Tamales! Lots and lots of tamales!

Yesterday and today I made tamales! I love tamales! Tamales are awesome! They just take a long time to make .... because I'm a one person crew.

I started the process on Saturday. I got the chicken cooked, cooled, and broken down. Then I strained the broth left in the pot. One quart was put into a jar and popped in the fridge to use in the dough the next day. The rest was strained, bagged, tagged, and popped into the freezer.

Sunday morning I made the two sauces (one red and one green), the masa dough, and got to rolling. Because of the long weekend, we had a bunch of people over. What better way to fully test a recipe than to feed a crowd that's never been here on tamale night before! They were a hit!

Now the recipe gets move to the next folder for my testers to try. :)

Oh, and I baked cookies Saturday night too, because when you have dinner at my house, there's usually dessert.

Photo of a large pot on the stove. There are two small whole chickens in it. It's filled to the top with water. Bay leaves, whole peppercorns, and a quartered onion float along the top

Photo of a quart-size mason jar 3/4 full of chicken broth sits on the counter. It's topped with a canning funnel that has a coffee filter lined mesh strainer in it

Photo. in the foreground is a small white cutting board topped with Roma tomatoes and tomatillos still in their leafy wrappers. To the side is a small, rectangular pyrex dish filled with jalapenos, serranos, and dried ancho & guajillo chiles

Photo of a group of people sitting on a screened in patio eating dinner. There's a small bright blue bucket in the center of the table for discarded corn husks. It's over flowing

A rectangular tray lined with chocolate chip cookies and chocolate butterscotch chip cookies. The cookie tray is wrapped in cling film