What a mess Mexican Food makes

I love to cook and I love to eat. I'm fussy about Mexican food because restaurants tend to glop everything with melted gooey cheese and I'm not particularly fond of cheese. So why not make it myself I thought?

Do you have any idea what a huge mess in the kitchen that leaves? I had masa harina, that's treated corn flour, all over everything. Shouldn't be too hard to tackle tamales right? Tamales are divine little bundles of tender cornflour breading enfolding morsels of meat, onions, garlic, chilies, and oddly enough olives.

So I whipped up the cornflour breading, literally whipped it, because you have to beat lard, that's rendered beef fat, until it's light and fluffy and then beat in the masa harina. That mixture is spread on a wet corn husk. The filling is placed in a line down the center of the mixture and the corn husk folded over the cornmeal breading. The tamales are then steamed for an hour.

Okay in my case it was two hours and they still weren't done. Nasty, greasy, little bundles of watered down meat filling. Oh well.

Had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner instead.

Dee