Getting a little too comfortable with spring

Well, my last post sang out praise for the good weather we were having. And just like that, the weather changed on me! Starting on Saturday night, we have been getting snow. Not a lot of snow, just enough to remind us that spring's not here yet! 

I had another first on Saturday - I made tortillas for the first time. As another little trip down memory lane, I can remember my Nana, Grandma, and Mom all making tortillas. Each woman made them differently. My Mom's were thin, soft and pliable, perfect for scooping up food in an edible spoon. My Grandma's were thick, and not really pliable. The were better for pushing things up onto the spoon or fork. My Nana's were somewhere in between. Up until my Nana and Grandma died, they made tortillas regularly, so they were almost always in the house. I found a few recipes online, and they all used the same base ingredients: water, flour, salt, baking powder and lard. The only thing that varied was the amount of each one. I mixed a few up, and made my dough. A couple of things you'll notice, and a few that I noticed: 

First, all of my balls were not the same size, so my tortillas were really different sizes. I've gotta work on that a bit more. Second, there wasn't enough fat in this batch - by day 2 they were pretty brittle so I'll add more next time. Finally, my skill at rolling them out got better as I worked through the 11 balls. The tortilla on the right was the first one, and the one on the left is the last one I rolled. They're not round yet either, but that'll come as I practice I think.

It was also Easter yesterday. One thing I loved in my childhood was making and playing with "confetti eggs," or cascarones in Spanish. When I was little, I remember having scrambled eggs a lot starting some time in February or March, depending on when Easter was. My Nana and Mom would make a small hole in the tip of the raw egg shell, and a pin hole in the other end so that they could blow the egg out of the larger hole. Often the eggs were scrambled because the yolk would burst on the way out. They would rinse the egg shells and set them to dry. When they were dry, they were stored away until it was time to color them. In the meantime, we would also save up the Sunday color comics pages so that we could cut them up for the confetti. Whenever it was time to assemble, we would paint the eggs, and when they were dried, we would fill them with confetti, glue some tissue paper over the hole, and put them back in egg cartons. On Easter, we would burst them over each other's heads, and confetti and egg shells would go everywhere. It was a lot of fun then, and it's still a lot of fun to play, and to watch the kids in our family do the same thing. 

On Easter, I made lamb, twice  baked  potatoes, and a berry cobbler. Unfortunately, the only thing that made the picture is the cobbler. Our resident alligator is guarding the cobbler jealously, but has left the cascarones out for you to see. 

There will be other incarnations of the lamb later this week, because leftovers day is coming... And I made a 7.5 lb leg of lamb. 

Be safe, be well, and remember to reach out to people you want to talk to this week!