My daughter Maddie is learning how to cook and now learning how to blog about it too. She's only 11 years old and doesn't let her cerebral palsy get in her way. She's an amazing kid and I hope she continues to experience the enjoyment of cooking and writing about it. - RG

How to Make Homemade Tortillas

by Maddie Jones, daughter, student, all around great kid

Hello, it is Maddie here. I wanted to tell you how we spiced it up in the kitchen this week. We have a very close friend of ours who was born and raised in Mexico, and I can tell you firsthand that her Mexican food is to die for.

But today, I wanted to tell you how we made homemade masa tortillas. Now, like me, you might not know what masa is. It's finely ground corn that feels like sugar but tastes like corn. It got its name because corn in Spanish is maíz.

All you do is add water to the masa "flour" and mix it, creating dough. Then, you make the dough into 16 equal 5-6 inch balls. Now, here's where I come in.

I have a small, circular kitchen tool with a handle called a tortilla press. You put a piece of plastic down, one of the small balls of dough, and another piece of plastic down so it doesn't stick, and press it down. It makes the dough look like a small, thin pancake.

Then I hand it to my dad, who cooks it like a pancake on medium-high heat for about 50 seconds on each side. Then you do it again and again until there is no more batter.

The trickiest part is to avoid breaking it. It is so hard not to break it because it is so thin but other than that, you just need masa "flour," a tortilla press, water, a medium bowl, and a pan.

My favorite part, though, was watching our friend cook; she does everything with her bare hands, even flipping the tortillas! That's not even the most surprising part—she can eat those hot and spicy jalapeno peppers like they're nothing. It is amazing.

I made quesadillas with them; I hope I inspired you to do this at home!

Here's the Masa Flour we used. Instant corn masa flour, sometimes called masa harina, is masa in dried and powdered form. Masa is made from hominy, which is corn that is dried and treated with lye to loosen the hull and soften the corn.

Our friend Paula prefers using her hands to mix the masa and water.

Here's the size of one tortilla ball before going into the press.

This tortilla press was a gift from Paula. She told us it is probably 25 years old or older. You can find these on line and they are very inexpensive.

You can see we used a zip lock bag cut in half and then cut to the shape of the press. The plastic sheets help keep the dough from sticking to the press.

Here's what they look like after pressing.

Right onto a heated flat pan if you have one or a regular frying pan will work too. We did not use any oil to cook these.

My oldest daughter Nell saw how much fun we were having and decided to have a go at it.

Here's a fresh home made tortilla with a simple eggplant, greens and tomato filling. Paula would have added a few fresh slices of jalapeno but the kids and I opted out.

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