Homemade Corn Tortillas {recipe}
Making your own homemade tortillas shells is not just easy – it opens you up to a world of very tasty food. Back in the day I’d soak and prepare whole wheat tortilla shells for tacos or sandwich wraps. But since my family has gone gluten free, I’ve yet to a) find a good recipe that we like and b) bother testing a bunch more out.
I thought I was going to make it easy on my self and make corn tortillas shells. The instructions online were super easy, just water and masa flour.
But oh how dismal they turned out. It was terrible really! Lots of muttering under my breath as I tried to roll them out and have them break apart. Using my tortilla press didn’t help anything either as they’d look beautiful and then fall apart as I peeled them out. If I got them in the pan, they would cook to stiff. And we didn’t enjoy the taste. My husband nicely asked me if I’d stop trying to make them.
Not one to keep messing up dinner after dinner, I gave in and called it a loss.
Oh…..but then I had an idea. An epiphany really.
I love reading through my old handwritten cookbooks and something jumped out at me while I was skimming my wheat tortilla recipe.
Oil.
And I had to try them again with some added oil. Just to see if my inkling was correct. And I think I finally got it right – these are even husband approved.
Homemade Corn Tortillas
Ingredients
2 cups masa harina (corn flour – not corn meal)
1/2 tsp salt
1 – 1 1/4 cups hot water
1 Tbsp oil
Method of Preparation
1. Mix together the corn flour, salt, one cup of hot water, and the oil together in a bowl and combine.
2. Add water until you reach the right consistency. What you’re going to be looking for is a dough that is wet enough to stick together, but not so sticky that it stays on your hands.
3. Knead the dough for a minute or so to fully combine the ingredients.
4. Cover the bowl in order to keep the moisture in the dough – otherwise by the time you’re done, it’ll be to dry. Take a golf ball sized chunk of dough and either roll flat with a rolling pin or place into a tortilla press. Either option you choose, lay the dough between layers of wax paper or a ziploc bag cut in two. If the dough sticks to the plastic – it’s to wet, just add a touch more flour.
5. Place the tortilla onto a medium-hot skillet, not greased. Cook for 45 seconds to one minute on each side.
6. Once tortillas are fully cooked, take them off the skillet and place in between a folded towel. This helps keep them supple and warm while you’re cooking the rest.
You can use them immediately or store in the refrigerator for a week or so.
Or if you’re looking for whole wheat tortillas, never fear – I have those listed right here: Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas
Making your own “traditional” masa is also a possibility when you purchase the pickling lime from a place like Cultures for Health. “Ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures developed nixtamalization using lime and ash to create alkaline solutions to treat corn.
Nixtamalizing corn by soaking it in lime water, produces corn that is more easily ground (when treating whole corn rather than corn meal), its nutritional value is increased (through the freeing up of Vitamin B3, flavor and aroma are improved and mycotoxins (a type of fungus) are reduced. Unprocessed Maize (corn) is deficient in niacin which is problematic when corn is used as a staple food in a diet. While it is suggested that corn should soak in lime water for 7 hours prior to using it in cooking, traditional cultures would often soak corn for 1-2 weeks.” – CfH.
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Crispy Potato Bake {recipe}
Crispy potatoes call to me, so while on Pinterest awhile back, I pinned these in my “recipes to try” board. And try I did! These potatoes are soft underneath, yet have a pleasant crispy top. And the aroma of the roasting garlic was a wonderful touch as well. They were much less work than making au gratins, yet a satisfying side dish.
Crispy Potato Bake
{adapted from Fish Food Blog}
Ingredients
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled
3-4 small onions or shallots
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
Method of Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and melt butter. Grease a mid sized casserole pan with some of the butter.
2. Slice potatoes very thinly and arrange vertically in the dish.
3. Also slice the onion and garlic into circles (not chopped) and slide between the layers of potato.
4. Brush with remaining butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
5. Bake 1 hour, covered with either aluminum foil (not touching the food) or a solid sheet pan. Uncover and bake an additional 20-30 minutes until potatoes are cooked through and crispy on top.
*This post is linked to Real Food Wednesday
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Soaked Whole Grain Pancakes {recipe} {gluten free options}
Soaking grains is always one of the biggest issues that stop people from furthering their journey into traditional foods. Many of the recipes are drastically different than what we’re used to, they take extra time, and often fail. Leaving us with dense, doughy products.
A few months ago I was making our un-soaked gluten free pancakes one weekend and started to wonder about my whole grain rice and millet in the back of the cupboard. I had run out of one of our gluten free flours and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I’d never thought to use my whole grains in the blender! You see, I don’t have a grain mill, and my blender is a cheapy one on it’s last leg.
