Taco shells, the hard way.

Making your own taco shells is not that difficult. Especially if you start out with store-bought corn tortillas. That's how your favorite restaurant does it, by the way. Making your own tortillas would keep you in the kitchen all damned day.

When I was a kid, I had a friend who's mom used to make tacos the old fashioned way, in the frying pan. Of course, the way she did it was to fill the soft tortilla first and lay it in the hot grease to crisp up on each side. Those were good tacos, but a bit greasy. I didn't care. We're going to make the taco shells empty, and once they cool off a bit, you can fill them any way you want.

The way I make 'em is to take my smallest non-stick pan, and fill it about 3/4" to 1" deep with oil (the oil is still usable after you fry the tortillas in it, so save it all in a jar when you're done), heat it up and lay a tortilla in there for a couple of seconds, turn it over and quickly form it into the taco shape with your tongs and a spatula. This takes a bit of experimenting to get the shape just right, and your first couple may come out a bit odd. Fry it for about a minute on each side so that it's crispy, then set it upside down on some paper towels to cool.

The Good: These are the best taco shells ever. They are crispy, but they still have a bit of "give" so they don't crack in half when you bite into them. Store bought taco shells don't have the same texture, and they're really too pricey considering how many of them are broken.

The Bad: It takes some time to make them. It takes me about an half hour to make a dozen, and you can't do much else while you're doing it. This is when your kids will decide to cause the most trouble because they have an innate sense that you can't drop what your doing, so they should be able to get away with a lot of shit. I find threats of physical violence necessary when I'm occupied like this. "I'm going to beat your asses up around your shoulders" seemed to do the trick last time. Feel free to use that one.

The Ugly: Getting the tortilla to cooperate in the hot oil with just tongs and a spatula is sometimes (hell, all times) maddening. You want the fold to have a nice radius to it so that you can get more stuff into the finished shell. It sometimes takes both hands to hold it in the proper position while it cooks. Plus, there's a lot of oil on the stove top when you're done.