Homemade Corn Tortilla Chips (and salsa)

Special Guest Bloggers…The Darnall Sisters!

I couldn't be more excited to introduce you to the Darnall sisters.  Look them, aren't they cute?:

They embarked on their very own culinary adventure and I wanted to share it with you.  Nicole (left) is my bff and roomie from college.  She is a true foodie and can make a mean side of green beans.  In college, I could always count on her for sushi night.  Shelly (right), is Nicole's little sis and loves to cook (she is a big fan of Dave Lieberman).  She has great taste in food and was the one to introduce me to kosher dogs (my one true love).  So, here is their story:

Voice of Nicole:

The idea to make homemade tortilla chips originated from our herb garden. Several months ago, Shelly ever -so -nicely planted an herb garden containing rosemary, chives, cilantro and green beans.  Today, the garden is totally OVERRUN with cilantro. I mean, it’s like a cilantro forest out there.  Soooo…I asked,“What can we do with all this cilantro?” Shelly said, “Let’s make salsa! I have corn tortillas, we can make our own chips!”

I will admit, I was a bit skeptical about making our own chips.  What if the salsa was amazing, but the chips were awful? Then what would we do? We decided to go for it.

The recipe calls for peanut oil to fry the tortillas in. I found peanut oil from 2008 in the pantry. Naturally, I g-chatted Shanon with this cooking dilemma. She said to ditch the 2008 peanut oil and just use regular old veggie oil. Sold.

We don’t have a deep fryer or anything, so we just heated up the oil in a small frying pan.  When we were sure it was hot enough (tested it with a small piece and it sizzled) we threw several slices of tortilla in there. To my amazement, they started to sizzle and cook immediately! Be sure to watch them good, they brown up real fast. Also, we used a flipper thing to turn them over and brown the other side.

Caution: make sure your kitchen is well ventilated when you start this process. We had the fan on over our stove AND windows open and two days later-the house still smells like the back of a McDonalds. Its getting better, but it seriously smelled gross after. 

We just seasoned the chips with kosher salt right away as they came out of the oil. They stay hot and sizzle for a while, so we put them on paper towels to cool.

I’m not going to expand about the salsa as I did not participate in making it. But Shelly said it was really easy and it did taste amazing. I think she used less onion then it called for.

Shelly chimes in:

A little bit about the salsa, it’s just your typical pico variety. 4 plum tomatoes, ¼ big white onion (I don’t like red onions, but choose your favorite), cilantro (I used plenty), ½ jalapeno (I would use more next time, I like spice), pressed garlic clove, juice of a whole lime and s & p. Done.  J 

Back to Nicole:

Oh, and did you know that you can freeze cilantro? I did not know this. Shelly did. Since we have that forest in our back yard, Shelly cut a bunch of it up and froze with some water in an ice cube tray. She said that later we can just thaw out the cubes and dry out the cilantro to use it. Crazy!

Here are the recipes.