tamales

These were originally going to be an entry for challenge 4, but- they didn’t make the cut. Why? Well, I wanted to share a recipe that called for ingredients that everyone can find. Can you guys find dried corn husks? If you can, silly me. If you can’t…I am seriously thinking of adding a food spot to my craft shop here so y’all can get corn husks, guava paste, sazon, ghee, and some of the other imports I use. Idea for the a.m.

I also want to apologize for not posting Fri and Sat. It’s cause I was still deciding. I have periods in life where it takes days to make a decision.

Then, I have periods in life where I should have taken longer to make a decision.

For instance, I married a guy that I knew 3 weeks. We were together 4 years…but,um… I really should have thought more about that.

I am an idiot sometimes.

Sometimes I’m not, and I make tamales.

Because I am a gringo making Latin food. Like I said, I think I was Latin in a past life…

Mmm, Tamales.

Most people save these for holidays, but they are a great weekend supper. And, they use up leftovers like a hungry dog on your porch.

right here, I have some leftover ropa vieja, Mexican shredded chicken, frozen peas, corn, cheese and salsa.

dump it in a bowl. Just kidding, sort of- you never here professional chefs say “dump it” or “blob of” …that’s why I am not a professional chef. I’m keepin’ it real. (They never say that, either-or do they?)

Maybe they do, but I don’t hear them.

My kitchen is too small.

The mixture above is 2 1/2 cups of self-rising cornmeal, 1/2 c water, 1/2 c salsa, handful of peas, corn.. and about 1 1/2 cups of shredded chicken.

You may want to add more water or salsa to get the texture like a moist blob of cookie dough. OR….

(Add more liquid until the desired consistency of a moist cookie batter is achieved)

Can you get the feel of the texture by this photo?

A word about the husks:

You get 1.000 (give or take a few hundred..) for $3.99

You need to soak them:

Plain ol’ water to soak em’ with.

I soak mine overnight- really they only need half hour.

shape your blob into a long egg shape.

fold up the bottom

and then the sides…

with one of the husks, tear it into strips.

so you can tie them up!

keep going until all your leftovers filling is used up.

To cook, place them in a steamer basket in a large pot. I don’t have a steamer basket, so I inverted a salad plate on the bottom of a large pot, put about 3/4″ of water in it, and stacked my tamales on top.

cover with a top and steam for 20-25 minutes. You know they are done when the tamales feel firm and the husk peels away easily from the filling.