Thai is a very close second (sometimes it is first) favorite behind Chinese food and one of the reasons why is because of their amazing sauces… peanut sauces, sweet spicy sauces… just amazing.

Last night I made this sauce to put on chicken satay, yes I know that usually people eat it with peanut sauce but I had no peanuts and I wanted this. Sue me.

I have to share the sauce here because it is just so amazing. Right now I am eating it poured over some steamed jasmine rice and just loving it.

Sweet sauce for spring rolls (this is also REALLY good on tofu)

Start off with a simple syrup… 1 part water and 1 part sugar. For this recipe I used half a cup of both. These need too simmer and reduce by 1/2 – 1/3. You know it is ready when you put a spoon in it and it coats the spoon.. you know.. like syrup.

add to this 1/2 of red wine vinegar. i actually didnt have any so i used white whine vinegar.. the result was very similar though not as good… but know that you can use this in a pinch. make sure that it is good stuff though…not the cheap stuff. this is worth it.

Now, I know you are supposed to use a couple Tbsps. of fish sauce but we cant have that here and if you are veganizing this you cant… so omit this. The result will not be exactly the same but really.. it doesnt need it (i know I might get angry emails because of this and I am prepared to deal with that).

After it reduces you add the vinegar, fish sauce, red pepper flakes (to taste, I like it HOT so I add 3 or 4 tsps.) and some shredded carrots. again.. to taste.. I like it in mine a LOT. I usually HATE carrots but this calls for them… and they give it a nice color.

Mix this all together and let it sit for a bit. Chilling it would be good but not chilling it is ok too. I also add a little green onions to it. Most people dont but I love it in mine.

If I had a choice I would hook an IV full of this stuff to my vena cava… the rest of you that understand moderation just should enjoy this.

To celebrate we made home-made pizzas. Since she cant eat dairy her pizzas were with soy cheese of course. She loved making them. She stood up next to me and spread the cheese and sauce then counted out twenty pieces of pepperoni to put down on her pie. We got pictures but I havent uploaded them yet so you will have to wait for that… In this post I am going to discuss our last cooking experience with Kate. Making tamales.

Tamales are a very old dish that comes from Mexico. It is basically corn masa with spices, filled with meats and other random things. I usually make two or three types of tamales. One set of savory and one set of sweet. I love sweet tamales because I put in raisins, vanilla, cinammon, and whtever else i want to add to the mixture. Savory ones are a great way to use the leftovers from the week, just stuff them in the tamales and you are done.

There are as many different tamale recipes as there are tamale makers. There is no real super skeekrit and special tamale recipe out there that is better than all of the rest.. it really is a case of “i make what my mother taught me to make” or.. in my case since my mother couldnt make tamales to save her life… I make what people in real life and the internet have told me works and I mix all of the recipes up and make my own and it works for my family. Very scientific. I know. Be jealous of my accurate and exact measurements here.

Tamales a la Webb

The first thing you need to do is make the fillings. For my filling I started a few days before.

I made a pot roast that I didnt like, so I then cut it up and cooked it with potatoes and turned it into a beef stew. After a milion hours of being cooked (3 in the oven and 1 on the stove) the meat was falling apart and tender. We ate it alone on Saturday and it was to die for but we had tons of left overs which ended up in my tamales the next day. We also had some left over chicken from Friday’s dinner which was just roasted with some jalapeño and honey glaze. Again very tasty. The key to a good tamale recipe is making sure that the fillings are very tasty, maybe a little tastier than you would normally make a dish.. why? Well it’s simple. You only get a tablespoon or so of filling in each tamale, so it is diluted greatly within the masa that surrounds it. You want every little bit to count so make it tasty and worth it. This is a similar idea if you are making perogis, won tons, etc.

So this is what I started with.

