a tortilla press

 Mostly this is an "I'm leaving this here" post so I can find the linked site again

Last night, I made black bean soup. It's very easy - at least the simplified version I usually do, with canned low-sodium beans - you combine the can (undrained) with a cup of stock (I use Pacific brand's chicken stock because it's the only one I can find without celery, or you can use veggie stock) and a little chipotle sauce* and cook them together, and then either mash with a potato masher or blend with a blender (depending on how pureed you want it) and then add a little lime juice and zest and a little sour cream at the table.

(* the original recipe calls for adobo chiles out of a can, but then what do you do with the rest of the can? So I just use the bottle of Cholula chipotle I keep in the fridge)

I also made flour tortillas. Didn't feel like hunting up the rolling pin and clearing a counter space near the stove, so I kind of squished and patted them out by hand. They were okay, just kind of thick, and I idly thought, "I should get a tortilla press, I make these often enough and might even make them more if I had one"

I had to go to the local jeweler's today - my coin charm bracelet snagged on something and opened one of the links so one of the coins came off, and I decided it was worth paying someone who knew what they were doing to fix it, so I ran into the Kopper Kettle to see about presses.

And I bought one. It wasn't cheap but as I said earlier I didn't have a great morning. 

The one thing that gave me pause - they only referenced corn tortillas on the box and I wondered if for some reason you couldn't do flour (dough too sticky or whatever, but you do use parchment paper or waxed paper to press them out on).

So I did a quick search on "uses for tortilla press" and hit paydirt, on The Tortilla Channel (!)

Yes they work for flour tortillas. And various Asian flatbreads (SCALLION PANCAKES! I can try making those again - when I tried them before I couldn't get them flat enough). And cookies! And arepas, if you can find P.A.N. flour. (I want to try arepas after seeing them referenced in "Encanto").

So I guess it was a Useful Tool to buy after all. (I like flatbreads in place of bread-bread - for one thing, you can make small quantities of them quickly, so you can use them up before they go bad, and they're a nice "last minute" "oh, I want something bready with the soup I'm making" dinner accompaniment)