FEED YOUR FACE: Corn Tortillas

Jim is still on his break, so here I am (Kathi) posting a recipe.

My friend Ruby said she does not know how to make tortillas, and I can't believe that 'cause of how incredibly easy it is.

Speaking of "incredible," the day of the 9/11 attacks, I was at Jamba Juice in the morning and had just heard about it on the radio. When a random other customer person at Jamba asked me if I had heard about it, I said I had and that I thought it was incredible and horribly sad.

She went off on me for using the word incredible. She was yelling at me, "Incredible?!!! Are you f-ing kidding me? Incredible?" I had no idea what the heck she was all pissy about. Incredible's first definition from Merriam-Webster's site is "too extraordinary and improbable to be believed." Also, unconceivable, unthinkable, etc. I did NOT mean it as she took it, as in "wow, way cool." Dumb B! Okay, can you tell it hurt my feelings that she thought I meant it was good? Geez. . .

Okay, back to incredibly easy tortillas. Or, should I say, "unbelievably" easy tortillas.

First, buy a bag of masa. It's in the grocery store. It's a staple. You can use it for other things than tortillas, such as thickening up chili. Yum.

Here's a picture of the bag of masa I bought. The instructions for making tortillas are right on the bag. So, just put the masa and water into a bowl: 2 cups of masa, 1/4 t. salt, and 1-1/4 cups of water. Mix it up about 2 minutes until it becomes a soft dough. When I made this batch, I didn't need many tortillas, so I made half a batch. Just 1 cup of masa, 1/8 t. salt, and about 2/3 cup of water.

Then, divide the dough into little balls. Because I made a half batch, I just made 8 balls instead of the usual 16. Then cover them with a damp cloth to keep them from drying out.

The instructions say to line a tortilla press with two pieces of plastic wrap stuff, but I find it easier to just use a big plastic bag (the gallon size) and shove the dough in that to press.
Some people even use a rolling pin (old school!).

Then, just center the dough-ball in the middle of the tortilla press and smoosh it closed.

Open it back up, and you have a tortilla!

As you finish pressing and stacking them, be sure to keep that damp cloth over them still to keep them from drying out.
Once you have a little stack of tortillas, heat a skillet or griddle to medium high-ish, and flip them on for a little bit on each side -- maybe 45 seconds to a minute. This kind of finishes them up and gets them sturdier to use.
Then you can make enchiladas or tortilla chips or tostadas -- whatever you want to make. Yum.

So, as Jim might say, get some masa, smoosh it up and get ready to FEED YOUR FACE!