Grab your ingredients, let's get cooking.

[upbeat music] Support for Amy LaBelle's Cooking with kids is provided by AutoFair, Cook Little Rosenblatt & Manson, DF Richard Energy, Granite State Development Corporation, New England Dairy, Northeast Delta Dental, Stonyfield Organic, Unitil, Enterprise Bank, White Mountains Community College, Monadnock Food Co-Op, Macaroni Kid Seed Co., and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hi there, I'm Amy LaBelle, and I'm a winemaker at LaBelle Winery, but I also love to cook.

And I especially love to cook with my family and our friends.

Today, in our kitchen, we're joined by my son Lucas, and we love to cook together all the time.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And we're also joined by our friend, Izzy.

And Izzy is going to help us out today, which is great, because more hands in the kitchen is always a good thing.

You know, I think time spent around the kitchen table, working on a recipe, talking, is some of the best time that we have as a family, and we love to share that with friends.

So I'm thrilled to have you here today to join us in our kitchen.

And we're going to teach you a wonderful recipe today for how to make homemade fresh tortillas.

Now, tortillas are one of those things that we think about buying a lot, right?

You buy packages of tortillas and that's easy and quick and they're delicious and they're fine.

But if you have a few extra minutes, it's really nice to be able to make these at home.

The flavor is incredible.

You can make them for pennies on the dollar, so it's great for your budget if you can make them at home.

And it's also really nice to make a whole bunch of extra ones if you're doing this recipe, because if you're going to make all this mess, and I know you're going to make a mess-- [laughter] Then you want to go ahead and maybe double this recipe so that you can freeze some into your fridge, and you can just have them ready any old time.

So we'll get started, and then I want to talk a little bit more about what you can use these tortillas for.

Some of them are obvious and some of them aren't.

So we'll get started.

This is a pretty simple recipe, and it's a lot of ingredients that you probably already have at your house, right?

So let's talk about our ingredients.

We have set up here, everything measured out and ready to go.

If you're a fancy French Chef, you would say this is your mise-en-place, which literally means, everything in its place.

And that means everything's measured and ready to go in your ingredients.

I like to do my cooking this way because then I know I don't miss an ingredient, and I don't forget to put something in, and I know that everything is going to turn out as delicious as I want it to.

So it's nice to be able to do this.

Especially, and if you're going to get interrupted in your recipe and you have to come back to it because you get a phone call or something, then it won't get all confusing in the end.

So here we have our-- you've got your recipe at home, I hope you're following along with us.

So pull up the recipe, grab your ingredients, and make these right along with us.

You can keep up it, it's an easy recipe.

So we've got three cups of all purpose flour.

This is just regular, old white flour.

It's a really good quality flour, it's local flour.

I like to use unbleached flour when we can.

That means it hasn't been chemically processed.

So that's always a nice feature.

And something good about when you cook at home, you can always control your own ingredients.

So that's nice.

You know what's going in your food because you're choosing it.

So that's important if you want to make sure that you're using the freshest, most lovely things.

So we've got three cups of flour.

And we're going to put that in our bowl, all right.

Maybe save a little bit at the bottom of the container.

Don't put in quite the three cups in case you need a little extra at the end.

Because whenever you're working with flour, you want to-- it's not always precise, because it depends a lot on the environment and the day.

You could put maybe a little more.

The environment, the day, the humidity kind of changes how much water the flour will absorb.

So it's good to be careful on that.

And we'll just reserve a little bit for the end, OK?

You'll notice, in the back, I already have a pan heating on the stove.

And you'd want to do that, too, because these are quick, and we're just going to put them right on the griddle and brown them up, just like a regular tortilla.

All right, so we have some salt.

This is either sea salt or kosher salt is really nice to use for this.

Some of you might have iodized salt at home.

That isn't my favorite to cook with because I think it has kind of a metallic flavor, but whatever you have is going to work just fine.

So grab your salt, here's yours.

The salt is the noisy one.

Because we have another white ingredient today that isn't noisy.

It's baking powder.

All right, so sprinkle your salt across the top.

All right.

And then sprinkle your baking soda across the top.

What is baking soda?

Baking soda is this-- baking powder, I'm sorry.

This is baking powder.

Baking powder is such an interesting ingredient.

We use in baking a lot.

It is called double acting, and that's because twice, two separate times, it will cause your dough to rise and have bubbles in it.

That gives your dough lift and it makes it not feel like super thick and dense.

It gives it a wonderful flavor and a wonderful texture.

So baking powder is a really important ingredient to use when you're baking.

And it's double acting because it will first cause that rise when it gets wet, and the second time it'll cause the rise is when it gets hot, and you'll be able to see that on the grill.

