Eastern Utah
EMAIL ME AT: mgypsy97 at aol dot com

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

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.

10 comments:

  1. Have a great trip and enjoy. BTW, you said that you were under the weather at Christmas, so I guess I caught this flu bug from you (grin). Hey, if you can spread computer viruses over the internet, why not the flu virus?

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  2. Wishing you the best in the New Year, Gypsy! How unusual that Jeannie and Donald both have moms named Martha! Get better in a hurry!

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  3. Love that closing picture. Thanks for showing the tamales. Not sure I could mix anything into lard. I could feel my arteries closing up. I sure hope you start to feel much better soon. I've still got this darn cough. I'm into my 3rd week and totally sick of it.

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  4. You all look like your having a good time together. Nice big island to work at. Haven't had any tamales yet this year. Sure miss having them.

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  5. Thank you for all the pictures. It looks like you all had a great time making them. That is one thing I miss about Houston...my best friend's tamales during the holidays :(

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  6. With regards to a landline telephone, mother has Verizon, it is not bundled and it just keeps going up and up, it is now close to $30.00 with no long distance.

    I also have MagicJack but since I no longer have Time Warner Cable my hotspot can not really handle the calls where she lives. For emergencies I use a free Google App called TextNow and you can also make free calls. I also have Skype but again it does not work as well without cable Internet but will work in a pinch.

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  7. You might look at Consumer Cellular. While shopping for my phone I was on their site and they now have a way to plug a home phone into a base unit that basically turns it into a cell phone. You can pick up the base unit/phone and move it with you if you want while on vacation, etc. It plugs into house electricity so no separate charging. It would probably cost the $10/mo for service plus $10/month for minutes. AARP discount. I'll probably move Mom to that as she is going through the same issues with her home phone expenses. Because it is cell minutes the long distance is free.

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  8. Happy New Year, Marty! I hope 2015 will be a happy and healthy year for you - with some travels thrown in! :)

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  9. Happy New Year Gypsy.. Hope it's a great year!

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