Taquitos!

TAQUITOS!

For some reason I was thinking about taquitos all day today! I have made them once before, but those were very simple ones from hungrygirl.com and they were a little bit dry, and probably *too* healthy.  Plus they were made with corn tortillas, which Chalie hates.  But I love corn tortillas! So I decided to use both corn and flour to make us both happy.

I basically followed a recipe I got from annies-eats.com, but I used 99% fat free canned chicken, which a lot of other recipes for taquitos call for.  Basically it just saves you the step of cooking the chicken, and since I cook late at night, that works for me!

I combined these things in a bowl ( see-->)

1 can of 99% fat free chicken (the bigger size)
1 cup mexican blend shredded cheese
3 oz. cream cheese
chopped cilantro - about 3 tbsp
1 chopped green onion
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup salsa

(I was also supposed to add 2 cloves of garlic, minced, but I managed to forget.  They still had lots of flavor.)  I used my (clean) hands to mix it all up, otherwise I was worried the cream cheese wouldn't blend with everything else.

Then I started to roll!

For the flour tortillas, I just put them in the microwave for 20 seconds and it worked great.

But for the corn, I had some trouble.  Nuking them wasn't good enough.  They were cracking and just a mess.  Then I remembered how I had made corn tortilla taquitos before.  I wet a paper towel and wrapped the remaining corn tortillas in it and microwaved them again, for another 20 seconds.  Now the tortillas were soft and pliable (and hot, so I had to be careful).  Remember I did 20 seconds before that, so if you are going to use corn, I would do about 30 seconds, with the wet paper towel.


Next, they went on a baking sheet covered in wax paper, and were sprayed with olive oil cooking spray and sprinkled with kosher salt.  They went in the oven for 20 minutes, which was probably just a tiny bit too long.  15-17 minutes would have been plenty.  I served them with salsa and plain greek yogurt (my sub for sour cream), white rice, and black bean soup with a dollop more of greek yogurt.  The end result is at the top!  I gave Chalie all flour tortillas but I had a mix of both, so I could sample.  In MY opinion, the corn are way better.  The flour are just too... flour-y and they distract from the flavor of the taquito, where the corn are a lot lighter.  But if you are feeding a crowd (or just one picky boyfriend), go for both! The corn are also healthier, or at least, I'm pretty sure they are (I did the nutrition info, and they are).  Flour are somewhat easier to work with, but once I remembered the paper towel trick, the corn were fine, too.  The flour did hold together better in the oven. 

Now that I have satisfied my taquito craving, I'm going to try this healthy pumpkin dessert one of my Myfitnesspal friends told me about!

Nutrition Info:

Corn Tortilla Taquito - 162 calories, 8 grams fat, 12 gram carbs, 9 grams protein, 1 gram sugar, 2 grams fiber

Flour Tortilla Taquito -197 calories, 10 grams fat, 17 grams carbs, 11 grams protein, 1 gram sugar, 2 grams fiber