Home-made Cool Ranch Doritos

These home-made doritos were based off of Macheesmo's recipe. Because I like his name.

Instructions: 

 1. Get your ingredients: oil (we used Smart Balance), corn tortillas (Aly suggested using mini ones, but you can use regular sized too), Hidden Valley ranch packet ($100 dollars - or more if you market it and sell the product - to the person who can make up this seasoning without the msg), paprika, and garlic (ours had parsley flakes in it because apparently the hurricaine wiped out ALL the garlic seasoning in the Acme. It's either that or everyone is super prepared for Halloween to ward off the vampires, my guess is 2.)  

 2. Heat your oil. *Don't pour too much oil in, just enough for a few chips to float. We used a wok because it has a lot of depth and therefore minimized any flying-bubbling-popping hot oil from hitting us or our walls. To protect our wall, we actually made a paper-towel-contraption-shield held up by boob-tape because we didn't have tape. It was a great idea until the paper towel slipped onto the burner and almost caught flame. (And as it turned out, no oil hopped out onto the walls anyway thanks to Aly's idea of using a deep wok.) Oh Life. When you're busy preparing and worrying about one thing (that never happens), it turns out your worries and fears can actually cause a whole other catastrophe. Moral of the story: stop worrying. Or worry, but realize it's not going to do you any good. Also, don't play with fire.

3. Cut your tortillas. If you use the mini corn tortillas, cut them into 4, but if you use regular ones cut them into 6. (You can stack them on top of eachother.)

4. Mix seasoning. Use the entire packet of Ranch seasoning, 1 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp garlic powder and 1 tbsp salt. (Macheesmo used 2 tbsp, because he is a macho machismo and his heart can apparently handle that amount of sodium. We found that 1 heaping tbsp. was salty enough.)

5. Drop your tortillas into the oil.  

6. Prepare a DoritoStation with wire-racks if you have them, or if not just some paper towels is fine. You have to work quickly to make sure you cover those toasty babies in the seasoning while the oil is still hot. Thankfully, Aly and I had eachother and she worked the frying part (this girl is talented, did you know?) and I seasoned because I'm salty like that. Use tongs or a spoon with holes in it to pluck the chips out. You'll know when the chips are ready because they will float and bubble and start to brown a bit.

7. Make your own Dorito bags and enjoy the chips while they are hot and fresh! (But they are still so good the next day.) 

Thank you to Aly for making this all possible. Her and I both thought the chips were good but still missed something that made them "authentically" cool ranch tasting. Aly will be working on tweaking this recipe to make it more accurate as well as do more posts on Home-made Junk Foods - which frankly, I am so excited about.

I think making home-made Junk Foods is a great idea because often we think of those foods as "off limits" because of calorie, fat, carb contents as well as the chemicals added to preserve these foods in supermarket aisles. Not only does making these foods home-made cut out some of those preservatives, it also makes you aware of what you are eating. What I've learned is that there is no such thing as good or bad foods. It's how we eat them and approach them. If we say we can NEVER HAVE DORITOS EVER AGAIN, then we are setting ourselves up for a disaster. No food should be off-limits - this creates a love/hate relationship with food that is unhealthy. But, I do think that people should know what goes into their food. For example, I could eat my way through 10 bags of chips mindlessly without thinking about it. Or, I could have a small bowl of hot, freshly fried chips and truly enjoy them knowing all that went into the making of them.