Making Tamales

I have been wanting to make vegetarian tamales for quite a while. The process, so I've heard, is very lengthy and can sometimes take an entire day. When I lived in Keene, Texas, there was a "tamale lady" who came by the office and sold vegetarian tamales to those of us who worked at SWAU. I purchased them from her every now and then, and her's were the first tamales I had ever tasted. I was amazed by the delicious flavor and unique consistency, let alone the fact that they were made in corn husks. Having grown up in the hills of Kentucky, I had never heard of tamales...and actually I hadn't even had enchiladas until high school. We ate burritos and tacos at home growing up, but that was the extent of my Mom's Mexican food offerings. Now, as I live in Texas, eating Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban food is an almost weekly experience--and it's oh so yummy! Jason and I love guacamole, black beans and rice, vege-chicken enchiladas, quesadillas, nachos, and fajitas! We are vegetarian, so all our ethnic foods are made without meat. Here's the really great vegetarian tamales recipe I used to make our tamales on Monday night! This recipe was pretty fast and easy to do--I was pleasantly surprised, because I was imagining 5-8 hours of labor to make them. Give yourself about 20 minutes for prep-time, and then about 1 hour for cook time--since each "batch" has to be steamed for 30 minutes. If you have a really large steamer basket, you could perhaps steam them all at once--my steam basket is kind of small, so I had to do 3 batches of six-ten tamales to cook them all up. The recipe makes about 20-24 tamales.

(to see any of these photos bigger, just click on the photo and it will enlarge for you)

Here's the mix, which should be the consistency of crumbly cookie dough. You should be able to smear it onto the corn husks, but not with any stickiness (stick to your hand) or liquid shine. I guess it's almost like crumbly clay.

Here's my preparation station. I had cheese, chopped tomatoes, pinto beans (not in the recipe, but I decided to add a few to each one), chopped jalapenos chillies (mild, because Jason and I don't like them too spicy),m and the corn husks.

You have to soak the corn husks in water for about 20 minutes or so. I used my ceramic spoon rest to weigh them down, because they were not staying underwater very well in this bowl.

I just bought jalapenos in a jar, but you could use fresh ones if you wanted to. I was afraid to pick out fresh ones, because they might be really hot!

This Masa Mix is easy to find here in Texas, because so many people cook with it down here. I'm not sure if it would be available very easily in some parts of the country, but you could always ask your grocery store or health food store to order some.

Me in my favorite room of the house! --the KITCHEN! I love to cook, so this was a fun evening to experiment with a brand new recipe.

I used canned chopped tomatoes, but I made sure to drain them very well. The recipe says to use fresh tomatoes that have been blanched (dropped in hot water to loosen the skins), but I didn't want to mess around with that, so I just opened a can.

Here is the Masa mix, a few beans, chopped tomatoes, chopped jalapenos, and a little cheese piled on the corn husk. Then you roll it up and fold both ends up. Then you place it in a steamer basket in a pot of boiling water.

The filling just falls out of the corn husk beautifully! It keeps a firm consistency, too. I was worried that the filling would be mushy--like eating corn meal cooked cereal or something. But, it was a grand success! I was very excited that they turned out well, and Jason was happy to have such a delicious supper!