tamales

A Difficult Mistake To Make Again

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Yesterday morning I had my heart set on making this recipe .  I had all the ingredients for the mole sauce and prepared it in the morning so I would only have to worry about making the tamales when I arrived home after work.  Well I spent the rest of the day thinking about the fact that I wasn’t in love with the mole sauce and also how it seemed silly to try to make something when corn isn’t in season and frozen corn for the tamales just didn’t seem like it would be as good. So, I scrapped it which put me in another dilemma- How can I use this sauce?

I decided to make enchiladas and I picked up the fixings for them which was the easy part.  Now to the hard part making this raw mole sauce into a mole enchilada sauce that tasted good.  I started by heating the mole sauce with vegetable broth to thin it out, however this did not improve the taste- it just was like spicy, nutty, chocolate soup.  Then I got the idea to add more chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, ume plum vinegar, tomato sauce and a number of other things I can’t remember until it tasted good.

I made a filling of refried beans, mushrooms and spinach which I then rolled up and placed in a baking dish.  I topped with the mole enchilada sauce and a dusting of nutritional yeast and placed in the oven to bake for 20 minutes uncovered.  Once it came out of the oven I topped with a drizzle of smoky paprika cheeze sauce (based off this recipe) and a little avocado.

Well they look good right? Now the test was to see if they actually tasted as good as they look. The verdict: they were really amazing, however due to all the playing around to make the sauce taste good it is going to be difficult to recreate this dish that turned out amazing by mistake. Oh well, I think I have enough knowledge on how to recreate it and I hope to try it again- but this time I will write everything down so you can try it too!

For dessert we tried one of the sample cookies sent to me from Enjoy Life Foods; they sent the Snickerdoodle, Double Chocolate Brownie and Lively Lemon to test out for them. Last night we tried the Snickerdoodle, overall the Hubz and I thought that they were okay. They were nice and soft but we both felt that they were super sugary tasting and the texture was almost like eating brown sugar (we just aren’t sugar lovers).  I am hoping that the other two flavors are better.

Tamales and a Sunset

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Tonight’s local menu challenge is based on Grace’s Tamales from the Waitsfield Farmers Market.  Grace’s has delicious vegan tamales but from where we live now it would take over and hour to buy them as well as the fact we can only get them on Saturday’s.  Now the Hubz has been bugging me to make a vegan tamale recipe and I have been putting it off trying to figure out a way to make the tamales without all of the fat.

Traditionally tamales are made with a lot of lard or oil or vegetable shortening and it just wasn’t going to happen for me.

Low-Fat Black Bean & Corn Tamales

Ingredients:

14 dried corn husks, plus extra husks to make ties

2.5 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
2 cups masa harina
1/2 cup warm vegetable broth
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons canola oil

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 small red onion, diced small
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
1t chili powder
salt and pepper

Directions:
 Place the corn husks in a bowl of water to soften for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse well. Pat dry and set aside.

In a food processor, process the 2.5 cups of corn kernels until pureed.

In a large bowl, combine the pureed corn, masa harina, lukewarm water, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and oil and use your hands to combine into a dough.

Spray a medium pan with cooking oil and place over medium-high heat. Add the onion, black beans, corn chili powder and salt and pepper and saute until the onions are soft and lightly browned; remove from the heat.

To assemble a tamale, place about 3 tablespoons of masa mixture in the center of corn husk. Flatten with your hand until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Place 1 tablespoon of the black beans on the masa mixture. Fold the long side of the corn husk over the filling to cover, then fold over the ends, overlapping them. Tie with a thin strip torn from an extra soaked husk. Repeat to make 14 tamales in all.

Layer the wrapped tamales in the steamer. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and steam until the filling becomes firm and the tamales are heated through, 50 to 60 minutes.

After dinner the Hubz and I went for a walk down the bridge behind our house to watch the sunset and we got to see this guy fly in:

Now off to relax with the Hubz!

P.S. Don’t forget that Almond Butter is for sale in my OpenSky Shop from now until September 7th.  A $1 from each jar sold will be donated to The Lunch Box by OpenSky as well I will make a donation for every jar sold.