Now that I'm all caught up on my list and much more it was time for a day of fun!!! (Well, still hard work but worth it!)
I'm playing along with Stephanie of Stop the Ride she's having a contest. She has challenged her readers to make something from scratch that they've never made before. I choose tamales since I want Mexican food every day lately and I've always wanted to try my hand at them.
I cooked a chicken and shredded the meat - you can see in the pictures that my idea of shredding is a little more chunky but it still tasted great. We soaked the corn husks and mixed the masa - by hand.
I added some spices to the chicken (garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, salt & pepper and a little olive oil.) and mixed it very well. Then got all set up to make the tamales.
I found lots of different recipes online for tamales and followed parts of a few of them to try to fit our tastes. Each one also had different instructions for putting the masa on the husks and rolling the filling. I wasn't very exact and they didn't look the best but that's what you get when they are homemade I guess! (At least in this house.)
After they were all rolled, I put them into my pasta pot with a strainer that fits inside and steamed them for what seemed like forever. The problem that I had was the pot only left room on the bottom for about an inch of water and I kept having to interrupt the process every 15 min or less to add more water to the pot. It took the first batch about 2.5 hours too cook and boy were we ready for dinner when they were done. I thought they turned out good, I think my masa wasn't quite the correct consistency for that batch it was too moist - which was certainly better than too dry in my opinion. My hubby made guacamole when he got home and we pigged out!!!
I also made a batch of sweet tamales that I just took out so hopefully those will be as good as the chicken ones. Thanks to Stephanie for having this contest it was so much fun to try something new and my hubby is now super thrilled that there are tamales going into the freezer for many future meals!
16 comments:
Wow!!! I am impressed!!! Guacamole, too??!!
What a cute helper!
Now this is impressive! I have never made them, so how about the recipe? They look delicious.
Those look awesome! I want to try those too. I love tamales. Thanks for playing!
Pictures of your son cooking are always the cutest!
My family is planning a tamale making party pretty soon, your post got me looking forward to it!
They look great! My daughter's mother in law makes them. They are so good. Her chicken is chunky and bony! LOL Hers are the real thing cause she is Spanish(and old)
They sound sooo good and look delicious! I really need to try my hand at making them. yum!
The tamales look great!! I've never been brave enough to try making them~
Loved your pictures too!!
I LOVE homemade tamales!!!!
Looks like you 2 have fun!
Thanks for giving my wife more food ideas! I am glad I already ate my lunch today...
YUM! You're very industrious!
Wow! Those look really good! I've never made them before, never even thought about it! Maybe I'll give it a try sometime.
Sounds yummy! I don't think I've ever eaten a tamale, but now I'm going to make it a point to try one. Maybe I'll follow your lead and make some. Thanks for sharing! Great job!
Tamales? Wow, those are A LOT of work. But now you get to reap the rewards, since you have some in the freezer for later. Woman, I'm impressed!
I so admire you for doing this, Heidi. I've never had the nerve!
Of course, I also don't have a cute little assistant like you do, either. Maybe that's my problem.
How fun. Don't you love trying something totally new and having it come out wonderful?
Wow Tamales! They look great!
You go girl!
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