out. If you promised us you'd make cookies for us and you realize it's going to be impossible to keep your kids fingers out of the cookie dough, and you have no reasonable way make sure that every hand passing through your kitchen is gluten free, it's okay to say you can't do it. We will totally understand. Maybe it's something you'd like to try at some point in the future. If not, that's fine too.

5. Gluten is Sticky. It sticks to everything. The only way to effectively remove gluten is soap and water. If you can't wash every nook and cranny of an item with soap and water, you can't use it.

6. Understand What Things You Already Have Can Be Used for Gluten Free Food and What Can't. Existing cutting boards, wooden utensils, whisks, strainers, colanders, toasters, scratched up nonstick pans, baking pans, etc. The grain in wood traps and holds gluten and comes off in the food. Whisks have tiny holes where the wires attach to the handle. Strainers and colanders have tiny holes everywhere. Plastic can develop scratches where gluten can attach itself. The same goes for nonstick pans. Baking pans, such as those used to bake breads, cakes, cookies, etc., usually have all sorts of baked on residue. I just wouldn't trust them. It would probably be fine with a layer of foil, but you'd have to make sure the sides and bottom of the pan where your oven mitt or potholder would touch was covered too. As for toasters, there is no way to wash the inside of a toaster with soap and water. Toaster ovens are another story, but you'd have to cover the shelf thing with foil. You could wash it really well, but it would take a lot of time, so I'd go with the foil.

6. Buy New Things if You Need To. I'm not talking about going to your favorite kitchen store and buying all new stuff. If you're not cooking for your gluten free friend or loved on on a daily basis, just pick up what you need from the dollar store. You can also get things like aluminum foil loaf and cake pans on the baking aisle of any grocery store. There's no need to spend a lot of money on this stuff. Even if you need a whisk, you can use a couple of forks held together to simulate what a whisk would do.

7. Gluten-Containing Flour Can Remain Airborne for Up to 48 Hours. If you are a big baker or like to make fried foods coated in flour, this is just something to be aware of. Food manufacturers take this into consideration when they determine if their food is gluten free or not. For the most part, home cooks aren't dumping flour into their mixing bowls and putting all sorts of flour dust in the air like major food manufacturers do with huge bags of flour and giant mixing bowls. You know your home better than I do of course, so if you think that flour dust might be a problem, clean any surfaces, such as counters or open pots and pans, before cooking gluten free. This isn't something I'd worry too much about, but it bears mentioning.

8. Use Clean Dishtowels, Potholders and Oven Mitts. If you wipe your hands off on a dishtowel and you have gluten on your hands, the dishtowel can't be used to wipe your hands off after you wash them in order to cook gluten free. I've also never used a potholder or oven mitt that didn't end up in the food.

9. What's In Your Soap? There are some soaps that have gluten in them. Many of the products from Bath and Body Works and other fancy soap companies have gluten in them in the form of wheat germ oil, oat protein, etc. Personally, I use the basic clear Soft Soap. It's gluten free, inexpensive and they sell it everywhere. I'm sure there are plenty of other handsoaps that are also gluten free, but basic Soft Soap was what I used before I went gluten free and I've never had to look any further. I have no idea if the creamy or scented Soft Soap is gluten free however.

10. Label Anything You Plan to Use Again to Cook Gluten Free. If you only plan to cook gluten free occasionally, don't worry about this. But if you know you'll be using something again for your friend or loved one, label the item and set it aside. For food prep items such as cutting boards, strainers, wooden spoons, etc., put them in a small box with a lid and label the box gluten free. It's usually helpful to keep this box out of the way on a low (or high) shelf, or in another room so it doesn't get confused with your normal kitchen prep items.

11. Mistakes Happen. You've gotten through all of this, made the gluten free cookies, and set them out to cool. You leave the room only to come back to find your husband, with a gluten bread sandwich he has just made in one hand, helping you out by putting the "gluten-free" cookies in the cookie jar with the other. I hate to say it, but those cookies aren't gluten free anymore. Just him touching the cookies is more than enough to cause a reaction. Just smile, offer to pour him some milk for his cookies and let us know it didn't work out. We'd rather you be honest about it not working out than to end up getting sick.