tropit

I've scaled down everything having to do with the holidays this year, even my tamale making. I made up a batch of only 25 tamales this morning and plan to bring them to our outdoor decorating thing tomorrow. (Masks on, at last 6 feet apart, staggering the 5 or 6 people that are coming and going during the day.) I'm going to leave them on the table for my kids to come by and pick up.

I figured that since there are not that many tamales to take home, they'd better be special. I made only roasted pork tamales, no vegan ones this year, since pork is their favorite. To keep things simple, I roasted the pork with a big can of red enchilada sauce in a dutch oven until it was easy to shred...so easy. For extra yumminess, I cut off the kernels of a fresh ear of corn, pan roasted them and added them to the masa dough. I also used marinated olives from the deli, instead of canned olives to put in the center of each one. Plus, I added the left over, oil/vinegar marinade to the pork sauce. (That made a big difference in taste.) I haven't steamed them yet, but the sauce is incredible with that olive stuff in there.

Making only 25 tamales was a lot easier than making 125. Roasting the pork the day before made it super simple to assemble the next day.