Neal Family Adventures

The Neal’s SoCal SoJerz homemade tortilla chips

So I’m home. I had surgery on 6 May and am home for a couple more weeks. Nothing serious, just something that was needed.

Anyway, our church family at North Hills was so very kind to bring meals to the house for about 3 or 4 days after my surgery–in fact, there was so much food that we had to ask folks not to spend their money bringing more. I am very grateful for everyone’s generosity and am sure it helped with my recovery.

So one couple sent us a Mexican meal of tortillas, beans and rice, and a variety of tamales. The tamales and beans and rice were enough and the tortillas ended up sitting in the refrigerator.

Since coming to Southern California from Southern New Jersey, I have developed quite an affinity for tortilla chips. Not the commercial ones you buy at the grocery store, but the ones that come with your meal at a restaurant that sells authentically cooked food or the fresh cooked ones from the carniceria.

Epiphany.

It’s Monday morning, one of my favorite movies, “The Car” is on Cinemax:

And while I’m quoting lines from it, I have the opportunity to try my hand at making homemade tortilla chips!

There were twelve tortillas in the bag and they made the best chips. I found a couple of recipes on Recipezaar, one of the best sites on the web. The part that makes them the Neal’s SoCal SoJerz recipe is the oil used to fry them–we use olive oil for all our frying and it is seasoned (for my southern friends, you know what that means…). Here are the visuals:

This is a bag full–looks like a professional batch!

Below is a batch fresh out of the drainer; I put them in here before bagging…

Below is a small batch in the drainer. The only added ingredient at this point is a pinch of salt for taste. I might try adding lime juice next time (I think that’s what Chipotle might add to theirs)…

And below is a batch getting fried up…

There you have it; my first attempt at frying my own tortilla chips. They got the seal of approval from Christopher, so that’s good enough for me.