Beef for filling

I first roasted it in the oven with some veggies and spices for around 3 hours, then I cooked it on the stovetop with fingerling potatoes and…

• chili powder to taste – i like mine spicy
• cumin – to taste, i like mine smokey
• garlic- to taste, I like to ward off vampires
• tomato sauce not too much or else it gets too watery and you dont want a watery tamale filling
• salt and pepper to taste
• chicken bouillon with water or chicken stock, enough for all of your meat to simmer in for a good long while. around an hour or so. until it falls apart and tastes like delishousness (yes that is a word, well in my mind it is)

As you can see in the picture, my meat was already cut into cubes. This makes it cook faster and easier when you are going to stuff your tamales.

You can let this sit overnight in the fridge if you wish, I would recommend if you did because it makes it all taste better after the flavors have been allowed to intermingle.

The next day, you get up bright and early… you feed the chickens (or children), you make yourself a pot of coffee or cocoa.. or water like me. And you get ready for a long process ahead of you. The work starts now.

You will need:

• a steamer – I have something like this.

steamer

This picture is from coking mexican recipes.com, which I think is a great website really… take a look. A lot of it is more “Tex-Mex” than “Mexican” for my tastes but I have been know to be a big purist… so this might be why.

If you dont have a steamer like this you dont need to go out and buy one. Some empty pie plates with holes cut in them on top of an inverted bowl will work fine really. I do use this for more than tamales. It makes exiting hot pasta faster and easier, and i do steam alot of things so this works for me.  This is definately not a uni-tasker in my book.

You will also need:

• tongs for picking up the hot tamales and
• large spoon or spreader. Yes an item exists that works PURELY to spread tamales but it is useless in my book. I also like using my hands alot so I did most of the spreading with my two favorite kitchen tools. My right hand and my left hand.
• Last but not least, the husks.

Corn husks are exactly what you think they are… dried husks of the corn plant. Please use the real ones. Please.

Before you start anything you have to take these husks and give them a good rise. Then put warm/hot water in a pot and submerge them in it while you are getting everything else ready. They need to get malleable and wet so that you can use them, they are of no use to you dry.

Drowned Husks

Next comes the masa preparation. If you are lucky enough to live in an area of town that has premade tamale masa, you can use that. If not it isnt that hard. Regular masa is what it starts off with. Just like you would use for making tortillas.

Then you add:

 paprika – for color
Salt to taste, at least a couple table spoons and remember this is going into the masa so here is NOT the time to skimp on the salt
Cumin – to taste s well
Chili flakes and chili powder, this depends on how hot you want it.. taste it and see. Some people take dried chiles like ancho chile and grind them into a powder and that gives it a little more flavor. that can be done as well. just use what you normally would use if you were making chili con carne stew. please dont use an awful powder that is nothing but salt and cumin. You know what? Just make your own.. seriously. it’s worth it and it lasts for a while. There is no reason to not use good chili powder. No excuses!!
Garlic powder- this depends on your tastes as well

To all of this you add some melted lard, butter, or corn oil. I have seen people use all three.  It is said that if you dont use lard they dont taste the same… well they are right. But I wont use lard in mine. Sorry. The amount of oil used isnt scientific to me.. you just use as much as you need so that it is the consistensy of a smooth peanut butter.  for this i use my hands. it is easier to tell when you have enough oil in it and to make sure you got it all.

Before

This is the masa with spices on it, before mixing.. you can see that it is crumbly.

After

This is what it looks like after you have mixed it all together. I noticed that it was still a little crumbly but not too much. If you pick some up with your hand and squeeze it, it should stick to itself and spread easily.  This needed some more oil so I added a smidge.

Finally

Here it is, ready to be used.. and smooth like peanut butter.

Now you are ready to spread. With your spoon or spreader (or hands) scoop up some of the masa and put it inside of the tamale.

tamale beginnings

Spread it out so that it is in the middle of the husk in a thin layer, then put meat or other filling in the middle.

Tamale Middle

You roll them up lengthwise and tuck in the tail. Putting them in the steamer one at a time with the open ends facing up. I did mine laying down this time because Kate was helping me.

