Category Archives: tools

Homemade corn tortillas

lunch, supper, tools 3 Comments

I have a new toy! After doing a few batches of flour tortillas rolled out by hand, I realized that, um, I’m not very good at rolling out an actual circle. I bought this cast iron tortilla press from Amazon and I love it! I went with cast iron rather than lighter weight aluminum because the weight of the press does a lot of the work for me, and because I just have a thing for cast iron. It makes me happy.

I started by watching this clip — Alton Brown making tortillas. The step of lining the tortilla press with a ziploc bag is not one to be skipped! The negative reviews of the tortilla press on Amazon were folks complaining that the masa sticks to the press, but the dough should actually never come in direct contact with the press. Issue solved!

I used the recipe on the back of the Maseca bag The Cousin bought when she was here for salsapalooza — for four tortillas:

  • 1/2 cup Maseca
  • 1/3 cup water
  • pinch of salt

Really, could that be any easier? Mix the ingredients for about 2 minutes to form a soft dough, then divide into four equal portions.

After lightly pressing the tortillas (the first time I pressed too hard and ended up with paper-thin tortillas — not good!), I slapped them on a hot griddle for about 45 seconds on each side. Since these tortillas were destined for quesadillas I didn’t want to cook them all the way through, since they’d be meeting the heat again:

See how they’re just barely cooked? And already yummy?

Then I added last night’s leftover steak, sliced thin against the grain, with some tomatoes from the garden and some cheese. Sandwiched between two tortillas, this all went in the quesadilla maker (which gets a ridiculous amount of use in our house).

End result:

Love it! Crispy outsides, warm gooey/cheesy insides. Served with sliced tomatoes, this was fantastic. And quick. And easy! Definitely give this one a try.

How does your garden grow?

kids, tools 9 Comments

Wanna know how much The Yankee rocks? A LOT.

He built this:

And, because that line in Rocky Top about the dirt being too rocky by far is all true, we filled the raised bed with this:

Saturday morning we headed out to Home Depot with The Kiddo. We checked out all our options, lumber-wise: we didn’t want pressure treated lumber because we didn’t want the chemicals from it to make its way into our garden. Then cedar was suggested as an option: the Home Depot guy said, “Oh you could use cedar! It would do great. I mean, you’d have to build a new one every season, though.”

After a few seconds of blinking and telepathic communication, we did not pass go, but went directly to the Trex. This was more our style! More sturdy than anything else in the store, and safe to use around food.

“Oh yeah,” says Home Depot guy, “You could eat off it.”

Uh, okay.

All told, it cost $93 for the supplies to build this garden (not including the fill dirt), which is eight feet by four feet. Expensive? Sure, a little. But we have to do it only once. And we used screws to assemble it, so we could theoretically take it apart and reassemble it every year. But smart money is on me leaving it there. 😉

So far The Kiddo and I have planted four tomato plants (because, really, what’s the point of a garden without the prospect of tomato sandwiches?), two pepper plants, some cilantro, some basil and some strawberries. I’d love to add onions and carrots and green beans.  This nifty online planner shows how many of what you can plant in a square foot (thus my semi-obsessive square foot markers… made from The Kiddo’s yarn), then gives instructions for each plant you picked. How great is that?

So tell me! Do you garden? Do you have any advice, this being my first raised-bed garden? Any thoughts on how to keep away bunnies and other unwanted guests at the salad bar? Lay ’em on me!

Guinness Cupcakes

baking, dessert, tools 7 Comments

You know this is going to be good, don’t you?

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and LovesToEat.

