On Saturday night, our 12-year-old son and I had toyed with the idea of taking the Metra downtown to visit the Art Institute. He has an insatiable appetite for visiting museums…and eating good food. Our house filled with smoke at around 11pm on Saturday as a neighbor was having a large leaf-burning fire (no, it’s not legal in our area, several people did call the police) so we were up until around 2am coughing.

I woke up to find the yard covered in a blanket of snow and reports of ridiculous post-Thanksgiving travel delays. Between the lack of sleep, expected traffic to/from the city, and snow, I thought it best we delay our museum visit. I had to do something to “make it up” to the kid. He had pestered me about homemade tamales or carnitas for awhile and nothing really warms the soul like good Mexican food. We’d recently visited Lady Dahlia, a new restaurant in Mt. Prospect, that boasts homemade tortillas which inspired me to take another try at making tortillas. The last time, it didn’t turn out well, but it’d been over a decade so why not?

As I was already planning the carnitas recipe from Rick Bayless’ “More Mexican Everyday” (I highly recommend this cookbook as well as its predecessor, “Mexican Everyday,” available on his website and many other booksellers), I went to YouTube and watched Bayless’ video on making corn tortillas.

I have to say, the video made me pretty intimidated, but I know I can pick up ready-made masa for tortillas at the grocery store across the street so I didn’t have to worry about masa harina.

homemade masa for tortillas — Homemade masa for tamales

Armed with a tortilla press and sheets of plastic, I set about forming the tortillas. I was pleasantly surprised that the press, turn 180°, press again process netted me an even and round tortilla. Getting the tortilla off the plastic is a bit of a nuisance, especially as your fingers get doughy, but as Bayless explains in his video, you don’t need to worry about overworking the dough with masa. I focused on technique and getting the heat on my griddle at the correct temps and by my 4th tortilla, I obtained the perfect “puff” that was described as “ideal.”

They weren’t all perfect, some needed to be reformed a few times and a couple wound up just getting tossed, but I got in the groove and could work on about four tortillas between forming and various stages of cooking on the griddle at once.

Since I’d already committed myself to the tortilla process, I churned out about a dozen and put together some queso fundido for a mid-afternoon snack to give us breathing room before a late dinner. I have been making queso fundido most of my life so I don’t have a recipe for it, but here’s the gist:

Mexican chorizo (I get it from the butcher counter since they make it in-house at my local grocery store)
Poblano chile
White onion
Wild mushrooms (I used oyster)
Chihuahua cheese (I get a block of whatever is on sale)

Preheat the oven to 450°
Fire-roast a poblano over an oven burner, remove charred skin. Remove stem and seeds and chop or slice into about 1/2” ribbons
Halve and slice the white onion
Brown chorizo and set aside to drain on a paper plate, wipe plan clean and return to heat
Chop and sauté mushrooms for a couple of minutes in a couple of tsps of hot cooking oil
Add the onions and caramelize
Take cheese directly from the package and place in a small oven-proof cooking dish (I use a small cast iron skillet), top generously with the chorizo, rajas, and mushrooms (freeze leftovers for another batch)
Heat in oven until bubbly and starting to brown
Let cool slightly and serve with warm tortillas

I promise it’s not burnt, the poblanos just showed up super dark in the photo

Well, that disappeared quickly. A few hours later, it was ready to take the pork shoulder out of the crock pot where it had been slow-cooking in lard for hours. I shredded it up, made the guacamole, refried the black beans, crisped the carnitas in a fry pan, sliced up some limes, and enlisted my husband’s help in grating up some queso fresco. I admit that I cheated a little and bought pico de gallo at our grocery store since it’s made in house there.

Completed carnitas with refried black beans

Altogether, it was a very delicious Sunday and our son wasn’t too mad about the missed museum trip. Another weekend!

Making tortillas on a snowy Sunday