threatens Blogger with a spoon

I just spend 2 hours uploading a blog and 26 pictures....

Blogger ate half the pictures and I realized has been eating my recipes and then spitting them back out in wrong spots...

I gave up...

What a waste of time...

I could have been eating something..

Maybe in my next " I am not moving,cleaning,talking to anyone" mood I will search for a blog that won't cause me to want to carve out everyones eyes.

Tamales

Tamales are time consuming… and if you have little girls or boys I would encourage to get them involved in the making of these tasty little morsels.. The girls and I made 70 of these … I made too much chicken mixture so after batch # 5 of the tamale dough I was done.. 50 set aside for church and the rest were for dinner.


I have many fond memories of tamales… probably because I wasn't involved in the making of them… as a lazy child there was no way I was going to view anything that had to do with hard work a fond memory..




I remember pouring over the pictures of Mama's Mexican cookbook… wondering why she didn't make that or this.. or what was in that pot..
I mooched it off of Mama finally wanting to make tamales for my family.. Wanting so bad for them to get a small taste of what I ate growing up.
This cook book is precious to me.. even the recipe for "Molded Avocado Ring" It was publish in the height of the jello ring and pimento olive time.. (the 70's) and as I scan through the recipes now my gag reflex starts acting up…


But the tamale recipe is the best….

 So I usually don't promote prepackaged food but these I will buy… Usually Mexican Mole (pronounced Mol-lay) is what I normally buy but I managed to get a hold of my favorite "mole" this one is made with pumpkin seeds and peanuts unlike the regular mole with peppers and chocolate.. Lard… I tried to see if I could render off some of my rear and thighs at the local butcher shop sadly they don't do that there… so I had to get some at the store.. I could have saved at least 500 dollars there… enough lard for several YEARS!! And in that jar is the masa flour.. you can use coconut butter or Crisco… and as for the chicken broth you could have vegy broth… I wouldn't suggest just using water because you need your tamale dough to be flavorful..

So we have salt, masa flour, lard, chicken broth, chicken, mole, corn husks

Fill a large out ¾ full of water.. I use hot water to get the process started..

 Place your corn husks in the water and weigh down with a heavy pot turn on burner and only heat till almost boiling.. turn off heat and let the husks sit in the water weighted down for at least an hour.. or while you prepare the filling and dough..

 Hmmm the smell of this stuff makes my mouth water… I have a huge desire to forgo the tamales and just cook this with some chicken legs and some home made tortilla's…..

 This part I detest.. my kitchen wasn't in the perfect shape since I was also cooking 50 other things at this time so I had to pull out the masher for this process.. add a little water at a time and mash away… at the end you want it to look like thick soup. A mixer works better at times like these but it was being used for chimichanga filling at the time.

Arm is hanging limp at my side but it is properly mashed.

Pour over chicken breasts and bake for about 30 mins..

Nasty…

Remove chicken and add a little at a time some broth or water to your mole.. chop chicken and then mix in again.

 Now lets make the dough… lard in mixing bowl

 Beat till fluffy and then add your masa, salt, and broth

 Beat that until fluffy also.

 Set up your station.. I ended up moving to the kitchen table after folding 50 of these and my feet started swelling to the size of watermelons.

 Corn husk… golf ball size dough in middle..

 With wet fingers flatten till about ¼ inch thick all around..

 Filling down the middle..

Fold up sides, top, bottom.

Repeat with corn husk.. and lay seam side down on platter and then threaten to not let anyone eat these unless they help you blobpatfillfoldfold the rest of the ingredients.....




I used to have a vegy steamer.. in fact for at least an hour in my kitchen I had three.. the over sized one was handed to my sister and the other two I am sure is outside with a army man trapped in the alien space craft/vegetable steamer. The other was taken apart to see how it was put together.. but since I only paid 50 cents for them I don't scream to loud for too long when I find out they are MIA.

So we resort to the handy dandy tinfoil.. roll up several "snakes" so that there is some space from the bottom of the pot and your tamales… layer some corn husks over the tin foil… poke with a knife several holes in the husks so the steam can escape and then start stacking your tamales … I like to stack them on the sides leaving a hole in the middle for the steam to cook the top ones.. add water and bring to a boil.. then turn down your pot till it is a heavy simmer ( medium or medium low depending on how hot your stove is) remember to keep adding water ever 20 mins or so and steam for 1 to 1 ½ hours.


Print Recipe

Recipe:

1 cup lard

2 ½ cups masa flour

1 teaspoon salt                

1 ¾ cup chicken broth

Corn husks….

