Tamales for His Birthday Present

Last week was my husband's birthday. He loves tamales, so for his birthday present (rather than buying him something) I made him a batch of homemade tamales. This is my second attempt at tamale making, and I've learned that it's not as intimidating as it seems. It's time consuming in that you let the meat and then the finished tamales cook for several hours, but the actual creation isn't too bad. Spreading the masa dough on the corn husks is the long part, and that's actually fun--like playing with edible Mexican-flavored playdough. The wonderful thing about this Mexican food is that it's easy to make and inexpensive (you can use cheap meat and stretch it to fill a lot of tamales); it's also freezable and easy to reheat.

Since my husband hunts, we have a lot of game meat in the freezer. With all the Mexican spices, you can't tell much difference between elk roast shredded for the filling and the traditional pork/chicken or beef. So I was able to use what I had on hand, plus $6 for a new bag of corn husks, $3.75 for a new bag of Maseca, and $1 for another bottle of chili pepper (all of which I'll be able to use again for my next batch of tamales). With $10 and some time invested, I was able to produce 42 tamales and wrap them into 18 lunch portions to put in the freezer. Because it's garden season, I also had an abundance of tomatoes and green peppers that I turned into homemade salsa. My husband loved his birthday present!

For those of you interested in learning to make tamales, I used this website for my recipe and step-by-step guide: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/Tamale_Recipe.htm The detailed explanations and pictures really boosted my confidence the first time around, and putting spices in the masa dough really increases the flavor of the tamales (which are sometimes rather bland without).

Dead Bread?

Ever wind up with stale bread? Or bake a loaf bread only to discover that you left out the salt? Or have your bread fall in the oven? Or have leftover waffles that no one will eat?

When that happens, I normally slice the bread and throw it in my toaster oven on low for 45 minutes, then break it in pieces and use the blender to make it into bread crumbs, which I freeze for use in meatloaf, meatballs, breaded chicken, etc.

I've just come across another use for not-so-perfect bread: bread pudding. Pumpkin bread pudding, actually. It's like a lighter, faster pumpkin pie. I found a recipe online , (leaving out the currants and nuts) and, wonder of wonders, my husband and all three children devoured it!

Easy Rainbow Cupcakes!

This is actually an idea I stole from another sister, Carol, but we used it for my daughters birthday and it turned out great! I like low-key birthday parties, so this was the opening activity -

Rainbow Cupcakes.

It's easy. 

• First, mix up a white cake mix.
• Second, separate it into smaller bowls and use food color to color the batter in each bowl. We used red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
• Third, put cupcake liners in the pan and let the kids spoon in whatever colors they want! Just make sure you stop them when it gets 2/3 full.
• Fourth, bake them!

We played games while they baked. Twenty minutes after putting them in we stacked them up, stuck candles in them, and sang "Happy Birthday!" They were so cute I didn't even bother icing them.

The kids loved it, it was easy, and it was way cheap! One note though, it only made 16 cupcakes instead of the usual 24. So go have fun; don't wait for a birthday!

By the way, my daughter's most played with present so far: the two frogs her cousin brought over.