Because when we heat these tortillas, they puff up and they get big bubbles in them, and those are yummy because you can kind of fill those with cheese and yummy things.

You can poke them too.

You can poke them, too, and that's fun, too.

Like a big blister, boom.

It needs to have a little stuff in it.

No stuff in it, and it's delicious.

It's dead, which is so much better.

All right, we got our dry ingredients in here.

So take your fork, and we're just going to kind of mix those together to make sure that the salt and the baking powder are generously distributed throughout your whole recipe.

All right, now put your forks down, and we're going to add our wet ingredients.

Let's do our oil first, all right.

So we have a little cup of oil here.

You can check your recipe, this is two tablespoons of oil.

Wait, do we pour all of-- This is a vegetable oil.

You can pour all of it.

This is vegetable oil, but you certainly could use olive oil if that's what you have, or canola oil would work, too.

These recipes are kind of starting points.

You can make this one your own a little bit by making your own choices.

So grab your fork and let's start mixing that together.

The oil and the flour, now, are going to mix together and make kind of like-- oh, look, I'm making a mess already.

[laughter] That's all right.

That's all right.

Maybe Daddy will help clean it up with us.

All right, so we're going to mix those together.

And it's kind of starting to look a little crumbly.

See, it looks like it has little pebbles in it.

But that's just what you want.

You want to get that oil kind of spread out and mixed into your dry ingredients, because now, we're going to add some hot water.

We each have 1 cup of hot water.

You can add your water now.

Or-- did you all your oil?

You did.

All right, good-- great job.

Pour?

Yep, go ahead, it's OK. You can pour probably all of it.

Yeah.

Good.

You can pour yours.

Yep.

All right, let's put our water in.

So this is one cup of hot water.

How do you know it's hot?

This is just out of the tap, but it's the hottest I could get out of the tap.

So that means it was probably about 105 degrees or so by the time I put it in here.

Now you know your body temperature is 98 degrees, or it should be, anyway.

So if you're 98 degrees and you put your finger in there and it feels hot-ish to you, I don't mean like scalding hot, just like warm to your finger, then it's warm enough.

All right.

And then we're going to mix that in with our fork before we go ahead and get ready to turn this right out on the counter, and we'll need it and mix it and blend it right on the counter.

That's kind of the fun part about cooking, you get to get your hands into it.

It smells good.

Oh, good.

Yeah, it does.

Nice.

So see, it's starting to form kind of a loose, craggy dough, right?

Yeah.

Coming together, I see the baking soda is already starting to act, because the dough is lifting.

It's not dense dough, it's kind of light and airy.

All right, so how are we looking?

Maybe-- Try to scoop-- try to use your fork to pull all the flour up from the bottom of that pan.

You're almost folding it in, you know?

Yeah, that's good.

All right, you're good.

How are you looking over there?

Yeah, that's nice.

All right.

Now we're going to turn this right out on our counter, all right.

So let's clean up our area.

It's good to try to clean as you go when you cook.

Make yourself some space.

And let's take this out of the way and scoop that out right onto the counter, boom.

All right.

You can clean off your fork.

Good?

Great job.

All right.

So now we have kind of this loose dough.

We kind of gather it together with both your hands.

Here, you can go like this.

I don't want to get both hands dirty.

You're trying to keep one hand clean.

We do try to keep one hand clean when we're cooking, but no.

But it's OK, because you know what?

Getting dirty is fun.

So I try to keep one hand clean so I can get ingredients if I need to out of the cabinet and turn off faucets and things like that.

But it's not necessary, and you guys can get dirty, because I will do the dirty work for you.

Can I put more flour in here?

You should.

Look at, see what's happening here?

Lucas's flour is sticking to the counter because it needs-- his dough is sticking to the counter because he needs a little more flour.

So that's a good idea.

Let's sprinkle that with a little more flour on top so it's not sticking to anything.

And then try to start kneading the dough.

Now the way to knead-- how's yours looking?

Very messy.

That's OK. No, that looks-- that looks nice, though.

You're a little bit sticky, but you've got flour underneath, and that's good.

That's going to-- your dough will absorb all that flour.

And so we want to knead the dough.

What do we mean by kneading?

We want to use the heel of our hand-- your hands are your best tools in the kitchen.

A nice, clean, hand will do all the work you need, pretty much.

So when you're kneading you use the heel of your hand, which is this part of your hand, and you push against the dough and you bring it back with your fingers.

We're going to push against the dough-- I need a lot more flour.

And bring it back with your fingers.

So you just keep doing that until it's coming together in a nice dough.

Yeah, you need flour.

Can I have some flour?

