Hot Tamales...and Hot Tamales...and Hot Tamales

When thinking about possible dishes to fix for new years celebrations, the idea of tamales ran across someones mind. That sounds good I thought! That will be fun!........ but was I wrong...

Well at the beginning of this adventure, I looked on food network's website trying to find a good recipe for the tamales. I found one that sounded fairly easy and looked good. I was really nervous about using all the different chilies that it called for but it turned out good...the first time.

Running the roast through the Saladmaster Machine

The shredded meat

We decided to start a few days early to make sure we didn't have a lot of work. We started by cooking the beef roast in garlic and onions then grinding it up into fine pieces.

The boiling chilies

Just as they started steaming

More steaming chilies and onions

After they cooked and were rehydrated, they were blended into a sauce...

Ran through a sieve...

The chilies made me iffy because I have never used anything like those before. THEY WERE AMAZING!!! The smells made me want to dive into the boiling pot they were so aromatic! I am no longer afraid of using those dried chilies that are in the Mexican isle at the store.

Mixed meat and chilie sauce

Attempting to steam in the oven

It didn't work perfectly...

The final meat mixture turned out really good. The wrapping was something else though. I don't think I wrapped them right but it worked. They steamed very well on the stove top but when you only have 2 stock pots with steaming inserts...that can take some time. We tried to make our own steaming rig out of an aluminum pan and cookie cooling rack...that didn't work good but the broiler pan did do a little bit.

So doing all this once was fun. Then we realized at 10:30 the day before our second party that we didn't have enough from the first party to bring to the second party we had also committed to bringing tamales to, so...all over again in half the time. The night before our second new years party, my mom and myself were up into the wee hours of the morning wrapping tamales over and over again at 5:30 in the morning.

By the end of all of these tamale making incidents...I don't want to see another tamale until next new years week.