I’m not proud of this,  but when I was in junior high, I ate taquitos from the cafeteria nearly every day.  I don’t even want to think about what they were filled with, but I just loved them; mostly for the crunchy corn tortilla and the green dipping sauce with which they were served.  We won’t even talk about the Hostess mini crumb donuts I ate too.  Geez.  Gotta love the offerings in school cafeterias.  Sad to say it’s no better 30 years later.  Did I just say that?  30 YEARS?  “sigh”.

Anyway, I digress…sorry.   As we all know, traditional taquitos are deep fried.  We also know deep fried foods = bad news.  I set out to create a plant-based taquito that I could bake, but would still be crunchy.  I don’t cook with oil as a rule, but for form and function, a small amount was required for this to work.  I tried it without.  Fail.  However, I was amazed how such a small amount could make a difference.  1 tablespoon of olive oil or less for the entire batch of 12 taquitos.  Not bad.  Since these taquitos are filled with potatoes, I’m calling them paquitos.  🙂