Hot Today, Hot Tamale!

This is the first meal from my cooking plan. Like enchiladas, tamales can be pretty time consuming. One overlooked benefit of the 30 meal plan is that you don't just save time by having the food prepared, you save time with kitchen clean up. With the Mexican spiced beef already prepared all I had to do was wrap and steam the tamales and make a side dish.

To make the tamales I soaked dried corn husks is hot water and added enough hot water to a few cups of corn masa to make a workable dough. When the husks were soft I tore one into strips to tie the tamales. Then, with a husk open I pressed 2 tablespoons of masa into a square on the widest upper quarter of the husk. Next, spoon the filling down the middle of the masa, roll over one turn to seal the meat in the masa, fold the narrow end of the husk up, roll the tamale to close and finish by tying is closed with a strip of husk. Once you have all the tamales rolled steam them for about an hour and a half.

To go with the tamales I made a simple confetti rice salad with cilantro lime dressing. It is just cold cooked rice with drained black beans, corn, diced peppers and chopped cilantro. The dressing is oil, lime, garlic, salt, and chili powder. Once a month cooking never looked so good!