Tamale Party

Well, my resolution to blog more regularly ran smack into my resolution to start "The Cure." The Cure is a six-week regimen to reduce visceral fat. The food (?) I am eating is nothing to blog about for the most part. But last night I blew the diet when Leigh, a good friend of mine, hosted a Tamale Party.

She started Saturday by cooking the pork filling. When we arrived last night the filling was ready to go and was very tasty.

She had soaked the husks and then some were torn into strips to use to tie the tamales.

She was working on the masa, or the cornmeal that surrounds the filling, when we arrived. Finally, it reached the stage where it was ready, and then Leigh demonstrated how to assemble the tamales.

First spread the masa on the husk.

Then add the filling.

Then you sort of roll and fold the husk.

Then the bottom is folded up and the tamale is tied with a strip of husk.

Here is Leigh showing the finished tamale.

Then we all tried our hands at making tamales.

Even the men got into the act.

Here are some of the tamales that we made.

Leigh started loading them up into her steamer.

We finally made enough to fill the steamer and started those babies cooking.

The tamales had to steam for an hour, so we watched the Broncos and Steelers game while we waited to see how the tamales turned out. You be the judge:

I think they look great, and they tasted even better than they looked.

We had a great time and thanks to Leigh for coming up with such a fun party idea.