Homemade Tortillas

My homemade flour tortilla experiment, while not a complete failure, was not an absolute success. I followed this recipe but halved the salt and substituted canola oil for the shortening. I've never been big on shortening, especially now that they've discovered how toxic partially-hydrogenated fats are. And I know, the shortening makers are now using fully hydrogenated fats instead, but that still just makes it no better than butter and other saturated fats. So I try to steer towards liquid oils whenever I can. But in this recipe? Way too greasy! Plus, never having made tortillas before (my family is Irish-French and Hungarian -- what do we know from Mexican cooking?), I miscalculated the cooking time and a lot of my tortillas turned out crispy. My only saving grace was that I had no problem rolling them out thin enough. The directed 1/8" is laughable -- you want to practically be able to read through the suckers.

So next time (and there will be a next time, because I always try to fix a recipe before totally giving up on it!), I'll reduce the oil considerably. And I'll do them on medium heat and flip/jerk 'em off the stove just as soon as they start to bubble -- they should still feel a bit "raw." It seems the only way to ensure softness. At least, that's the plan.... We'll see what happens!