As the time for making dinner approached this evening, I found myself with a pound of ground beef and a strong desire not to make meatloaf or spaghetti or chili, which are the things I would normally do when confronted with a pound of ground beef. Lin had asked me a few weeks ago why I hadn’t been making tortillas, and since I was feeling bored with my usual meal choices and somewhat adventurous, I bounced off to the kitchen at 7 pm to make tortillas … and thus have tacos for dinner.

Two hours later, after much gnashing of teeth and a few tears, we were eating tacos on homemade flour tortillas. I will admit those two hours were filled with the gnashing of teeth and even a few tears. I was almost certain I was failing to make edible tortillas. When I served them to the spousal unit, I warned him I had NO idea if the plate of food I had just handed him was edible or not.

Well, it turns out … my tortillas were certainly edible.

The tortillas were thicker and a little chewier than I would have liked them, but I’m thinking I can improve on that when I try again. I could probably use all purpose flour instead of my bread flour, for a start, and I could let the dough rest a little longer. And I will be trying again, because these may not be perfect tortillas, they weren’t at all bad. They had the proper flavor and smell, they held the taco ingredients without falling apart or getting soggy, and they are satisfyingly filling. I just need to tweak things a bit.

I will probably be trying again tomorrow. I suspect that once I get the recipe right and the process down, making a batch for a Taco/Enchilada Night will be no more stressful than making a pizza crust on Pizza Night, which means not at all stressful and mostly carefree –unlike tonight, which was a non-stop ball of stress. When I was in the midst of my second nervous breakdown over the state of the tortilla process, Lin said “You can’t expect them to be perfect the first time you make them.” Why, yes … yes I can expect them to be perfect! I haven’t actually had a cooking failure in so long, no matter what hair-brained thing I decide to throw together, that naturally, I would expect my first batch ever of flour tortillas to be perfect. Why wouldn’t I? LOL!

Also, I really didn’t feel like having fast food tonight, so I am glad everything turned out well.