Cooking for One and Breakfast Tacos for Dinner

Do you ever notice other single people at the grocery store? Perhaps being single has made me aware of other singles while grocery shopping. The contents of their cart are a pretty good giveaway. If someone has piles of frozen dinners, fruit, veggies and meat for only a serving for one or two, that person is likely single. However, there are exceptions. My friend Molly, who even in her single days grocery shopped for a family of 6. I am the single shopper and unfortunately for me, this world is not meant for single people. It is harder for singles to purchase a home, raise or adopt a child, take vacations or do a lot of other things including cooking. Recipes are never made to serve just one person (or even two). Recipes are often for servings of 4 or more. My dilemma is when I cook, I always end up with too much leftovers I don't want to eat for the rest of the week. Cooking becomes too costly and too much of a hassle. So, what's a single girl to do? Are we doomed to night after night of take-out? Are we destined to live a life deprived of a home cooked meal?

I happen to like cooking especially in the winter time. I am not sure why. Perhaps it's because I'm stuck inside or I feel lonely during the holidays and cooking seems to fill some void or I am just more hungry. Luckily, when I bake, I have co-workers who will eat whatever crap I put in our break room. I actually find a lot of joy in baking for my coworkers but I can't really do that for regular meals. With that said, on behalf of the single shopper and the single cook, I am on a mission to find ways to cook for one.

Tonight, I had this brilliant idea that I would make my own tortillas, specifically Texas style. I have heard about breakfast tacos from coworkers and other people I've come across who live or have lived in Texas and breakfast tacos are suppose to be the best thing ever. The key to the tacos are the Texas-style tortillas because they are not like the thin tortillas you find at the store. I found a recipe from this blog called the Homesick Texan. I thought making your own breakfast tacos is good for cooking for one because you can make small amounts of the filling.

Here's the recipe for the Texas-style Flour Tortillas:

2 Cups of All-Purpose Flour
1.5 Tsp of baking powder
1 Tsp of salt
2 Tsp of vegetable oil
3/4 cups of warm milk

Mix together the dry ingredients and oil. Slowly add the warm milk.

Mix until you get a ball of dough. Knead the dough for about two minutes on a floured surface. Cover the dough with a damp cloth for 20 minutes. During this time, you can make the filling, grab a beer, pour yourself a glass of wine or Facebook.

For my filling, I put scrambled eggs, with chorizo, onions, bell peppers and potatoes (I just bought the frozen hash brown potatoes).

After 20 minutes, take the ball of dough and divide it into 8 even pieces. It helps when you roll out the dough into a long piece. Also, if the dough is too dry, put a little vegetable shortening on your fingers. That will help moisten the dough.

Roll the pieces into little balls and put them on a tray (make sure they aren't touching) and cover with a damp cloth. Let sit for 10 minutes.

For the moment of truth: Roll out the pieces to about 8 inches in diameter. For some reason I could not for the life of me roll them out thin enough and I can't roll them out to a perfect circle. 

Cook each side for about 30 seconds.

The result for my tortillas were more thick and like pita bread but tasted okay. The filling topped with salsa in the tortilla made for a really good dinner. Also, because breakfast for dinner is my favorite.

P.S. After writing this post, I just realized what I did wrong with the dough. I used baking soda instead of powder. I am not sure what difference that makes, but the next time I make these, I'm going with the baking powder and see how that changes things.