Cinco de Mayo Homemade Corn Tortillas and Tacos

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  I made some homemade corn tortillas and tacos tonight! Ole! Ay ayay!

I remember when I taught school in Long Beach, California and I had kids bussed in from downtown. I had many monolinguals in my class who had come straight from Mexico and didn't speak much English.

These were VERY yummy...because the tortillas are homemade!  

 I remember Maria's mom who offered to come make tortillas for our Cinco de Mayo celebration. She took 2 busses to get to the school. These tortillas were so yummy I went out and bought a tortilla maker that week.

Go to the Link HERE for more.

Masa de Harina is what the corn flour is called. It's in the Mexican food section of the grocery store.

Mix as directed on your package. I did a cup of corn flour to a cup of water....and it mixes up kind of like Play Dough consistency. It is not very sticky. It is really a fun, perfect kind of dough to work with. 

I rolled it into about 12 tortilla sized balls, just about a handful like this....

And here's my little metal tortilla maker from a Mexican outdoor market called Olvera Street. I must have bought it  15 years go now. 

This pic is deceiving because I tried this little blob of dough...and it made a mini taco....really cute but not what I was going for....so then I doubled the balls... We like BIG tacos around here....snicker.....

As you can see this is a BIG handful of dough I rolled into a ball.....it was the perfect size....

There is parchment paper under and over the blob of dough to keep it from sticking to the tortilla maker.

Making tortillas is really fun!  Kids LOVE it!  And it makes a  perfectly round taco when it's homemade!  Ariba!   

Then I put it in a fry pan sprayed with Pam.....about 1 1/2 minutes on each side....just to cook them....
I experimented with some Wesson oil and some lard....of course lard is better if you want that authentic taste of a fried taco shell.

I did some fried in grease and some just cooked on a hot frying pan....Fried are tastier....but both are great. My taco meat is ground beef fried, grease drained, then  mixed with  1/2 bottle of salsa and a taco seasoning packet simmered together. You can also add a tiny can of green chiles if you like.  I sometimes do. 

Then  I added cilantro, tomatoes, cheese and lettuce and maybe a dollup of sour cream on top,
and it was a  Happy Cinco de Mayo celebration!

 And I'm all ready for our Cinco de Mayo Fajita and Taco party too!   OLE!

Now I need to go make a strawberry-lime virgin Margarita to go with our fajitas and tacos! Yum. 

Had to decorate with some sombreros for the Cinco de Mayo party too! 

And made some noisemakers.....we call them homemade marraccas!  Shake Shake!  Kids love these too! We just made them out of empty cans with dry beans and popcorn inside for noisemakers. 

And what party would be complete without the Mexican Hat Dance?   Not mine!  Party on Garth!  OLE!