Is there a way to open a text file in an already open instance of gedit?

I have a simple usability problem that I would love to fix. I work quite a bit with gedit as my LaTeX editor (with the excellent LaTeX plugin). I constantly need to work with several files. So, a very common situation for me is to be working on some file (hence gedit is running) when the need to edit another file arises. As Nautilus is easier to navigate than the "Open Dialog" of gedit, I usually open up a new Nautilus window, look for my file, and then double click on it (followed by a "Doh!"). What happens is that a new instance of gedit is started with a single tab of the file I just double clicked on, whereas the expected behavior (from my perspective at least) is that this new file should be opened in a new tab in the already running gedit instance.

So, to my question - is there a way to make it work the way that I prefer?