Baked flautas

I wanted a simple Friday night fiesta dinner.  I saw this recipe on For the Love of Cooking's blog.  And knew immediately I wanted to try it.  We eat a lot of tacos but I've never made flautas because I do not deep fry well, it's an art form frankly, there are ways to do it to make the food crispy but not greasy and I am not in the know.  This recipe though calls for a bit of cooking spray and then some time in a hot oven to create a crispy shell, now this I can do!

I started the pot of pinto beans before I left for work.  They were done by the time I got home so all I had to do was finish them off with some salt and fried onion and chile in oil.  Then I refried a batch of them.  I had some cooked shredded chicken already in the freezer so I thawed that for Rene's flautas.  We omitted the cheese on mine and Paulo's since he's still not dairy approved.

The rest is super simple.  Wrap a stack of corn tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave them to get them moist and warm.  Lay one down, add the fillings, you can get creative here, add whatever you have on hand and like to eat, and then roll it, place it in a pan seam side down and repeat with the rest.  Give them a quick spritz of cooking spray and into the oven they go at 375.  After 8 minutes turn them over and put them back in for another 5 minutes.  Because I had the meat already cooked, the cheese already shredded and the beans 99% done by the time I got home the whole dinner was on the table in less than 30 minutes which is always appreciated, especially on Friday night after a very long week!