Yeah, of course, you got it.

Mine's coming together well, actually, now.

Yeah, see, it takes a minute.

You have to be a little bit patient.

Here, let me help you.

And you could put some flour on your hands, too.

That's another way to help the dough from not sticking to your hands.

You can do both hands if you want to, buddy, it's all right.

But then I can't reach anything.

It's all right, I'll get whatever you need.

Look, this is coming nicely now.

See?

Oh, yeah.

See how it starts to feel like dough.

Don't go too fast, you'll be flying flour all over the house.

And somebody has to clean that up.

Me.

You.

All right.

So look at.

So what I'm coming up with here is a really nice ball of dough that's starting to look like dough.

How's yours?

We got to poke it?

This, maybe-- it's good.

It's really good.

You might want to sprinkle a little bit of flour on that, it's a little tiny bit sticky.

You can work that in.

All right.

Let me see what I've got here.

I think mine is pretty good, it's a little sticky.

But I'm going to take care of that by putting some more on the counter.

We're going to put that around, and we're going to take that all up through one last quick knead, and then we're going to make some balls.

If we break this dough into, oh, maybe the size of a golf ball, maybe a little bit bigger than a golf ball, if you all know what a golf ball size is, maybe like that big.

We're going to break the dough into little balls and flatten them into disks, and then we'll make our tortillas.

And we're almost ready.

Now, see how fast that is?

You don't even have to go to the store.

You can-- quicker than you can go to the store, you can make fresh ones at home.

Why wouldn't we want that?

You know these have no preservatives in them, they're fresh, they're delicious, you know exactly your ingredients.

So life is good.

So let's talk about what we like to put on these after we cook them.

I mean, obviously, if you're going to make tortillas, what are you going to put inside them?

There's some obvious choices, right?

What would you put in them, Izzy?

Probably cheese.

Cheese, what a good idea.

Cheese makes everything delicious.

Do you like cheese?

Yes.

You do?

Me too.

Me too.

What kind of cheese would you put in here?

Maybe you could melt it right on top like a quesadilla.

That would taste good.

That would be good, right?

Maybe some Mexican cheese.

All right, that's an idea.

How about if we made them into tacos?

That would work.

And you know what, I also would like to use these for tostadas, you can fry them and you can make little tostadas on a plate, which are just flat tortillas piled high with yummy things.

Or, my favorite secret way to eat these, I don't think anybody else does this, but you do, because I do.

And I don't think you've had these, but you can have them today.

Is that I like to make these into little breakfast snacks.

So I like to spread them with jam and cream cheese like a bagel and they're delicious that way.

Because these have a nice saltiness to them, and when you put a sweet-- something sweet on top of something salty, your mouth gets so happy with that combination.

So sweet and salty things together are really yummy.

So when you think about something like chocolate and peanut butter and pretzels, that's a yummy combination because they're sweet and they're salty and there's fat in there.

It's nice for your mouth to have that contrast in flavors.

So that's why I think these taste so good with jam.

All right, so let's make some-- I think you're good.

Your dough's look really nice, both of you.

Yep, yeah, this is nice.

This is good.

It's a little sticky.

I'm going to put a little more flour on your counter.

I did lots of flour.

You're good.

Flour acts differently depending on your circumstance.

So don't worry.

You probably had a little more water in your cup than I did.

So it's all good.

All right, so let's make a few balls, and we'll make a few tortillas, and we will cook them off and see how they look.

So you want to make-- roll a ball in your hand, break off some dough with your hand and roll a ball like this, kind of like this size.

More?

Like a golf ball.

Yeah, maybe a little bigger.

All right.

Maybe I'll make mine a little bigger, too.

Yeah?

Yep.

OK, I'm going to put a little flour underneath this.

You should, too.

So it-- There's no more flour-- I have more right here, you're good.

Oh.

All right, and then we can put that on the counter and we can use our rolling pins and flatten it out.

Now these don't have to be perfect at all.

Of course, tortillas are usually round, right?

And that's a good-- you can shoot for that goal.

But if it's not perfectly round, that is OK because they are going to look handmade, which means they were made with love, and we like that.

So we're not going for perfection.

We're going for delicious, right?

Can I have some flour?

Mine's sticking-- Oh, you need more flour.

Yeah, you need flour on the-- Here you go.

Oh, and you need flour on your rolling pin, too.

So what you should do is put a little flour in your hand and run your hand-- your rolling pin right through your hand, and then it won't stick as much, OK?

How's that?

Better?

And you can also put some more flour on top of your tortilla or just flip it a few times on top of the flour that you have.

Yeah?

Yes.

You're making a mess.

