Tortillas and Salsa. You're Welcome.

photo credit:  serious eats

Please tell me I'm not the only one who would totally geek out if ever the opportunity arose to meet The Pioneer Woman.  I have a crush.  I'll admit it.  Upon meeting her, I would probably slobber and say something so dumb that it would later require me to sit on my couch, make-up less, in my yoga pants, surrounded by friends who love me enough to hold my hand and lie to me saying things like, "Telling her you want to have a sleep over and brush her hair fifty times before bedtime like on that one Little House on the Prairie episode isn't weird at all.  I'm sure she liked it when you held her hand and asked if she wanted to skip."

I have friends who could say those things with a straight face if I was crying into the couch.  I pray you have friends like that too.

It made a little more sense to sit in front of Ree's* blog when I lived in the United States and actually had access to all the ingredients listed in her recipes.  *We're best friends, remember? So I can call her Ree.  Sometimes I call her Ree-Ree.

A move to Haiti isn't going to make me dump one of my favorite farm girls.

Because I'm having a nice moment I thought I'd share two fabulous Pioneer Woman finds.

Tortillas and Salsa.

I was really skeptical.  Pioneer Woman is a lot of things but she's not Mexican and she's not from Texas.  What does she know about tortillas and salsa?

Only some states know how to do salsa.  Can we agree on that?  Texas is one of those States.  If my love for Pioneer Woman wasn't already deep and a tad bit psychotic I would have never tried a recipes for tortillas or salsa from someone who lives in Oklahoma.  Ain't no way.

I've never been more glad to be certifiably obsessed with a person to the point of totally overlooking the fact that they are not named Lupita and they're not from Texas.  This time "crazy" worked out in my favor.  We're happily eating tortillas and delicious salsa right here in Haiti, the unlikeliest of places.

Consider yourself loved:

Restaurant Style Salsa

Only modification I made:  I added more salt.  Cause we must want our hearts to explode.  What can we say?  We like salt. 

Homemade Tortillas

I make a double or triple batch of the tortillas, roll em up in balls and then freeze them.  On taco day I simply take out however many dough balls (snicker) I need, let them thaw, and then proceed with the directions for cooking the tortillas.

The tortilla recipe calls for lard.  What weird stuff.  Thankfully my farming family sends me to Haiti with ziplock bags full of high quality, nothing like Crisco, kind of lard.  Yes.  The people who scan our bags at the airport think we are total freaks.  I don't even care.  When they look at me with disgust for carrying 25 pounds of cheese in my luggage and ziplock bags of lard in my carry-on I look them straight in the eyes and say, "We live in Haiti.  You have no idea.  No. Idea!"  If I'm at the Houston airport I can say, "Can you imagine your life without cheese and tortillas?"

The American Airlines people get a little misty eyed and wish us Godspeed.

Speaking of Houston, I have a giveaway coming up soon. Stay tuned.  Don't you hate it when people do that?

Lard.  I can't quit saying it.  Lard.

Good lard.  I'll end this thing.