Okay....you have your food stores, including tons of wheat and a wheat grinder...now...what the heck do you do with it? One of the biggest problems I see is that most people today (not just the young survivalist males) have no idea how to do more than follow the directions for the microwave and the use of the toaster.
Welcome to Survival Cooking 101, where I'll give you some tips and hints about cooking from your food storage.
I'll start with what I consider one of the easiest, low-ingredient foods out there. Fry bread. Or as we here in North America like to call them, tortillas. Don't get me wrong...there are half a million different types of fry bread from a couple dozen countries out there. I just find tortillas to be familiar to those of us on the American continent, and very easy to make. They require absolutely no leavening (the stuff that makes breads light and fluffy).
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Those who have the very basics can ignore this section.
The first thing I have to tell the complete nubes is yes; there is a difference in volume between a dry measuring cup and a wet measuring cup. If I fill a dry measuring cup up with water and then put the water into the wet measuring cup, it will come out to about 7/8ths of a wet cup. In other words, a dry measure is 1/8th smaller than a wet measure. Confused? Then go ahead and use a dry measuring cup for dry ingredients, and a wet measuring cup for wet ingredients.
The second I have to tell you is the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. A tablespoon is about 2 1/2 times bigger than a teaspoon. In recipes, they are often abbreviated. Sometimes, a tablespoon is shortened to tbsp, while a teaspoon is abbreviated tsp. Other times, the tablespoon is shortened to a capital T while a teaspoon is a lower case t. It is very important that you know the difference between the two, because if you put a T of salt in where its calling for a t, it could mean disaster.
Now, for any dry measure, whether its a cup or a spoon, you do not mound the ingredient into the measuring device. It should be level with the top of the measuring device. Of course, those of us who have been cooking a long time often just 'wing it', but for nubes, you might want to take this extra step just to be exact. Take a knife and scrape it across the top of the measuring device so that any excess falls right back into its container.
The moisture content of flour can vary, and even a trained eye or hand couldn't tell the difference. So even if you measure exactly, a dry flour will turn out a dry product, a moist flour will turn out a sticky product. With breads, its easier to add flour to a sticky product than to add water to a dry product.
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Okay, now we open up our "Cookin' With Home Storage" recipe book and look at the recipes for tortillas. There are three tortilla recipes, and even an additional recipe called "Indian Fry bread". Lets try the plain wheat tortillas. It makes a lot, so I'll cut the recipe in half for you right here.
2-1/2 C. of flour (that's two and one half dry cups)
1/4 C of shortening (that's one-fourth dry cup. You can use lard, butter, or another semi-solid fat for this as well. If you need to use a liquid fat, like corn oil or olive oil, you will need to use slightly less, or it could end up too sticky).
1/2 t. salt (that's one-half teaspoon of salt. Honestly, you could omit this if you need to).
1 C hot water. (that's one wet cup of water.)
Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix until a ball forms. Knead until pliable. To knead, you use your CLEAN hands and a CLEAN counter top (while camping, a plate may have to do)...push down on the ball with your palm, turn the dough around, and push it again. If it is too sticky, you can add flour while you are kneading (this can be messy, so be prepared). Your end result should be like clay or play dough.
You could use a bread machine or food processor on the "dough" cycle, but its a good idea to get your hands use to the dough...in an emergency or camp-out situation, these items may not be available to you.
Now, put a skillet on top of your stove and turn the burner on to medium. No higher! I use cast iron as a skillet, but you can use whatever is available to you. Its easiest to learn on a stove top before you learn over a camp fire. Get use to feeling the temperature of the pan by holding your hand over it (do not directly touch the pan unless you want to burn yourself). This way, when you do end up cooking over a fire, you can gauge whether there is too much heat or too little before you start the actual cooking.
Now, while your pan is heating up, pinch off a peice of dough that abouts 2" in diameter. Smaller or larger won't really matter, as we have all seen the variety of different sizes in the grocery store. Flatten it out as thin as possible. I use a rolling pin. If you do not have a tortilla press, then it will not be perfectly round. Don't worry about that, either. Hungry is hungry, and pretty doesn't matter when you are hungry.
Now, take your flattened tortilla and put it into the dry pan. A dry pan means you have not put any type of oil or fat into the pan. I have never had a tortilla stick to the pan. Cook it for a short time, then flip it over. When it starts to develope bubbles may be the best time to start flipping it. Essentially, you want a few brown spots to develope on each side, but you want to keep them from getting black spots (meaning its over-cooked). If you need to, you can flip it over again and again until each side gets nutty-brown spots but no black spots.
Keep doing this until you have all the tortillas cooked. Now your tortilla is ready to be filled with whatever you need. However, I use to work with a gentleman from Mexico...at least I think he was from Mexico...he simply folded his tortillas up and ate it like we would eat a roll with the rest of his dinner, which usually consisted of a stew of some type and a salad. Its not necessary to eat them in the fashion of the U.S.A.
I also use this recipe to make pancakes for Mu-Shu...the only difference is that they are a bit thinner, and you put two tortillas together and cook them that way, so that one side of each gets dry-fried and the other side gets steamed. (Eat them seperately, of course).
If you need to, any extra tortillas can be put into a bag or other container and then into the refridgerator or freezer.
In upcoming blogs of Survival Cooking 101, we will discuss beans and rice.
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