Tortillas! If I Can Do It, So Can You

One fine summer, our youngest son's best friend came to stay with us. The boys had a good time. WE had a good time. It was just a good match.

Now that they're are all grown up with boys of their own, we still see Samuel, our Summer Son occasionally. On the occasion that I butchered our last stewing hen, he, the beautiful Katie, and their children, came by to show us how REAL Mexican enchiladas were made. Gotta tell ya, they were GOOD, but different. It consisted of chicken meat stewed with chilies, very little cheese, onions marinated in vinegar, and these wonderful homemade tortillas that were dipped in a red sauce and fried. The whole thing was eaten taco style. Very different from the two-cans-of-cream-of-chicken-soup-cheesy-rolled-up-in-a-flour-tortilla-and-baked enchiladas I was used to.

After that lovely evening I got to thinking about those tortillas. Unlike storebought, they had FLAVOR. And they were just masa (corn flour) and water. Rolled into a ball a little bigger than a golf ball. Pressed flat between two sheets of plastic. Cooked on a well-seasoned stovetop griddle. I have all the stuff that's needed to just get in there and do it myself. Except that amazing authentic wooden Mexican tortilla press (another kitchen gadget I'd love to have but don't have room for) - but I do have Grandpa's rolling pin. Let's give it a whirl.

Dump some masa into a bowl and add water. Sorry I'm not a measuring person. This amount of masa and water made 15 tortillas.

Mix with your hands until you have a nice dough. Add water if too dry, or more masa if too wet. It's pretty forgiving.

I roll the dough up into slightly flattened balls a little bigger than a golf ball and cover with a wet paper towel. Then I roll each one out between two sheets of plastic (you can see I used a cut-up Ziploc bag).

Cook 'em on the griddle. OK, so the edges are ragged and some of them have bubbles (Samuel would say, "Place them on the griddle, don't THROW them!"). Sammy might've tossed some of the less than perfect ones to the chickens, but we cretins eat them!

And this is what you get. 15 yummy discs of goodness. How easy is that?

Thank you Samuel. You're the best Summer Son ever.