But I’ve made blender pancakes plenty of times! Could my blender maybe suffice for a grain mill?
I’ve been testing different grain varieties every weekend or two and I think I finally found a quick and easy way to make soaked pancakes! These can easily be made gluten free by refraining from gluten containing grains.
Soaked Whole Grain Pancakes
Ingredients
2 cups whole grains (use what you have on hand, wheat berries, rice, oats, millet, flax – I usually use 1 cup oats, 1/2 cup brown rice, and 1/2 cup millet)
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp oil or melted butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
(also up to 1/2 cup of milk if needed for blending)
Method of Preparation
1. Combine the grains, yogurt, and milk in the blender and let sit out overnight. For a dairy free version, you could use coconut milk and something like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar instead of the yogurt and milk.
2. In the morning, blend until smooth. If you have a powerful blender, this may not take long – in my blender it takes about 5 minutes. You can add additional milk in this step to help blend if needed.
3. Add remaining ingredients and blend just until combined.
4. Cook pancakes on medium heat until lightly browned, flip over and cook until cooked throughout.
5. Top as desired.
*this recipe also works well when you’ve forgotten to soak them, just proceed as normal. 
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Oyster Mushroom Pasta in Pink Sauce {recipe}
A few weeks ago I grew my own mushrooms for this recipe. Amazed at the process and how quickly they grew, I have decided that yes….homegrown foods are always better. It’s always a wonderful thing when you can pick your food just moments before cooking!
Mushrooms are a good source of B vitamins (read here why vitamin B is so pivotal for fertility) as well as many minerals like selenium, copper, and potassium. Useful in many types of dishes, mushrooms are quite the versatile food. This creamy pasta dish combines both the flavors of a tomato sauce and a white sauce, we were pleasantly surprised at the wonderful flavor.
Oyster Mushroom Pasta in Pink Sauce
(taken from Back to the Roots)
Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti (we use brown rice for a gluten free version – it’s also lower in phytic acid)
1 cup minced onion
1/4 cup olive oil (I used butter so as not to heat the olive oil)
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cups milk
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1/4 cup organic tomato paste
5 ounces homegrown oyster mushrooms
1/4 bunch parsley, finely chopped (I forgot…obviously)
sea salt and black pepper
Method of Preparation
1. Boil pasta according to package directions.
2. Saute onion in 2 Tbsp butter or oil with 1 tsp of salt until soft.
3. Add in minced garlic and saute for an additional 2 minutes.
4. In a blender, pour in the hot onion and garlic, milk, nutritional yeast, and tomato paste. Blend until fully combined.
5. Heat mixture over medium low heat until hot.
6. While sauce is heating, saute the mushrooms in the other 2 Tbsp butter or oil with a touch of salt, until browned.
7. Toss the pasta with the sauce and mushrooms, garnish with parsley.
{And yes – there are mushrooms under that pasta! They just fell underneath a bit.}
This post was sponsored in part by Back to the Roots, a company striving to create unique, enjoyable, and sustainable products for their customers. Each box of mushrooms is grown in recycled coffee grounds – they may use almost 1 million pounds of grounds this year! The readers here at NKU can also receive 10% off when they order a kit of their own! Just use the code: mushrooms4me10
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups {recipe}
© Donielle
Delightfully sweet, yet not overly so, these homemade peanut butter cups are an indulgence you can feel good about. Healthy? Not necessarily…… but with natural and unrefined ingredients these hit the spot in all the right places.
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Ingredients
Powdered cocoa (I use the kind not processed with alkali)
Melted coconut oil
Honey (preferably raw)
Peanut butter, softened (preferably homemade)
Method of Preparation
Yes, the quantities are missing from this recipe, but only because it depends on the container you use. I’m figuring you’re all smart enough to figure that part out.
1. You’ll use a 1:1:1 ratio of the cocoa, oil, and honey (I used 1/4 cup for a small pan about 4×6 in) and mix together until smooth. Pour into a greased pan (or press waxed paper into the pan so you can just pull it out when slicing) and freeze until firm, about one hour.
2. Mix the peanut butter with a touch of honey, just enough so it’s slightly sweet. For the same small pan, I used about 1/2 cup and 1 Tbsp honey. Spread over the frozen chocolate layer.
3. Mix together the same amount of cocoa, oil, and honey as you did for the first layer and spread over peanut butter.
4. Freeze until firm, about 1 more hour.
5. Hide from your family. Or give it away to keep from eating all of it!
Tips
- keep cold as it will start to melt a bit over 75 degrees because of the coconut oil
- you can also use butter in place of the oil.
- make them in cupcake liners (mini or regular) for true “PB cup” form!
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