So I got on the internet and watched countless tamale preparations. I thought I could do this. Only thing I didn't have was a family member to help. Down the street is a little Amish family who has one girl so I borrowed her. Did we ever have fun!!!
I used pork steaks and cooked them for 8 hours in a roaster with onion, garlic and cumin. Pulling the meat from the bones was the easy part. Crisco was my masa fat and that pretty much had no flavor, so I threw in half a cup of sugar with the baking powder. Our sauce was red with tomatoes and some salsa I found in the isles next to the Masa.
Only disaster was that we boiled the steamer dry and burned the bottom of the pan. The Amish girl sat down and ate EIGHT of them.