You will need:

  • 1 cup Guinness beer
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2/3 cup sour cream

Now:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F
  2. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners
  3. In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt 1 cup of butter and pour in 1 cup  Guinness; bring to a simmer then whisk in cocoa powder till smooth. Set pan off the burner
  4. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend
  5. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl
  6. Add slightly-cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture a little bit at a time and beat just to combine
  7. Add flour mixture and beat on slow speed for about one minute
  8. Using rubber spatula, scrape down bowl and fold batter until completely combined
  9. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way
  10. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean — this took me about 20 minutes, but check after 15 just to be sure
  11. Put cupcakes on a rack until completely cooled

Now is a good time to revisit my previously mentioned lesson: Know Your Bakeware. I cooked 12 of these in my silicone Kitchenaid muffin pan; it was a wedding present and has never failed me. I also cooked 12 of these in my heart shaped stand-alone silicone muffin cups from Wilton. Although these worked beautifully for the cherry limeade cupcakes, something went horribly wrong here. See?

Lovely, right? I honestly have no idea what happened here. I used a scoop, so they were all filled with the same amount of batter. Any ideas? The only thing I did differently this time was to put paper liners in the silicone cups. Anyway, the good news is that all but four of them were salvageable with a little cleanup and a good cover of icing.

Speaking of icing! I used Wilton’s buttercream icing.

You will need:

  • 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I don’t use the Wilton-recommended clear, just the regular stuff)
  • 4 cups sifted* powdered sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
  • 2 tablespoons milk

*A note on sifting: I hate sifting. So I don’t do it. A few seconds whirring around in the food processor breaks up any clumps, aerates the sugar and doesn’t make me want to spork my eyeballs out the way a sifter does.

To mix it up:

  1. In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer
  2. Add vanilla and mix again
  3. Gradually add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, beating well on medium speed — adding it gradually helps incorporate it really well and keep it from being at all grainy when you’re done
  4. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often (unless you have a cool Beater Blade. Which I don’t. Humph.)
  5. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Now ice away to your heart’s content! I used disposable icing bags from Wilton, and a fantastic giant star tip I ordered on Etsy from Bake It Pretty. And it is giant. Here it is next to a 1-cup measuring cup:

So, the finished product:

I set aside a few of these (including the four Fail Cupcakes) for us to enjoy at home, and the rest I took to The Yankee at work today in my awesome carrier from Costco:

And that’s it! Go bake, people! Oh, unless you have a brilliant theory as to what caused Cupcake Fail, in which case please leave me a comment and then go bake.

Cast iron: a cautionary tale

tools 5 Comments

Want to know what happens if you let your cast iron sit around, unused, with a lid fused to the skillet? Allow me to show you.

Please to remember: I have a love of cast iron. A serious, deep, and abiding love. And the pretty, shiny skillets to prove it:

See how pretty and shiny and glossy they are? Teflon has nothing on these. Nothing.

Now, here is a skillet and lid that someone gave me recently. Oy.

This. Is. Not. Good.

I feared the worst, but tried to attack it on my own. I put the skillet and lid in the oven and turned on the self-cleaning cycle. This baked off all the gunky, sticky seasoning and left me with just rust. But a lot of rust. Fine-grade sandpaper is no match for this.

Next step: finding someone with a sandblaster. Seriously. See?

This has become quite the project.

Honestly, I’m giggling a bit at the mental image of moseying into a body shop wielding a cast iron skillet.  Will I look like a woman scorned coming to seek revenge on someone? “No, don’t run! I just want to make bacon!”

Say hello to my little friend

tools 3 Comments

I’d like you to meet my BFF in the spice cabinet: Miracle Blend.

Why do they call it that? Well, because it is indeed a miracle. For reals. It is the fastest, easiest way to transform anything with a single spice (that makes it sound a little bit like Superman). I use it on:

  • corn
  • pasta salad
  • croutons
  • salad
  • green beans
  • broccoli
  • cauliflower
  • chicken
  • steak
  • popcorn
  • potatoes

The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Mine is in that cute little shaker because I buy it by the pound. It’s that good. I’ve actually been to their little place in Michigan (on a trip to see The Yankee’s family) and it’s ADORABLE. And they let The Kiddo eat a ridiculous amount of their crackers, which he actually liked (that’s another miracle).

So get some! Go now! The Yankee loves their Char Broil It for steaks, and I love the Lemon Pepper on chicken. But the Miracle Blend, people. Can’t live without it.