monday cooks: tamales

5/12/08: oh boy, tamales sounded great, but they take a loooonnnnngggg time to steam! We used vegetable oil instead of lard. Our fillings were pretty good though: a chard, onion, carrot with some salsa in it, all sauteed up (they were eating this straight from the bowl) and our chopped apple cranberry salad cooked down with a touch of cinnamon and brown sugar - they asked before tasting this.
9 young ones today and I look forward to next time. They love the wrapping part too, so we are going to go asian with fresh spring rolls & dumplings.