Tamales

Christmas Tamales

24-36 corn husks

Soak husks in warm water weighed down for at least an hour. The longer you soak the husks the easier and more manageable they become. You may need to removed additional silks as they moisten. 

Masa 

6 cups Masa Harina Flour 

5 cups vegetable stock

1 1/2 cups vegetable shortening or (traditionally) lard

1/2 Tbsp salt

1/2 to 1 Tbsp chili powder, optional

Warm stock. Combine masa and salt (and chili powder if using). Stir Crisco until creamy. Add stock to masa mix and stir until throughly combined. Beat masa mix into shortening until you have a creamy paste. You don't want it too dry as it will crumble. Add additional stock as needed. 

Filling

Pork

1 boneless pork tenderloin

3-5 cups chicken stock

1 chipotle pepper boullion cube

3 ancho chili's in adobo sauce ( chopped finely )

Add all and cook in slow cooker at least 6 hours. These are all 'estimated' amounts as I eyeballed everything. 

When falling apart....remove and shread. Add additional chili powder and stock from slow cooker to keep moist

Green Chili Chicken Filling

1 Rotiserrie Chicken deboned

1 cup Monterrey Jack Cheese

1 can diced green chili's 

Mix all ingredients

Assembly

Add masa to corn husks, top with chicken or pork filling, fold one third of the husk to the middle and then the opposite side followed by the bottom of the husk folded up. Steam tamales for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. You can tell they are done when the masa looks slightly dry. 

Enjoy!

Catchn' Up

Catchn' Up!

Do you ever feel like time is passing by so quickly that you can't stop it. This has been my feeling over the past few months. I finally have my husband home for longer than 3.4 stinky weeks and it has been amazing. I have fallen off the bloggosphere but have been able to rekindle and get to know him again so to speak. We live such different lives 1/4 of the year we are together and 3/4 we aren't. We have had so much fun this vacation; although it has come at a price for him. He is here on medical and of course the Dr's here can't determine whats wrong. I am shocked!! For those out there who don't know me I was diagnosed with kidney failure at 21 yrs old and suffered with less than descent medical care for about 5 years and finally found an angel in Arizona who "cured" me so speak. Basically I am just saying I have very little faith in medicine and wished we could find someone to help him the same way I was helped. 

We took a road trip to Indiana to see my husband's parents this Thanksgiving and had the best time. It was a great time and we really needed to see them. The drive was long and so pretty. I have lived in the same house since I was 3 and let me tell ya...I don't get out near enough. The midwest is pretty y'all. Really loved the trees. I was a huge baby about the cold however. We had a wonderful time 

I have been working at getting my house all together so that I can get back to baking and playing. I have been missing cooking so bad and my pictures have suffered too. I am getting back to the tuesday's group and my iron cupcake challenge. Totally excited about all that!

Hope each of you had a great holiday and I will be keeping up better...

Happy Holidays

Hey everyone!  Hope you all had a great holiday and did some fun things. I am sorry I have fallen off the bloggosphere but we drove to Indiana to see family and had a great time and then of course hit the ground running back home to get ready for Christmas. We had a good holiday and are now of course 'spring' cleaning so to speak so that life can resume some sense of normalcy. I am excited to get back to baking because I have missed it horribly so here I come TWD girls. The recipe for tomorrow is cheesecake and I could just about hang myself because I started my "no sugar and flour" lifestyle again. Great huh! So I will get into the kitchen and have some bitchn' pics for tomorrow. 

Love

I have a different life than most 'regular' people. My husband works overseas and I stay at home although I am a Registered Labor and Delivery Nurse. I have enjoyed staying at home more than anything in the world! I love being with my kids. I love enjoying my time for family and fun. There is nothing like it. My husband works a 60 day in Iraq 30 day home schedule. It is pretty cool. We get to spend a lot of time together when he is off. My schedule also changes when he is home. He is home on medical this time so it's been different than our regular time together but I am so glad to have him here. I haven't baked as much as I usually do but I am getting back into it this week. Sorry for those who have followed my baking. I am mentally prepping for Thanksgiving. I have never done a Thanksgiving dinner and I want to. So I have been doing research and think I can handle it. The only thing would be convincing my family (extended) to come and not throw a fit about not being at my moms. Time will tell but I think that I might do some cooking early to try and see how good it is. Thought I would include a few pics of us doing our 'everyday' thing. What a hunk huh!

Kugelhopf

The definition of a bread and cake to describe this cake was exactly right. That was the first comment that my husband made upon tasting the Kugelhopf. He said...it's like bread inside with a cake crust. So that means I must have baked this one right. I am currently on a "No Sugar, No Flour" torment so I did not get the opportunity to taste test but I could smell the yeasty bread smell strongly. My husband is home on medical and so I am doing my best to bake things I think he will like so we decided to make the Kugelhopf without the raisins because he is a plain eater so those were omitted...that being said; he actually thought the cake was TOO plain. Something I hardly ever hear from him. We then experimented with adding a simple syrup on top...and not enjoying that much we added Maple syrup. None were big hits. I think in the morning making toast might be the best bet...with an added butter and cinnamon sugar combo.

I will say that I am loving this group and feeling like I can bake and then experiment to see what we like the best. My house has so many different taste buds that someone is usually happy in the end.

I don't know if I will ever bake the Kugelhopf again as I thought it was a labor intensive, time consuming project. I am glad I got the chance to make it though.

Rugelach

Rugelach

I have no idea how to even say this cookie..But I will say that I have really enjoyed trying new things with the Tuesday's group. I substituted the marmalade and currants because we dont have currants here in my town (lame) and I had some vanilla spice butter that I thought would taste good. So ... I used the vanilla spice butter from williams sonoma and then used white morsels and toffee chips. The cookies were really good. I wished I had time to post more and I will tonight but as of now my husband is home on medical leave and we're back and forth to the dr's today. Cookies for snacks though!

Halloween '08

Have you ever seen more adorable trick or treaters. We had a great night. Got so much candy I think one could potentially become diabetic after comsuming it all...which we have yet to do but I am assuming it will happen soon. My fav..Twix...I stole plenty of mini twix for a small village.

IT ROCKED.....