Christmas Tamales

On Christmas Day, my daughter Ashley wanted to make tamales.  This was the first time either of us had tried to make them.  We used a combination of several recipes to make up the tamales. 

The tamale making process was surprising to me.  It is really quite easy, though a bit time consuming.  I will make some again and get a recipe put together.  We used "vegan butter" for the masa mixture.  We used her heavy duty, standing mixer and let it whip up the masa mixture for about 10 minutes.  It made for a light, easy to use masa.

We formed an assembly line of three people.  One person smeared the masa on to the corn husk.  The next person put the filling in the middle of the masa.  The last person rolled the corn husk over to cover the filling and tied the husk into a cute little package.  It was really nice to have a project to do together. 




We Completely made up the filling on our own.  Ashley had made a big pot of black beans that morning, so we used some of those, along with some corn from the freezer, sautéed onion and red pepper.   We made them without any heat at all, in the hopes that the one and two year old kids would eat them, and they seemed to like them just fine. 

I have read serving tamales on Christmas day is a Hispanic custom, and I can certainly understand why.  We enjoyed having a nontraditional, (to us), food to enjoy on Christmas.  Maybe this will now become traditional for our family.

Husband's Note:  Christmas is a time to be with family.  I love that my dear wife and wonderful daughter have a passion for cooking.  When the kids were growing up I have strong memories of our daughter spending many an afternoon sitting on the cabinet and watching her mom cook.  I see this as a great way to spend time with your children.  Our daughter is carrying on this tradition with her kids, and that doesn't surprise me.  Begin a tradition with your family and treasure this time.  It all goes by so fast...btw the tamales were amazing!