Look what I made! Homemade tortilla chips! EXCITEMENT.

Ok. This was 1. ridiculously easy 2. reasonably fast 3. both cheaper & fresher than just buying a bag of chips and 4. available without going to the store. A win on all counts!

Homemade tortilla chips

corn tortillas
olive oil/a flavorless oil of your choice
salt

Preheat the oven to 400F. While you're waiting for it to heat, prepare your chips.

Brush a tortilla lightly with olive oil. Stack another tortilla on top; repeat. When you have a stack of about six or eight tortillas, get out a sharp knife and cut the stack into sixths.

Arrange the tortilla pieces in one layer on a cookie sheet, spacing them just a bit apart so the heat will circulate around all their edges. Scatter salt over the prepared pan, and put it into the now-preheated oven.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the chips are just beginning to turn golden brown. When your chips are done, put them on a paper towel-covered wire baking rack. Immediately scatter a bit more salt over the finished chips; they'll absorb the flavor much better while piping hot. Let your chips cool while you bake a second pan.

When you have baked, salted, and cooled all the chips you want to eat, you are done. Hooray!

Now you can eat them. I recommend salsa, guacamole, or nachos. We had ours for dinner, with a gigantic pan of messy enchiladas based on the recipe in the original Vegetarian Epicure.

I made my chips plain, because I knew we'd be dipping them in some highly spicy salsa. However, if you want to make seasoned chips, you can sprinkle a bit of paprika, chili powder, cumin, or lemon juice over the chips just before you put them in the oven.

Chips! Hooray!