How-to | Love and Lemons

We’ve been making a lot of pesto lately. It’s great just to have on hand, especially for lazy summertime cooking. Dollop it on grilled vegetables, fish, meats, tofu, pasta, salads, eggs, toasted bread, pizza, sandwiches… you get the idea. It makes anything an instant tasty meal whether you really felt like cooking or not.

I have little sticky notes all over my kitchen scribbled with the various ingredients we’ve been subbing in (yes, that’s my organization “system”). Finally it occurred to me that I’m not going to send you to the store for a specific recipe. Instead, I’ll share a basic recipe and then offer some ideas of how you can change it up.

But the first thing you need to do is go look in your kitchen and see what you already have. You probably already have some kind of nuts, herbs or greens to use as a starting point. More often than not, if I make a pistachio pesto, it’s not because I’m trying to be fancy… pistachios just happened to be the nut I had that day. If I have some arugula in the fridge that’s getting close to it’s last days, I’ll use that. I have two huge basil plants so a basil combo is a common go-to for me.

I’m sure there are a million more ideas than the ones I’ve listed here, if you have a favorite, feel free to share!

Go to the recipe “pesto, many ways”…

Patience isn’t always my thing. I’m the queen of not reading recipes all the way through and even when I’m “really trying,” I will somehow still miss a few key steps.

I first attempted corn tortillas about a year ago. I was reading Rick Bayless’ cookbook and in it he writes “I encourage you to make your own corn tortillas at least once, if for no other reason than to fill the kitchen with that alluring aroma and to relish the instant gratification of a toasty, press-baked-eaten tortilla.”

This gave me such hope. I had visions of whipping up these soft toasty yummies anytime I felt like it… taco parties with friends… saturday morning breakfast tacos over coffee. I was going to tap into my inner mexican lady and have the best smelling kitchen around.

The result of this first try was a bunch of crumbly dough stuck to plastic, a whole bunch of cursing, and a few “ok” ones that stayed together but were thick and dry. I didn’t know what I did wrong, I had read all (3 pages) of the directions.

I chalked it up to my heritage… maybe Italian girls weren’t born to make tortillas.

Many months later, when my tortilla-making-frustration was a distant memory, I tried again with better success. I’ll even go as far as to say that now I can make them well. They’re no Topolobampo tortillas, but of course they’re leaps and bounds better than the processed packaged kind.

So I learned 2 things in this experience:

First, and most importantly, I missed the step in the directions where once you mix your masa harina with water you need to let it sit for at least 30 minutes. The dehydrated corn flour needs time to rehydrate. This is an important step to getting a more pliable texture that won’t crumble when you go to press your tortillas. Don’t skip this step.

Second, some things just take a little bit of practice and patience. You might not necessarily get the “feel” of it the first time (or maybe you will if you’re just that good – but that’s what I had thought too).

Go to the recipe “homemade corn tortillas”…