Make Homemade Flautas, Taquitos, Frugal Meals

Last year, I shared my family held recipe for the Best Roast ever in 5 easy steps. The recipe, here on HubPages comes with photos and simple instructions. Anyone with basic kitchen skills can take a cheap and tasteless roast, or even a beautiful cut, and turn it into a tasty dish.

Leftover roast is good re-heated, but will often go to waste in the fridge, getting shoved further toward the back until it is unearthed before the Holidays to make room for a turkey. Instead, stretch those pennies, quarters and dollars, by making a mouthwatering meal for a small, or large crowd.

For those on a steep budget, this is a meal you can present at home, or the office. Make a platter or plate of taquitos, and you will have nothing to hang your head about.

More frugal meal ideas: After large feasts, where there may be a lot of leftover turkey, ham, or chicken. Sandwiches are great, but can get old. The leftover meats, potatoes, carrots and some garnishes may be used as stuffing for your homemade flautas. To add extra flavor, lightly brown the ingredients first, and cut pieces thin enough for easy chewing.

Keep safety #1. Make sure the taquito / flauta ingredients are not wet or dripping.

• Coffee Filters or paper towels
• forks
• tongs
• spatula
• cast iron or other good skillet

Heat a small cast iron skillet, put the burner on four, four and one half, or five. (4 1/2 - 5), This will be hot enough to loosen the corn tortillas, without frying them. If you know how many flautas you are making, go ahead and count of the same amount of corn tortillas.

Each step will take care and safety as you are dealing with hot grease. Use all safety and parental advising before making this recipe. The hot oil will splatter a little and can cause burning.

In the skillet pour 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. Float your first tortilla in the skillet. When it starts frying on the edges, it is time to remove from the oil. I take four or five at a time, separated carefully, and slips them into the oil, carefully turning each to share time up and down in the pan.

This step is only a few minutes per tortilla, but can seem monotonous, if you persevere, you will be tickled with the results. So will your friends, family and co-workers.

After transferring the oiled tortillas to a glass plate with a lip, there will be natural drainage of the oil to the plate, keep recycling it carefully to the cast iron skillet. By doing this, a person can cook a little over twenty-five (25) flautas using under 1/2 cup of oil!

Now that you have your stack of oiled tortillas, it is time to turn up the heat, and get ready to roll, and roll and roll.

I know that creative cooks have a difficult time saying "exactly one cup", or 2 tsp, no more, no less. Creative cooks move with the flow, and those who prepare meals with love make delicious, and healthy meals.

How much roast, or product does one put in the tortilla. It depends on the crowd, but I estimate about 2 TBSP of roast. Pictured with a common fork, to show the amount needed to make a decent flauta.

By pulling the roast apart with forks, the meat from the tender and tasty easy Roast fluffs up, and helps the product fry crispy.

In the middle of an oiled tortilla, place the filling in a thin line, fold the tortilla gently over, and skootch the tortilla and meat with one gentle sweep. With an easy motion, start rolling the tortilla/filling into a small "flute". (This is where the name comes from, a flauta).

Using the tongs and spatula, gently set flauta in hot oil, in cast iron skillet. Hold it in place with the tools long enough to keep the roll together. Some people use toothpicks, I think it is faster, safer and more frugal to just hold them in place for a minute or two. A count to ten on each side of the taquito / flauta, should give a uniformly crisp 'flute'.

This is a frugal way to feed a lot of people, or a small group of hungry people.

For a single person doing the project, it will take about an hour. The first few seem like they take a long time, but once you start the rolling and frying, draining, and putting in the serving dish, it goes faster.

Get your sea salt, and lightly salt the finished flautas. Using coffee filters under the taquitos will make clean easier, and less greasy.

Drain each flauta before stacking in the pan. By continued recycling of oil from flauta, back to pan, there is very little oil actually consumed.

Think of the different ones eating. Does grandpa have dentures? Aunt May have no dentures? Is Johnny a crispy eater? An excellent thing about flautas is each one is a distinct snack and can have varying degrees of 'doneness'.

Use a foil cover, or aluminum foil to cover the flautas, enjoy.

Lilly is aware of the large vegetarian community today. In her later years, Lilly has gone more vegetarian than carnivore. She is on the constant look-out for recipes to include for her friends of meatless appetite.

One taquito had carrots and potatoes, cooked a little crisper. These flautas, taquitos can be made into a healthy afternoon snack or pre-dinner meal. They can be dipped in cheese, Ranch Dressing, hummus, mustard, salsa, guacamole. When Lilly's kids were little she made peanut butter and jelly taquitos.

It was good, but messy. The kids loved them.

I hope you find many other vegetarian twists to the flauta/taquito.

Enjoy