mmmmasa!

the last couple days have been spotty with the ol net..

okay replanted the plants it's bigger in person, really..

then I made tamales, pork chops with rosemary, green beans, mashed tates and left over stuffing from T day ( I made a ton)
for dinner. Nathan made the mashed potatoes, he used milk. Not whip cream. good stuff. I took a picture of my far too small stove. some day I'll have a full size stove, with *big, big, sigh* gas heat...
I need a bigger stove! okay first post with pics, go! It decided to change text color all by its self!

okay and the tamales, I needed to make something with left over smoked and none too tender turkey. Mom and I walked into gartner's when they were having a TEN DOLLAR SMOKED TURKEY SALE! crazy! momzilla and I had split one. They were nice enough to slice it in half for us and packaged it so it would be fine in the freezer for a couple months more. poor thing was dried out and stringy, yes we both forgot and mine is still in cold storage.! But the flavor was great, I shredded about six cups and mixed in some double roasted salsa from trader joes, cilantro, and some other stuff and set it aside to think about things. I found a couple recipes online but made up my own..
melted butter and corn oil. about 2 cups. to which I added,half a bag of masa mixed with some dried herbs, about half a cup of mixed stuff, warm, not hot, chicken broth. Fun to mush into a "peanut butter" consistency
I pre soaked some corn husks and pondered why at the end of all the recipes I found it told you to soak the husks for two hours. but only at the end of the recipe. and here is is some place in the center not even at the end.. I drained a few shucks on a towel and mushed a quarter cup of masa mix on the husk, I think I made mine a little too skinny.
please see action shot! then stacked them in the steamer basket.
yum! once it was full,
I plopped it over a a gentle boil with a lid and let it steam for 2 hours. when the buzzer went off I removed one and let it cool for five minutes before eating it to make sure they were cooked through. quite good indeed.. they had to cool out of the pot and onto cookie sheets till cool then into bags. I believe I made at least thirty tamales.

I threw a couple into the oven with some enchilada sauce, and some left over enchiladas (turkey, no way!) I do love food.