Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date

  Hello Friends, I have been wanting to link with Rain for awhile but things have been kind of crazy here the last few months. 

   This is the link to Rain's blog. She has prompts for the art date if you wish to join in, or share your own art and/or the dinner date is sharing food.

  On T I shared a photo of our Christmas Eve tamales that I like to make every year. It started out for a little tradition for us around 25-30 years ago. I wasn't really familiar with them, but when I was working at the time a co worked was talking about how her and her family made 100's of tamales for Christmas eve. She told me all about, asked Larry about them-"I love tamales"   so I make them a couple times every year now.

  I found this recipe in a bag of the corn husks and have followed it ever since. You can change up the meat you want to use-beef, pork, chicken or could come up with a vegetarian alternative like veggies and beans  perhaps.

This recipe adds a little shredded cheese to the meat mixture which I like using a cheese that will melt a bit. I usually end up with way more filling and need to make a few batches of the masa.

Here is my set up:

   I usually will make a pork roast the day before, and then shred the meat. Chicken is good to or even a beef roast shredded. During the winter months especially I keep on hand several cans of the below usa canned beef-since I am not set up for canning here at the lake house-I love this product. When you open it up looks and tastes just like your own canned beef.

   So this year I drained (saved the broth for later) and followed the meat mixture in recipe.

    I do use lard instead of shortening-one year I made it with coconut oil-bad idea don't do it haha. I haven't been able to find real lard made by a butcher in years now so I use store bought. For the masa flour I used Bob's Red Mill's corn flour-gluten free. It works very nice and is a finer corn flour.

  For more flavor I like to fry up chorizo drain and add to the meat-this beef chorizo was perfect to go with the shredded beef

One needs to remember to get your corn husks in warm water early to soften-at least 6 hours is good. If you don't use them all just dry them out and store for later

beef chorizo frying-I ended up using both sticks in the mixture for better flavor

The masa dough

I am set up to make tamales now

I soak a small towel in warm water, wring out and cover masa dough to keep moist

Above needs rolled up and tied-place in steamer-steam for one hour

   These freeze very well too

   For my art portion I don't have much to show at the moment. I have been watching watercolor videos and also drawing videos on Craftsy. I learned some new things so far, will share soon. I also ordered a drawing book and also it's companion workbook-It is a world wide favorite for learning how to draw. My friend Agnes in Paris France suggested it to help me learn. They should be arriving in the mail next week sometime.

  Happy New Year!!

  Found this photo online

Thanks for stopping by