In Which I Return from the Void bearing Tidings and Tortilla Recipes.

Yes. I made these/am inordinately proud of the steam capture photography. Skip down to the recipe if you’ve got a TL;DNR situation going in your salivary glands.

*peers in* O HAI.

So it seems that regular posting when life picks up is kind of beyond me…Well, I didn’t make any promises to you, but if you want to break up anyway TOO BAD, BECAUSE I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO.

I’ve been up to a number of increasingly tedious (and some not!) things lately, like car maintenance (long story, involving my procrastinating and a worse-than-I-thought accident a year ago), watching Doctor Who and Torchwood excessively, celebrating being ALIVE with my BFFL Jenny Teacups & old friends, starting a new semester at uni (Where am I picking up these Britishisms? *refers back to Doctor Who watching* Oh.), wrangling with the expenses for said overpriced university, container gardening, knitting, reading a lot and forgetting to update my Goodreads account, baking lots of muffins, getting a used BIKE!, going from eco-annoyance to full blown terrorism!, and working.

Now that I’m back at school, I’m working at the student run newspaper, so when I have articles published I’ll probably link them here, if they’re decent, or let them wither in the internet void, where they belong. I may or may not be starting a column for students about reducing wasteful consumption on campus/in general. Leave me some column name suggestions in the comments?

OH YEAH, I also have two new best friends. Meet Tallulah and Dr. River Song:

River is the black and white beauty, and Tallulah is the neurotic silvery gray spaz. No OF COURSE I don’t have a favorite…

It was a nice surprise coming home from work to find a cutie like Tallulah in her cage waiting for me, even if she is bipolar and antisocial. After reading up that rats need company for optimal happiness, we found River at a Petsmart and brought her home to meet her new BFF. No, neither of them have Facebook pages…yet.

As far as reducing my consumption of disposables, I feel like I don’t have much to say, even though I made a delicious vegan basil pesto yesterday with basil I’ve been growing on my porch (and a few weeks ago made a kick-ass rosemary foccacia to go with the same), have switched almost entirely to plastic free toiletries (separate entry, coming soon, promise!), and generally try to find a new thing to de-plastic-ify every week. I think I’m going to start doing smaller entries to document them, because it seems I’ve devolved into just posting recipes once a week, which isn’t really what I started this blog to do. I wanted to document my little struggles in trying to reduce my impact on the world and live a cleaner, more pure life, una vida pura. So, without further digression, it’s tortilla time.

Tortillas are pretty much a staple in my diet. Quesadillas, tacos, burritos, tortilla pizzas, you name it, I can probably make it with a tortilla. Justin loves tortilla chips, and these just take a 15 minute sojourn in the oven at 350 to become that. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much impossible to buy them without packaging, but after a quick google search I found out they’re really easy to make with like, two ingredients! And NOT in the same way the cornflakes were…

HOMEMADE TORTILLA RECIPE

YOU WILL NEED:
2 cups masa harina (corn flour/masa) I used MaSeCa brand, ~4 dollars at my local Ralphs grocery store (I’ve heard it’s cheaper at Food4Less, but I think I’ll try to find it in bulk next time).
1 & 1/2 cups of water
1 tortilla press or something to squish/roll out the tortillas (plus parchment paper/unsticky thing)
1 cast iron frying pan

YIELDS 16 tortillas

Disclaimer: I made them without a tortilla press, using two cutting boards instead to squish them flat. I also used a gallon sized plastic bag, because I don’t have parchment paper and we don’t use the plastic bags left over from Justin’s pre-Erika days for anything. I don’t recommend it. But it works pretty well…The plan is to eventually get a used tortilla press on freecycle or something, but to prevent sticking the plastic/parchment paper is still pretty essential. At least I can reuse the plastic bag over and over (I hand wash it with cool water and air dry to prevent leaching) but it’s still not optimal. Suggestions?
I also used a stainless steel frying pan when the recipe called for cast iron, because I don’t have a cast iron pan and I don’t want to buy a new one. The stainless steel obviously worked fine, but I’d like to try it with cast iron, if anyone’s got one lying around they don’t use.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix together your masa and water. Knead it until mixed and even.

The dough should be smooth and firm and “clean” the bowl. If it’s sticky you didn’t use enough masa, if it’s powdery you didn’t use enough water. The proportion I listed above worked perfectly, but it wasn’t the recipe amount listed on the package.

Pull out a golf ball sized amount of dough.

Roll/squish/press out your tortilla, peel it off the non-sticking apparatus, and drop it on the pan at medium-highish heat.

Cook on each side FOR THIRTY SECONDS ONLY. If you overcook the tortilla, it will be too stiff to bend without breaking. I can always tell if a tortilla is ready to flip if the spatula slides under easily and it seems to float on the pan. Repeat until you run out of dough.

That’s it! You now have 16 of exceptionally tasty tortillas made without weird preservatives and not shipped to you in plastic from who-knows-where made who-knows-when.

You will all now become this:

You’re welcome. iPura vida!

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