Tortitos

Yesterday was a crazy day for us, so I didn’t get a chance to post. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was even going to cook yesterday. Our 9 year old son was having some minor outpatient surgery in the morning, (all is well now!) and we had to wake up at 4:15 am. UGH. Those of you who know me, know I like my sleep! Anyhow, what we were having for dinner wasn’t even close to be the first thing on my mind, and I wasn’t sure what my little guy would feel like eating by dinner, so I just didn’t make a plan!

By the time 5:30 pm rolled around, I was ready to decide. And for whatever reason, I decided to cook and make a mess of my kitchen. I know…I was not thinking clearly.

My son likes this one hot lunch at school called “Crispitos”. From what he has described to me, it’s some kind of taco meat mixture rolled up in a corn tortilla and baked until crispy. I have also had something called “Taquitos” years ago, which were sort of the same thing, but they were purchased from the frozen food section, and you just reheat them in the oven until crispy.

I had purchased the ingredients to make this last weekend, so I decided that tonight was the night. First, I browned the ground beef (I had 2 ¼ lbs. on hand), seasoned it with taco seasoning, and then I put all the beef into the food processor to grind the texture down really fine. It’s like the beef at Taco Bell (but better, of course.) After that, I had to assemble them. I had a package of 30 small round corn tortillas (not flour). I had a small skillet on the stove over high heat where I heated both sides of the tortilla for a minute or so until it was soft enough to work with. I would take that one out of the pan, put the next tortilla in, and start spreading the beef on the first one. I put a heaping tablespoon of the meat on the tortilla, spread it out thin, and left it about an inch away from the far edge. Next, I flipped over the tortilla that was in the pan. Then, I rolled up the tortilla I had been working with as tight as I could, and since I kept the meat away from the far edge, it didn’t ooze out all over as I rolled it up. Then, I placed it edge side down on an ungreased baking sheet, and took the next tortilla from the pan, and placed in another. Repeat for all the remaining tortillas. I ended up with 28 altogether when I was done.

NOTE: Watch the tortillas in the pan closely if you are heating one while working on rolling one at the same time. I tend to be uncoordinated, and was having trouble remembering to flip it and you don’t want to cook it so long it starts to get crispy; you just want it to be heated through so it’s very soft and easy to work with!

I baked them for 10 minutes at 400°F. I served them with a cheese dip I made from a block of Mexican White Dipping Cheese (it’s like a white “Velveeta” found in the Dairy section near the tortillas) mixed with a can of Rotel. I also made some Spanish rice (Knorr Fiesta Sides – not my favorite, but easy), heated up some refried beans, and had some leftover raw veggies from the night before to serve, as well.

When we sat down to eat, the cheese dip, while it tasted good, thickened up too quickly as it cooled and made it impossible to dip into, so next time we eat these, I think I will make a salsa/sour cream or salsa/ranch dip. But, everyone liked them! So that made the mess worth it. The best part, is we only ate about 10 of the 28 I made, so I put all the rest of them in a Ziploc freezer bag, and now I can pull out as many as I need whenever and reheat them in the toaster oven to make them crispy! They will be a great after school snack, or quick dinner when needed.

The dinner conversation revolved around what we were actually going to call these. Like I said, the school cafeteria refers to them as “Crispitos”, and I have seen them at the store called “Taquitos”, but I think my favorite name for them came from my son, when he couldn’t remember what to call them, and he said, “Can I have another ‘Tortito’, please?” We all burst out laughing! And then we knew we had our own name for them: Tortitos!!

As you can imagine, I used several pots, pans, baking sheets, food processor parts, etc. My kitchen looked awful, and the kicker was, my dishwasher was still full of clean dishes, which I would have normally emptied in the morning. I wanted to cry looking at my kitchen, but decided that I would just get everything rinsed off quickly, so that it wouldn’t “bake on” overnight, and I would deal with it in the morning (and I haven’t dealt with it yet). Which again reminds me, of why I like to “advance prep”…see my post from 1/14/2010, if you haven’t already, for more info on that!

Once I get my kitchen cleaned up today, my head will be clear enough for me to start thinking about tonight’s dinner and my meal plan for next week! Grocery shopping happens tomorrow!!!

Looking forward to sharing more kitchen adventures with you!