Thursday, December 3, 2009

TAMALADA!






Well, the Muses have been at it again. Now that we've mastered gnocchi-making, we decided it was time to tackle tamale-making. Outdoor Woman invited us over to her house today (on her birthday, no less) for an afternoon of chopping, mixing, patting, rolling, steaming, eating, sipping of mulled cider, and a whole lot of laughing. Oh yeah, and a yummy white birthday cake topped with a thick layer of my dreamy praline frosting:

Combine 1 c. brown sugar, 5 T. butter, 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/3 c. milk in a saucepan. Boil slowly for 3 minutes. Cool. Add 3 cups sifted powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla and beat until thick enough to spread. Add nuts or coconut if desired.

In case you're wondering about the third picture, well, Fiber Woman is what you might call height-challenged, and when she asked for assistance in reaching a glass, she got way more than she bargained for!

5 comments:

musingegret said...

Omigosh....a great post: recipe, pretty pics (love that Day of the Dead apron) and hearing about women having a blast while fixing wonderful Christmas-y food. This is why your readers check in faithfully. How many dozen tamales were produced??

Hill Country Hippie said...

I have no idea! We got hungry and stopped midway to cook up what we had - maybe one and a half dozen each of the pork and the cheese + roasted poblano. But Outdoor woman still had the fixin's left for at least that many more, plus some smoked brisket that she's going to turn into tamales as well.

Teri H said...

Oh good! Now you can teach me how to make them! That's on my "to-do" list!

Unknown said...

that is one wicked apron! my compliments to the chef !

Hill Country Hippie said...

Teri: Ummm, I think our technique needs a bit more work before we try teaching anyone else.

Jake: It is cool, isn't it? My daughter gave it to me for my birthday. She found it at a shop in San Diego, that specializes in Day of the Dead type stuff.