Homemade tortillas

After seeing this recipe at AnnArbor.com, we decided to make our own tortillas.  We ended up using the Joy of Cooking recipe due to logistics.  In any event, this was a resounding success.

Our notes:

• These were absurdly easy to make.  Five ingredients total: flour, baking powder, salt, vegetable shortening (or, in our parlance, "olive oil"), and water.
• The two recipes differed only in the amounts of baking powder and shortening.  Joy of Cooking called for less baking powder but far more shortening: 2 tsp. shortening vs. 1/4 cup (!).  The tortillas we made tasted heavily of olive oil--not a bad thing but next time I think we should try the recipe that uses less oil and see if that makes a difference in the texture.
• We used our handy griddle rather than a skillet.  This worked fabulously.
• Our tortillas came out a bit thicker and denser than store-bought ones, and they seemed to be less pliant (i.e. they would tend to crack if you tried to roll everything into a burrito).  Perhaps we should have used more baking powder?  Or less oil?
• The original recipe I had seen called for vegetable oil, and we used olive oil instead.  As a result our tortillas had a stronger taste than if we had followed the recipe more closely, but the substitution did not seem to affect the cooking time at all.

Resting the dough before cooking.

Once again, the griddle came through for us.

Stack o' tortillas.

yum.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 608

Key lime sherbet

For the key lime pie, we had only used about half of the lime juice as what we had gotten from the bag of limes.  What to do with the other half, we asked ourselves?  Once again, it was Joy of Cooking to the rescue with a lime sherbet recipe.

Our notes:

• Unbeknownst to me before the fact, this sherbet recipe called for gelatin as an agent to keep the finished product smooth.  Due to our previous almond pudding mishap we had a few envelopes of gelatin in the cupboard.  Much better results this time!
• The recipe called for 1 cup of sugar and we used somewhat less than a full cup; even so, my first impression upon tasting the finished product was one of overwhelming sweetness.  Probably reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup or even 2/3 cup next time.
• The sherbet had a better consistency after putting it into the freezer for a day than it did right from the ice cream maker.  I suppose it'd be the difference between soft serve and what I call 'real' ice cream.
• Our past experiences with our ice cream maker from the 1980s led us to believe that after churning and then storing the finished ice cream, you'd end up with a solid block of frozen product rather than something resembling a scoopable ice cream since the freezer wouldn't freeze it quickly enough.  That was not the case with this sherbet recipe, for which I credit the gelatin.  Surprisingly enough for our homemade ice cream (and related products), this was actually better not directly from the ice cream maker.

Soft serve sherbet.  Delicious, but it melted very quickly.

After one day's storage in the freezer.  Delicious, and it still has a smooth consistency.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 838