• tamalada!

    That’s what a tamale party is called, in case you didn’t know, which I didn’t—at least, not until I decided to have one.

    When I learned that my whole family would be coming to our house for a not-on-Christmas dinner, I decided to make tamales:

    Lots of people + big appetites + open-minded tastebuds = a chance for me to try something different, yee-haw.

    I’d never made tamales before and I didn’t particularly like the Nicaraguan tamales (called nacatamales)—giant, greasy, gelatinous piles of masa and meat, wrapped in a green banana leaf and boiled in water for hours on end—but I do like Mexican tamales. So I turned to Lisa’s blog, The Homesick Texan—

    No. I’m getting this all wrong. It went like this: I was flipping though Lisa’s blog in search of the bacon-jalapeno cheese ball recipe (because Julie told me to) when I spied her tamales. I looked at the pictures, studied the recipes, and thought to myself, “That’s what I’ll do for the family. I’ll make tamales!”

    I emailed some friends in search of a tamale steamer, but no one had one. So I cornered my husband and made him promise he’d rig something up for me. He agreed (after a brief bout of second guessing my decision: why do you always pick things that are so complicated!), and I was able to finally turn my full attention to the delectable details of masa, pork, and chiles.

    They say that making tamales is a big affair, requiring lots of work and many hands, but I found it to be much easier than I anticipated. I blackened the chiles and made the meat filling and the masa (dough) the day before, so all we had to do was assemble and steam the tamales.

    However, when it came time to stuff, roll, and tie the tamales, all the would-be tamale makers were off working on other projects, so it was my mother, my daughter, and I (with a little help from the other children) who assembled the tamales.

    We made 60-plus pork tamales and 20-plus cheese and chili and it only took us about an hour. Making cut-out sugar cookies is harder.

    For the steamer, my husband poked holes through a piece of metal and bent it so it fit into my largest canner. For the other kettle, I used several metal measuring cups to support a metal roasting pan.

    count the helping hands!

    To help set the mood and get the tamale vibes going (and because I really had no idea what I was doing and there was a good chance the entire dinner would flop), I cranked up the tejano music. I hated the twangy tunes when I was living in Nicaragua, but I liked it well-enough during our tamalada. I think the music may have even enhanced the flavors.

    Also for our supper: refried beans and Mexican rice (both recipes courtesy of The Homesick Texan—thank you, Lisa) and my mother’s cabbage slaw, and leftover crumbly cheese (I bought the wrong kind) and salsa and crema. Dessert consisted of hot chocolate with marshmallows, coffee, cookies, citrus, and Christmas cake.

    Tamales
    Adapted from The Homesick Texan

    *All components can be made ahead of time. I recommend you do so.

    Masa (dough)
    Pork Filling
    Poblano Chiles and Cheese
    Dried corn husks
    A steamer

    the masa:

    *for the liquid, I used 2 cups strong chicken broth, 2 cups pork broth, and water.

    2 cups lard
    12 cups maseca flour
    12 cups liquid
    2 tablespoons salt

    Cream the lard. Beat in the salt and a cup of flour. Now a cup of liquid. Continue adding the flour and liquid, alternating between the two and beating thoroughly after each addition. Keep track by making tally marks on a piece of scrap paper. Part way through, you’ll probably have to dump the whole mess into a large bowl and swap the beaters for a wooden spoon. Cover the masa tightly with plastic and store in the refrigerator until you are ready to make the tamales.

    pork filling:

    *I used only 5 jalapenos and the filling wasn’t spicy at all. Next time I’ll use the full 8 and maybe even add some of the seeds.
    *The original recipe calls for 8 tomatoes, roasted and charred, but I used roasted tomato sauce instead.
    *Also, I found the meat filling to be too dry, so I added a cup or two of the pork broth back in at the end. Next time I will add even more liquid.
    *Don’t skimp on the salt.

