It's TACO Time!

I'm so excited that they still let me in to the cooking school up in the Sierra Mountains at the Yankee Hill Winery.  After yesterday, they may not.

I love driving up early Saturday mornings.  There's no traffic and no one looking at you, then pulling out so you have to slam on the brakes.  I made my usual stop at the little gold mining community of Columbia.  Todays subject ..... the Jail.

Truthfully, I don't remember the jail being here.  I'm pretty sure they moved it to make room for a parking lot.  As with most public buildings today, the inside is completely covered with graffiti, but at least it's just the pen and pencil version.

There were/are only two cells with holes to pass food through.  That makes each 6 x 4 cell completely dark so they can't see what they are eating.  I'm guessing they had a cook with MY kind of skills.

Here's a peek through the holes into the actual cell.  The 2 x 4 bed looks rather uncomfortable, even with moldy blankets and bugs for a mattress.

So .... on to the taco class.  Really, who doesn't know how to make tacos.  I was more interested in the sauces and tortillas we were going to make ... by hand!  You will be proud to know I was NOT the worst of the lot.  There was one other girl that cooks worse than me.

At least I try to follow the recipes.  She put only four tiny tomatillos in a blender, then dumped in an entire RED onion, instead of the quarter WHITE onion the recipe called for.  Next time I'll be sure to taste everything first.  It was like taking a big huge bite of raw onion.  In fact, it turned the VERDE (that means green) sauce completely RED.   I put a huge tablespoon on my taco.  I can STILL taste the onions.

Next up, the red chili sauce.  Once the same girl finished blending this one, I dipped a spoon in the sauce for a taste.  I almost spit it back out.  Good grief!!!  There had to be eighteen cloves of garlic in there.  Turns out when it called for two teaspoons, she put in two HUGE teaspoons from the jar of chopped garlic. It took three tomatoes and a big helping of sugar to make it edible.  It really wasn't edible ... I passed on that one.

Then it was my turn to make the salsa fresco.  It was worth the $40 to learn how to chop a tomato.  Stand it up on the stem end and slice down, but not all the way through.  Turn one quarter and slice again.  Lay it on it's side (it magically stays together) and slice away to make the most perfect pieces of tomato.  Who knew?  That sauce came out wonderful.

There was so much stuff ... roasted beef, boiled chicken (add in onion skins for flavor and color, then save the broth for other recipes), roasted pork and ceviche.  I am NOT a fan of raw fish, but guess who was instructed to make it.

Before I go there however, the secret to very tasty beef is after cooking, let it sit out and DRY out.  That intensifies the flavor.  To serve, add a tiny bit of beef broth and reheat, adding in spices like smoked paprika, chili lime, cumin, oregano ... whatever you like.  What a difference in taste.

I chopped up tilapia and dumped it in a bowl.  Nuke a lime for 15 seconds, and squeeze over the fish. Add a little red onion, some salt and the juice of a large lemon (also nuked to get the most juice).  How could that go wrong?  One lady down the counter came up with chopped garlic she said went in with the fish.  

I hesitated because the pieces were HUGE.  Are you sure that goes in here?  WHAT'S WRONG she asked.  Oh nothing ... she dumped it in.   Sure enough, upon checking the recipe, there was NO garlic.  I spent the next 20 minutes fishing out the garlic chunks.  Good thing they were so huge.  I got dinged for that one by the Chef.

On to making tortillas!!  I've done this many times before, with flour tortillas, not corn.  The recipe was simple ... masa, butter crisco and warm water.  Personally, I prefer lard.  Now to try out the handy dandy tortilla press.  The secret?  Cut open a large zip lok bag, lay it on the press, deposit the ball of masa you made, COVER IT WITH THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ZIP LOK BAG (which everyone seemed to forget), and press.  Instant tortilla.  Peel it off the plastic and cook on a cast iron comal (which he didn't have) or two huge flat electric fry pans.

Apparently, the secret is to not overcook them.  We of course, overcooked them.  The only saving grace was placing them in a tortilla warmer, which steamed them soft again.  On to flour torts.

They are MUCH easier to mix up and roll out.  While I was cooking, the other girls were rolling.  Somehow they couldn't get the concept of roll from the middle out, so there was not a round one in the bunch.  

Wine time came much earlier than normal ... 10:30 I think ... because we kept screwing up quite often.  No problem he said ... YOU are the ones eating this stuff!!  I filled each of my tacos with two types of filling.

I skipped the ceviche.  Surprisingly, even the corn tortilla stayed together until the very end.  Luckily, there was no rice cooked on this day.  Mighty tasty it was, mostly due to the spices we added.  I just might have to start making my own tortillas again ... except for that Keto thing.  NO carbs!!!  Ok, I'll wait until I lose 10 pounds to try it.