Thursday, December 20, 2007

It's that time again

Oh, yes, I have been anxious to make tamales all week. My daughter is out of town and isn't expected back until tomorrow and looks forward to making tamales, too! So I have Sunday reserved for our tamale day. My family lives far away, it would be nice if they were here with us, but it's not happening this year. Anyway, today I made a practice batch, after all this is my second time making tamales on my own, so I need the practice. In previous years, we would visit my Mom in Sacramento for Christmas and make tamales. She taught me how to make them and encouraged me that I can do it! Well, since this is my practice batch and this recipe looked very easy and not such a large batch to deal with, I went for it. I must say they were pretty tasty and a cinch to make with the help of a little gadget that I bought on ebay.

Here's the recipe from this month's Cooking Light. Okay, mine didn't look as pretty as the picture, but they tasted pretty good.

Here's the Mas Tamales Masa Spreader that made life a little easier when making tamales. Actually, I shouldn't wait until Christmas time to make tamales, they can be made and enjoyed any time of the year.

Monday, December 10, 2007

I'm still around ....

Well, I know, it's about time I posted. December is already busy for me. I don't know why, I only work part-time and I haven't even started my Christmas shopping, but I know who I'm shopping for and what I'm buying, so it should be a piece of cake. This year I'm keeping it simple, at my age I'm tired of all the rush and craziness and why? Yes, our tree is up and I'm happy that I didn't wait until the last minute. The tree was up on Nov. 30th, that's good for me! The decorating is done, but I didn't go through all the containers. It's all too overwhelming, I ran off to Long's and bought a box of decorative glass bulbs to add to the tree. I don't have my lighted houses up and some other assorted decorations. I'm not baking this year, well probably those cupcakes on the December cover of Cooking Light. I hope I don't sound like a humbug, but I want Christmas to go by nicely without me getting all frazzled. In the mean time, I've been crafting for the art and craft fair. We were rained out last weekend, hopefully the weather should be nice this weekend and we'll be a success with Christmas just around the corner. I'll post some pictures later of what I've been working on.

I'm back cross-stitching

  Well, not yet, but real soon because my daughter found a Halloween cross-stitch booklet that I thought I lost forever. So my plans are to ...