"tortilla" news and stories

If you're tired of the typical dips (and we don't mean that weirdo who chatted you up at the bar last night), check out a lighter, spicier alternative: peanut chili dip from The 15-Minute Gourmet: Vegetarian, by Paulette Mitchell.

Peanut Chili Dip
Makes: 2/3 cup

You will need: 1/3 cup organic or natural peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
3 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. chili powder
Optional dash of cayenne

Combine pb and water in a bowl, stir to make a paste. Stir in remaining ingredients and serve. You can keep this baby in the fridge until you're ready to eat - it's great hot or cold.

And don't forget dippers - forgo boring tortilla chips for homemade pita crisps.

There's really nothing I love more than scrambled eggs and cheese between a bread-like substance of some stripe. I like breakfast sandwiches, and I love breakfast burritos and taco (or huevos rancheros perched on toasted corn tortillas). I have a very hard time resisting their siren song. Digging around in the Slashfood photo pool, I came across this image by the Homesick Texan and knew immediately that it was today's Food Porn Daily picture. I am especially charmed by the blackened bits on the tortilla (I find charring to be swoon-worthy).

If you'd like to see your food photography featured in this space, head over to the Slashfood Flickr group, join up and start adding your images.

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It's been known for quite some time that blueberries are high in antioxidants. Recently I learned that another blue food is also high in these healthful compounds: blue corn tortillas. Not only that, the pale blue-gray discs also have more protein and less starch than their white-corn cousins. All of this comes as very good news for me, considering I usually eat things like pork fried in lard betwixt my tortillas. Now all I need to do is convince some local taquerias to start offering blue tortillas.

Mexican and Venezuelan researchers recently published their findings on blue corn tortillas in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Since blue corn is so high in antioxidants, the scientists believe consuming it may help to fight colon cancer and other diseases. The high levels of antioxidants in blue corn result from pigments called anthocyanins. What I'd like to know is whether these guys did any research on the inky purple Peruvian beverage chicha morada made from, you guessed it, blue corn.

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My kitchen has officially reported me for neglect. I've been too busy to cook much of anything lately, and dinner has consisted of whatever I could whip up in a few short minutes or (more likely) whatever I happened to pick up on the way home. My pots and pans are sulking in the corner, my wisks and spatulas are officially on strike. Even my two fridges, once filled to the brim with every conceivable form of produce, protein, and condiment are looking pretty stark these days. It is a sad state of culinary affairs in my house, let there be no doubt.

That said, I've been aching to make a return to the kitchen, so I was thrilled to see that Homesick Texan had written about her homemade Puffy Tacos, one of my favorite Tex-Mex meals. There is just enough work in making and rolling out the taco shells to satisfy my need to make something homemade, and the rest of the recipe is very simple to put together - perfect for those of us without a lot of time on our hands.

Since I prefer not to buy the pre-made taco shells from the grocery store (these taste so much better, really) I was wondering if you could make these ahead of time and freeze them before frying. Has anyone ever tried that before? If so, let us know how they worked out. I'd love to keep a batch of these ready to go in the freezer.

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Baked chips, when compared to regular fried chips, lack a certain something. They don't have the flavor or texture of regular chips and this is especially true in the case of tortilla chips. Eating Well set out to taste test some healthier chips and noticed, when reading the labels, that not all fried chips are equally "bad" for you - and many had more fiber and less sodium than their flavorless baked counterparts, with only a few more grams of fat. Out of 20 different chips tested, they picked out their top choices.

• RW Garcia Stone Ground (140 cal., 4g fat/.5g saturated, 4g fiber per 1-oz serving) - This brand got the "smart choice" award from the reviewers, who described them as being "authentic" and having a "great corn flavor." As an added bonus, each serving only had 40mg of sodium, the lowest in the test group.
• Santitas White Corn (130 cal., 6g fat/1g saturated, 1g fiber per 1-oz serving) - Salty, corny and crunchy, these chips actually had less sodium than most of the chips in the taste test. They weren't high in the fiber department, though.