I recently posted about my attempt at making authentic homemade tortillas.  As you may recall the results were less than pleasing - the tortillas were very crisp and essentially flavorless.  Thanks to some help from Meghan on the Project Foodie forum I have tried again.  The results — well you be the judge.

To recap, the goal was to make homemade tortillas that tasted like the ones I had eaten at Mexican restaurants when I lived in Houston TX.  The original recipe I attempted was from Fine Cooking, (June/July 2006 p. 73) and claimed to be for easy tortillas.  On the Project Foodie forum, Meghan listed off several potential problems with what I did the first time: choice of fatty substance, too much water, resting time, and how they were cooked.  The problems in my particular case appear to have been excess water and the (attempted) use of a food processor rather than hand kneading.  The use of vegetable shortening rather than lard was another potential issue that may have caused some loss in flavor.

This time I used a different recipe that purported to be authentic.  The pre-amble to the recipe states that the use of lard vs. vegetable shortening is an on-going topic of dispute.  As I generally try to make healthy eating choices I decided to continue with the vegetable shortening rather than the lard.  Conceptually making tortillas is easy: mix flour, shortening and water; kneed the dough; let the dough rest; shape the dough and then cook the tortillas.  Easy that is until you read the fine print which includes 10 - 15 minutes of kneading!  That's a lot of kneading so I now understand why the initial recipe attempted to use the food processor.  I have weak wrists so I didn't last 15 minutes but with Husband’s help we got nice elastic dough.  The recipe said to rest 1/2 hour but Meghan had said longer is ok and since I was busy preparing the filling for the Fajitas I ultimately let the dough rest a bit over an hour.  Shaping the tortillas was also demanding because each tortilla should be rolled as thin as you can get them.  So rolling was a good arm work-out.  The recipe made 12 tortillas so I rolled a couple, cooked a couple and then rolled more (again with Husband’s help on the rolling…).  The cooking is the easiest part taking only 15 - 30 seconds per side.

The result?  Well the tortillas didn't look the prettiest due to our lack of expertise in rolling nice round tortillas but they did have the soft texture the initial batch lacked.  But the taste, unfortunately, was not much improved from the original batch.  While I think they had a bit more flavor than the original crunchy tortillas, in general they tasted like flour and water.  Perhaps it was the use of vegetable shortening rather than lard. Or perhaps I'm just not meant to be a tortilla maker.  Given the amount of effort the whole process took I'm just not convinced it was worth the effort.  In fact, I'm not sure it would be worth the effort even given a tasty result.  I'm a bit saddened that I won't have homemade tortillas but I'm definitely looking forward to them the next time I go out to a Mexican restaurant that makes their own...

I was never really a fan of lima beans but in my husbands familys baked beans they were fabulous. Succotash , yuck because there were lima beans in it. Over this past Labor Day weekend, my in-laws were having a BBQ and my family was also invited. It's soooo nice  that both sides of the family get along. That way I can maximize my visiting time by having both my husbands family and my family at the same event.  My mother-inlaw had a recipe from her husbands side of the family for baked beans. I said sure let's make them, I really like baked beans but never make them or buy them in a can as my hubby doesn't like them. So why make them for one person! However to my surprise the lima beans did not look green or taste yucky. My family had no idea they were lima beans until after the BBQ when I happened to mention to my younger sister(there are 4 of us girls) that I liked the baked beans even though they were lima beans. She was totally surprised and had had no idea that lima beans were used. So to fool your family and friends into eating lima beans,  use the following recipe. Happy eatings!

So here is to Aunt Dutch's Baked Beans.

 2 cans lima beans, drained well

1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard 

1/2 teaspoon chopped onion

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

4-6 ounces of King syrup, golden table syrup or molasses

1/4 bottle ketchup (as an old fashioned recipe the measurements are not exact)

salt

Mix all of this together and let sit overnight in the refrigerator.

Cook the next day for 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees F.

And enjoy some of the best baked beans out there. Thanks Aunt Dutch from the Shreiner side of the family.

How many kids like Fig Newton cookies ? Well as a child they were my favorite. My grandmother would actually send me a box for my birthday. But then again what kid chooses blueberry crumb pie for a birthday cake ? Me.

So now as an adult, having fresh figs is the best. A reminder of great summer days and the better flavors of fresh figs.

A more grown-up version of fig newton cookies Fig And Almond Squares from Cooking Light (September 2006)