Homemade tortillas

On Thursday night, Chris and I were treated to a private cooking lesson. The subject matter: flour tortillas. The instructor: Blanca Tovar, the wife of the pastor from all the Chihuahua City area mission sites and an AMAZING cook. Sometimes I feel like all Mexican women are born knowing how to make everything from scratch. The whole idea stemmed from our last trip to the Mercado Juarez. I was absently playing with the tortilla making contraptions that our friend Arturo sells at his stall (see the 1st photo below), and after awhile he told me to pick out what color I wanted and take one. Of course Chris got one too. Armed with the tools, I almost had to learn the secrets of the trade. All day long I kept telling everyone I talked to that I was going to learn to make tortillas, and when 7:00 finally rolled around I apparently did not stop smiling the whole time we were in the kitchen. There's nothing like a fresh, soft, still too hot to touch because it just came out of a lightly buttered cast-iron skillet but smells so delicious that you eat it anyway tortilla, but you'll have to settle for some pictures!

Flour + lard + salt + baking powder + water = tortillas!

Learning from a pro.

Little balls of dough ready to be rolled out after they rise for a bit under a Wal-Mart bag. Blanca said you could even roll out a whole bunch, layer them between waxed paper, and keep them in the refrigerator for cooking a few at a time. I'm thinking this is a genius idea...

My first creation.

We had fajitas, chips and guacamole, and Spanish rice for dinner last night and breakfast burritos for breakfast this morning. Mmmmmmm!

When I was studying in Spain I learned how to make a mean tortilla (potato and onion frittata-like thing). Maybe in El Paso I can learn how to make mean tortillas??? For a gringa anyhow...I know mine will never be as good as Blanca's (although she did say the sign that she is being a good teacher is when her students learn to out-perform her), or Josefina's, or the other Blanca's, or...

Until next time, blessings!