No More Travels!

My Christmas holidays were pretty good considering how bad I felt a big part of the time.  I still am full of congestion, and the wind is blowing so hard this afternoon I hope it doesn't blow any pollen my way.  

My granddaughter, Ara, is flying back to Philly this evening, and I just went over to Jeannie's for one last visit and to say goodbye for now.  I was there yesterday and left my cell phone, which I didn't discover until this morning.  It's weird not having any way to phone out, and I would like to get a land line again, using a Uniden or Panasonic phone.  I have looked at Ooma, MagicJack, etc., and they have their good and negative points.  I had my last house phone when I was with Verizon, and the service was good for under $25 a month, but it was bundled with my cell phone and MiFi at the time - I doubt I could get it for that cost if it wasn't part of a bundle.  I could use AT&T, my U-Verse and internet provider, but their phone service is much higher than I want to pay.  I'll figure something out because I'm not at all happy with just having a cell phone.

Yesterday we made tamales, sort of on the spur of the moment.  Joe happened to be off work, and he and his family came to Jeannie's, and I made the masa dough and helped cook the meat - pork and chicken - and then did my best to show Jeannie and Joe how to roll the tamales.  It's been so long and I forgot a whole lot!  We didn't have Martha's (Donald's mom) expertise becaue she is in San Antonio for a funeral.  We'll do it again though after she comes back.

I didn't organize the photographing portion of this operation very well, but in the 1st picture I'm mixing the masa mixture into the lard.  The next one shows Jeannie & Joe enjoying an Inka Cola, a Peruvian soft drink we all learned to love when we lived in Northern Virginia.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

This looks like the pork filling.  We also had a bowl of chicken filling.

Selecting the right corn husk.

The husk, topped by the masa dough, topped by the filling.

The finished and folded tamale ready to go into the steamer.

Sorry that the photos don't do the tamales justice; they were excellent.  Donald made a delicious sauce to add to the meat mixture so it would hold together.    The kids did the taste testing!

I ate one of the three remaining tamales when I went to pick up my phone, and even right out of the fridge it was delicious. 

I've been trying to keep up with reading blogs and commenting, but have fallen way short.   I don't know when I've felt this bad for so long, although it's mainly a sinus type cold.   I guess it couldn't be worse than what I dealt with last year. 

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.