Tamale Final

Now steam them for around 45-55 minutes. The house will start to small like tamales around the time that they are done. To test them pull one out and pull the husk open, if the tamale is solid and doesnt stay stuck on the husk then you are done. If not.. just send it back for a little while longer. Let them cool a little bit before eating them of course. that makes the masa firm up a tad more.

This is really easy to make, but labor intensive. Tamales are usually a group event… a few familes get together and make them because it takes so long that you want to be chatting with someone while making it. I made them with Kate. Here she is rolling up her tamales.

Kate be rollin'

Here she is squshing the masa into a husk

Kate be squishing

here are her little hands helping me out

Little hands

I hope you all make your own tamales. Let me know how they turn out!! This is a great activity for the kids so have them join in the fun.

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The kids and I woke up around 7: 00 am and watched Mike get ready for class. He teaches on Saturday mornings at the college and leaves us for half of the day.  I instantly had a craving that I could not shake. So I woke up, fed the kids (for Calvin this means Bewbs and for Kate it means either cereal, eggs, cheese, or whatever she can find on the floor), got them dressed and warm. it was 67 i our house this morning, I am sure you yankees (said with a thick Scarlett accent) think that 67 is a joke but to us southern belles *fans self* this is just freezing and I was worried that my babies would get pnemonia… so they got socks and leg warmers forced on them.

The kitchen looked inviting.

closer

My craving got stronger. I realized that I had everything that I needed to make it… but.. well it was early in the morning and I really felt ridiculous making dinner before lunch. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that no law says that I cant have dinner for lunch. After all, I have cereal for dinner sometimes when I am feeling very lazy.

closest

The fridge also said that I needed to empty out some of it’s contents… and I really listen to the fridge when it says that.  Recently I have found a new love for my old Magic Bullet and I pulled it out and stuffed it with things for it to torture.

Pulse a few minutes, add some beautiful organic chicken thighs from our trip to the UBER HEB from last night and…

Voila!

Thair Bar B Que Chicken

Chicken
4 stalks fresh lemon grass
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped ginger
1 ounce garlic, finely chopped (about 6 large cloves)
4 shallots
1/2 cup coarsely chopped Chinese parsley roots
3 tablespoons brown sugar (screw that, bring out the AGAVE NECTAR POWER!!!!)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 to 2 tablespoons fish sauce (we dont use this because I have seafood allergies)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons oil
Hot sticky rice
Garnish: Chinese parsley sprigs, cut into 2-inch lengths
Red chili peppers (optional)

Place chickens in a large bowl. In a food processor or blender combine lemon grass, ginger, garlic, shallots, parsley roots, brown sugar, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce and oil; blend until smooth. Pour sauce over chickens and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. (I know I didnt do this, I didnt want to wait until tomorrow).

I just put mine in a skillet and cook them and then pour the sauce over it and let it simmer until it tastes like a small slice of heaven. Serve with hot sticky rice. Garnish with Chinese parsley and red chili peppers.

This year I really started to develop a taste for couscous. It is extremely easy to cook, takes just 5 minutes (literally) to be done, it is a great starch with good protein in it, and it is the perfect “base” for many a meal. It can be served hot or cold, sweet or savory, flavored or plain.

Tonight after a busy day Mike and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously asked “Whats for dinner?”. I made a yummy lasagna yesterday and we had the leftovers for lunch… so we were looking for something else to fill our needs.

Looking in our pantry I found some of this magic grain and went to town. Within 10  minutes I had a coconut milk curry sauce with chicken and a couscous bed for it to lay on. It was healthy, yummy, and perfect.

close up of couscous

Using this instead of rice has made the time that it takes me to make dinner be cut exponentially. I love me some rice, dont get me wrong… rice has got to be one of my favorite dishes ever, but I cannot spend 45 minutes making something every time that I need a starch side. I used mashed potatoes as well but again making them means boiling a potato for a good while and then mashing, the instant ones make me feel guilty.