You already said at the beginning-- Well, you've been making a mess the whole time.

That's OK, that's half the fun.

We'll make our messes.

We'll clean up later.

How thin do we want it?

Not too-- well, these are tricky.

It's really personal choice.

So back again to that comment I made earlier, it's nice to make your own things because you can choose.

If you want and thick, you can make them thick.

If you want them thin-- and I kind of like them medium.

So mine, if you see, mine is kind of, almost see through.

You can kind of see the texture of it.

You can run it like a ribbon in your hands.

That looks good, real good.

And that's it.

They're literally ready to be cooked.

And so if you have a frying pan, a skillet, or a flat griddle like we have, we're just going to throw these right on the griddle.

How's that look?

Pick it up and let's see.

Let's see how the texture looks.

You're all right.

You're OK.

There you go.

That looks great.

So I'm going to put a little butter on the skillet really quick, and we're going to throw these on and see how they taste.

You should put yours down.

I don't want you to break it.

Yeah, I have a little hole.

It's OK. And it's OK if they have a hole, totally OK. Now you can throw these right onto the skillet, guys.

Here we go.

You can put a little butter on the skillet if you want to, you don't have to.

You can throw them on a dry skillet, too.

I like butter, so I put some butter.

I'm a big fan.

Don't use margarine, though.

I like butter.

Like, real butter.

All right.

That's two.

And these cook up so fast.

This one-- yours is going to be in the front, OK?

And I'm going to turn those up a little bit.

These are great because they cook up really fast, about a minute on either side.

And you will have the most delicious tortillas that you ever had, right?

Yeah.

All right, let's roll out another one.

So while those are cooking, you can get busy making more.

You need more flour, or something.

[laughing] Somehow this hand got dirty.

Oh, well, I don't know how.

There you go.

A little flour for everybody.

So you always want to keep that flour on your bench or your table, whatever you're working on.

Here is the second one.

It's about that big.

Can you make another one?

Put some flour in your hands, too, then they won't stick to your hands.

And you can roll those out, OK?

I'm going to check on my tortillas while you guys roll those out.

I'm going to flip these, looks like they might be ready.

Almost.

Almost.

My pan is just getting hot enough because I just turned it up.

We will roll out the second flour tortillas.

So it's really nice to do this when you have a lot of friends over or you have family visiting, then you can make an assembly line and everybody can have a part, and everybody feels like they participated in the meal.

You can give everybody a job.

And if you're really, really, smart, you'll make sure that you don't have the job of cleanup, right?

Yeah.

So if you get in charge and you direct the recipe, then you don't have to do the cleanup.

All right.

There's my second one, looking good again.

And as this dough rests, the longer it's been since we rolled it and got it going, the more soft and awesome this dough is going to get.

So you can see, it's getting easier to work with now.

It's softer.

Uh-oh, I need flour.

Oh yeah, you do, and that's OK. And even if it rips or even if it has holes in it, who cares?

It's still going to taste great.

All right, let me check those.

Oh yeah, these are coming along.

Look at that.

They look good.

Mm-hmm.

I think 50 seconds more and we're good to go on those.

What are we going to put on our tortillas?

Cheese.

Yeah?

I'm going to show you what I made.

I made taco's.

So here we have the tortillas, fresh off the grill.

They're just filled with a beef mixture, and some cheese.

And we've done a salad on top with some slaw and cilantro.

I've got a nice, fresh guacamole that my husband, Caesar, made actually.

And he's really good at guacamole, it's delicious.

And this is some salsa, if you like salsa.

And a little fresh, extra salad if you like more slaw on top.

So this is a nice way to serve your tortillas.

But if you don't have time for this and you want to slather them with cheese and cream cheese and jam, then we'll do that, too.

All right.

These are definitely ready.

Look how they got puffy.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, those look good.

They do.

Here, check it out.

Want to share it?

Let's do it.

It's hot.

Let's do it.

These are hot.

They'll cool down quick, though.

So these are our fresh tortillas.

We think they're so easy and fun to make.

[upbeat music] And I really hope you'll make these with your family all the time and share this recipe with people that you love.

Thanks so much for joining us in our kitchen today.

I hope you come back again next time.

And thanks, Lucas, and thanks, Izzy.

Bye everybody.

Bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

Support for Amy LaBelle's cooking with kids is provided by AutoFair, Cook Little Rosenblatt & Manson, DF Richard Energy, Granite State Development Corporation, New England Dairy, Northeast Delta Dental, Stonyfield Organic, Unitil, Enterprise Bank, White Mountains Community College, Monadnock Food Co-Op, Macaroni Kid Seed Co., and viewers like you.

Thank you.

[orchestra music]