Tamalada!

I recently hosted a Tamalada to make large quantities of tamales for the holiday season. Friday night, I cooked 13lbs of pork, chicken and made huge quantities of red and green chile and green chile tomatillo sauce. On the day of the tamalada, I managed to make semi-respectable masa (I nearly had a masa meltdown as both of the recipes I had were way off on the pork lard to masa to pork broth ratio--I even ended up with masa on my eyelid). With the key ingredients made, seven of my dear friends came over to assemble these packets of tastiness. An hour and a half of hard labor later (as well as constructive tamale criticism), we made 25 dozen tamales--pork with red chile, jack cheese with green chile and chicken with green chile tomatillo. We steamed a couple dozen for an hour (in my specially purchased tamale steamer) as we enjoyed some wine. The results were DELICIOUS! My share of tamales lasted less than a week--I assume this is a testament to their delightful taste! I may make more this holiday season, but tamales require a serious amounts of work. It is good, however, to know that I am able to keep this little bit of my heritage alive....Next goal--work on my spanish-speaking skills.