    5 pounds boneless pork, cut into large chunks
    12 large garlic cloves, minced and divided in half
    2 large onions, chopped and divided in half
    1 tablespoon salt (at least)
    1 teaspoon black pepper
    4 cups roasted tomato sauce, or 8 tomatoes, roasted and pureed
    1 tablespoon canola oil or lard
    6-8 jalapenos, seeded and minced

    Put the pork, half the onions and half the garlic, the salt and pepper, and a half cup of water in a large crock pot. Cook on high for 3-4 hours, or until the meat is cooked through. Remove the meat to a plate to cool and then shred into little pieces. Strain the broth and reserve (if not for the pork filling, then for the masa).

    Puree the tomato sauce with the remaining garlic.

    Heat the oil in a large pan and saute the remaining onion until translucent. Add the tomato sauce and jalapenos and cook for five more minutes. Add the shredded pork and heat through. The pork should be saucy and juicy, but not runny. If it’s too dry, add a cup (or three) of the reserved pork broth (or some chicken broth). Taste to correct seasonings. (I added some of the roasted poblano chilis—an excellent addition.)

    Store the meat in the refrigerator (or freezer) until ready to use.

    poblano-cheese filling:

    *I used only 2 chilis, but the flavor was so wonderful I recommend preparing more and then chopping up the extras and freezing them in little containers to add to future chili, rice, and bean dishes.
    *The original recipe says to cut the chilis into thin strips and add one to each tamale. I thought the tamales could use more umph—next time I’ll make a mixture of (lots of) minced chilis and grated cheese.
    *I bought the wrong kind of cheese—crumbly and dry. What you want is a mild, chewy, soft Mexican cheese. If you can’t find any, use Muenster or Jack.

    2-4 poblano chilis
    1-2 pounds soft Mexican cheese

    Put the chilis on a baking sheet and broil until blistered black, turning them every few minutes. Cool slightly before coring and seeding. Cut into thin strips, or mince. Store prepared chilis in the refrigerator.

    to assemble:

    Soak the corn husks in a bowl of water for one hour. This makes them pliable, so they don’t break and crack when they bend. Drain the husks (just a few at a time—keep the rest in the water until you need them) and pat dry.

    Place the husk lengthwise in front of you, the skinny end on one side and the wide end on the other. Place a handful (perhaps 1/3 cup?) of masa in the center of the tamale and pat it flat so it’s about 1/4 inch thick, leaving a border of husk all the way around (making sure it’s a particularly wide border on the sides, as those are the ends that will be tied). Top the masa with 1-2 tablespoons of meat or chili-cheese filling. Roll the tamales up as you would a sweet roll, not worrying if husks are pressed into the filling.

    Tear a couple softened husks into strips and use the strips to tie the ends of the tamales shut—like giant Tootsie Rolls.

    Put 3-4 inches of water in the bottom of the steamer. You want enough water that the kettle won’t boil dry (though one of my pots did and it wasn’t the end of the world), but keep it low enough so the tamales aren’t sitting in the water. Pile in the tamales and clap a lid on top.

    Steam the tamales for 45 minutes, occasionally checking the water level. You know the tamales are done when the masa pulls away from the husk.

    Serve the tamales straight up, or with whatever green or red salsa suits your fancy. Leftover tamales (rejoice!) can be refrigerated or frozen. Reheat in the microwave (or a small steamer).

    Yield: 60-80 tamales

    This same time, years previous: eggnog, in which I throw my bread on the floor and stomp on it, delight

  • chopped locks

    It’d been taking my daughter forever and a half to comb her hair in the morning. She’d walk around with a brush in her hand, half-heartedly thwacking at her mane every now and then, and almost every morning I’d end up yelling at her to “Get in the bathroom, shut the door, and do not come out until your hair is brushed!” So when she started making noises about perhaps wanting to cut her hair, I was thrilled.

    A couple days ago, my brother and his friend and I got to talking about hair, and Locks of Love came up. “That’s it!” I shouted. “I never thought of that! She’ll love the idea!” I scurried over to the computer to do a little research, and when my daughter came home from a trip to town with her papa, I explained all about Locks of Love. She jumped right on board. (Interesting fact: did you know that 80% of donations come from children wanting to help other children?)

    First, I washed her hair in the sink and then blew it dry. She tossed her hair about like in the shampoo commercials she doesn’t see.

    “I’m missing my hair already,” she said.

