Before Christmas we had our traditional cookie baking day, but this year to spice things up we also added in pork and chicken tamales. They were so wonderfully delicious I cannot believe we’ve never made them before. Well, actually they were horribly time consuming so I understand why we’ve never made them before. I ended up meeting my mom in Dearborn, visiting my grandpa Nader and then she came home with me and stayed the night, as Mr. Dave had his work Christmas party in the evening and didn’t get home till almost 1 am.
On Saturday, my sister came over and together we made a double batch of Russian tea cookies, peanut butter and sugar cookies, which the kids decorated for Santa. I cooked the tamale meat in crock pots and then Dave ended up rolling almost 80 tamales in corn husks. My sister and I then watched a sappy Nicolas Sparks movie, which I think we both secretly loved, and steamed tamales till 10 pm. That night we were also hit with a mega ice storm, which left thousands without power and the roads nearly impassible (we still have several large limbs that came down in the storm that Dave needs to cut up).
We served the tamales Christmas eve as a pre-dinner snack and they were a huge hit! I think we will official institute them as a holiday tradition. Oh and Noomi also loved them, though Ajax refused to try them.