Filling of your choice..  Mole or black beans and feta cheese. Bell peppers and mole etc…

Place lard and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whip with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy. Add masa harina and beat at low speed until well mixed. Pour in broth

Drain water from corn husks. One at a time, flatten out each husk, with the narrow end facing you, and spread approximately 2 tablespoons masa mixture onto the top 2/3 of the husk. Spread about 1 tablespoon of meat mixture down the middle of the masa. Fold over sides, top and then bottom and repeat with corn husk

Place tamales in a steamer basket. Steam over boiling water for approximately one hour, until masa is firm and holds its shape. Make sure steamer does not run out of water. Serve immediately, allowing each person to unwrap their own tamales. Allow any leftovers (still in husks) to cool, uncovered, in the refrigerator.

This heat is frying what is left of my brain

Days like today I think back on this passage I read as a little girl.. back then I wasn’t carrying a extra person around with me ( no I am not pregnant I am talking weight wise) and it was hard for me to grasp what really being hot was..

“Laura and Mary were sweltering inside their underwaists and drawers, and petticoat waists and petticoats, and long-sleeved, high- necked dresses with tight waistbands around their middles. The backs of their necks were smothering under their braids.

"I wish I had a drink of well water," said Laura.

"I wish I had an icicle," said Mary.

Then Laura said, "I wish I was an Indian and didn't have to wear clothes."

"Laura!" said Ma. "And on Sunday!"

Laura thought, "Well, I do!"

The wood smell of the house was a hot smell. On all the brown streaks in the boards the juice was dripping down sticky and drying in hard yellow beads. The hot wind never stopped whizzing by and the cattle never stopped mourning, "Moo-oo, moo-oo “

I act like those cows now…

I’ve been mooing ALL day today.. then I catch myself and then wonder why I even bother.. I could have a petticoat on and long sleeves..

Wait I do have long sleeves  but that is by choice.. there is no way I want my fat arms flapping in the wind or when I gesture loudly over how my husband slept in an extra five mins and made me three mins late nag nag nag nag nag…

Usually I am in the car dressed in my town clothes that are long sleeved and the “good ones” meaning there is no holes in the armpits where the house ones are worn thin there.. that is when I see women dressed in their summer attire… that’s when I feel like Laura and think to myself ( and it IS most of the time on Sunday!) oh how I wish I dressed like … as sweat rolls down my back and starts the itch I cant contort to scratch while I am weaving on the road.   

 Then it makes me think how soft I am.. and I am not talking about the smooshy kind of soft.. the weak kind of soft.. I grew up without air conditioning, most of the time we had no running water, but we always made it.. I didn’t melt in the summer time.. yes it was hot.. yes I complained. But I made it.

I think it was the last summer I lived at home and I got the bright idea to try and lose 5 lbs.. so I took cayenne pepper.. put it in capsules and took about 15 a day.. somehow I thought it would burn up the fat..

I think that was the hottest summer..

Not only did I walk around with constant burning in my belly but I sweated like a pig all day.

Not a lb lost.

Kinda reminds me of any diet I try now.. constant whining and burning and not a lb lost..

Back to boiling in the summer.. houses back then were usually made to have air flow so that the heat of the day wouldn’t be as bad.. nowdays we have electric and no need of outside air.. we put up UV windows to keep our floors from fading.. we leave our blinds closed so the neighbors or passerbys won’t see into our living room.. the outside is shut off from our little soft lives.. no more do our kids go outside and play in the dirt.

The selection of video games in walmart is four times the size of the outside toys..

That world outside is for crunchy people..

  And it has dirt.

My husband if no one has figured it out yet is a germ-a-phobe  ( that is a wholenother post in it’s self) he shown Gabriel what hook worms are because well.. we have dirt outside…

Surprise!!

Yeah I was too..

Anyways Gabe wouldn’t or couldn’t I am not sure which now put on his shoes.. it was the end of a long day and I had no more patience for the little guy so I tell him to JUST GO OUT BAREFOOT!!

He lost it.. NO!!! MAMA NO!! there is DIRT outside!!

Whaa???

“And and  HOOK WORMS live in the DIRT!!”

I am sure I had the what in the world look on my face because he proceeded to tell me what hook worms look like and what they do..

“They have BIG teeth!” using his fingers he demonstrates big snarly teeth clamping down on his poor defenseless toes  “ I’ve seen them!!”

By now I have figured out that DH and in this case MMWFMH (make more work for me husband) has logged onto youtube to scare my four year old senseless..

The day just fell apart then.. I started laughing so hard at the sight of Gabriel pretending to be a hookworm and he took it of course like any over dramatic child would and started crying more..

“Mama is laughing at me”

You would too if you seen it.

With this I vow to drag my kids into the mud more.. or at least have a yard that I first remove all hook worms from.. that when we finally do move there will never be video games played unless it is raining or a blizzard.. and that I can be one day completely off the grid again.

Until then I am sitting in front of the fan for the rest of the summer.