    I pulled her silky-smooth (and suddenly painfully beautiful) tresses back into a ponytail, braided it, and tied off the end.

    Hair donations are supposed to be a minimum of ten inches—we were cutting more than twelve.

    I measured once, measured twice. Giggling giddily, we admired, touched, and mourned her hair. And then I picked up the scissors and started snipping. At first, they didn’t make a dent, but then I figured out how to use just the point to take little cuts and soon the braid started to come free.

    Right in the middle of all that snipping, my husband came inside. He stood in the door, his eyes wide. “You mean you were going to cut it without calling me in to watch?”

    And then her short, choppy hair was swirling around her face, and I was holding a strawberry-blond braid in my hands. I stared at it, semi-shocked at what I had done, tears filling my eyes. I felt like I had just cut off my child’s arm.

    I watched her closely, waiting for the hot tears of remorse, but they never came. She kept ruffling the back of her hair with her hand and tossing her head from side to side, saying “It’s so light!”

    “You look funny,” her sister said, appalled.

    I’d never hacked off a ponytail before, so I didn’t know what it would look like. The sides swooped down long around her face, while the hair went up in the back, stacked-fashion.

    We quickly discovered it was too short for a ponytail—her one, very clear specification, oops—but I showed her how we could pull back the top to keep it out of her eyes, and she was satisfied.

    We put the braid in a zip-lock bag, wrote her name and address on a piece of paper (so she’ll get an official acknowledgment from Locks of Love) and made a quick trip to our local post office where we bought a padded envelop (according to the instructions), and sent her hair on its merry way to Florida.

    Back home, my brother’s friend (her hairdo courtesy of my other daughter) and I tried to smooth out the sawed-off appearance, but we quickly gave up—it was way beyond our abilities.

    For a while I kept suggesting we take her to a professional to get it fixed, but then I stopped talking about that, too.

    My daughter loves her new chopped locks. And besides, hair grows.

    This same time, years previous: one step above lazy, tomatoey potatoes and green beans, hats

  • giant sausage and leek quiche

    The other week, I bought a couple bundles of leeks because I needed to photograph a potato and leek soup for an article that’s coming out in a local magazine.

    The pictures were a flop (I’m not sure what I expected exactly, since it’s just a bowl of white creaminess and I don’t style my food at all), but the soup was delicious. The younger two kids fought over the leftovers.

    I was surprised at how expensive leeks were—about a buck a leek (that sounds funny)—and it felt even more extravagant since I was only buying them for the white part. I couldn’t bring myself to toss the mountain of green stalks though, so I bagged them up and stuck them in the fridge, thinking I might use them in a beef soup.

    However, instead of the beef soup, I cooked up all that leeky greenness into a gigantic sausage-leek quiche. It was a fabulous quiche, a quiche made all the more fabulous because the star ingredient was originally destined for the compost bucket (shame on me).

    Never again will I toss the leek tops. I can think of a million uses for them now—pretty much any dish that calls for sauteed onions.

    Giant Sausage and Leek Quiche

    ½ (the bigger half) recipe lard and egg pastry
    4-8 cups chopped leek greens
    1 pound ground sausage
    2 cups cheddar cheese
    ½ cup Parmesan cheese
    1 ½ cups milk
    4 eggs, beaten
    1/4 rounded teaspoon salt
    1/4 rounded teaspoon black pepper

    Line your biggest pie pan (mine is a 10-inch, earthenware monstrosity) with the pastry and crimp the crust.

    Brown the sausage in a large pot over medium high heat. Transfer the meat to a large mixing bowl, leaving the drippings in the pan.

    Return the pot to the heat and add the leeks (and a pat of butter if the drippings were meager). Saute until tender and brilliant green. Add the leeks to the bowl of sausage. Add the cheeses and toss to combine. Put the cheese and meat mixture into the pastry-lined pan.

    In a small bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, and seasonings. Pour over the meat and cheese. Bake the quiche at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until the center is puffy, golden brown, and set. Cool for 10 minutes before eating.

    This same time, years previous: Christmas 2010, windows at dusk-time, spaghetti carbonara, marmalade-glazed ham, for my walls, Christmas 2008