Stairs and Tamales and Mark's posting, oh my!
7/31/2008 01:47:00 PM
Finally! An entry!
The stairs are finished (except for a plank at the top landing that needs replacing and one more row at the very top which is waiting for that replacement. Maybe tonight?).
Dad arrives tonight for the week, and on our agenda is to install the banister and paint and tile the laundry room. I've been playing with different design ideas for adding cabinets in the laundry room as well, but we'll need to save a little more coin before we can kickstart that little project. Otherwise, there are little odd jobs around the house where dad can be put to work (now that I have a table saw I can finally put the final half row of flooring down the hallway, allowing me to floor the two closets finally as well). Mom's only condition is that dad is not allowed to work with electricity because 'it makes her nervous'. We'll see about that.
Also, the Steamboat Wine Festival is this weekend and we'll be attending an event tomorrow afternoon.
Last night was the third in our series of "Top Chef Steamboat" or "Iron Chef Steamboat". It was the pulled pork tamale challenge, and was I think our best effort yet. Both versions were in my very humble opinion VERY GOOD, but Gina ended up taking the crown this time around (which leaves the standings at two to one in my favor). I already sent out an email trying to plan the next challenge. Though I haven't decided what it will be yet (loser chooses), I'm leaning towards gourmet cheeseburgers.
Oh, and I made so much pulled pork (source: 6-lb pork shoulder) that I plan on making another two dozen tamales (tomorrow night?) and freezing them in two-packs as individual meals for later consumption. Oh, crud. I just realized I have to do it tonight, becuase I promised coworkers I'd bring some to work for them.. I guess that's better than having the pulled pork sit around for a while.. And I'll never be able to duplicate the recipe as I did it completely off-the-cuff and didn't keep good track of what I used.
I THINK it was something like the following:
6lb pork shoulder for 6 hours on low in slow cooker with: 2x Negra Modelo, about 1/2 cup tequila, and (real) Coca-cola to cover 4/5ths of the shoulder. One large rough-cut onion and three large garlic cloves chopped into chunks. Seasoned with cayenne pepper, cinnamon and ground cloves.
Drain the pork shoulder, reserving the juices and vegetables. Pull the pork and place back in slow cooker with vegetables and about 1/2 Cup of retained cooking juices. This is where I started to wing it...
Stir in:
- about 1/3-1/2 molasses,
- 8oz can of diced green chiles,
- 16(ish?)oz can of tomatillos (diced),
- dice half an 8oz can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce,
- add entire contents of Pace Tequila Lime salsa,
- one chopped tomato,
- 8oz can of tomato sauce
- salt to taste.
There are a number of different recipes I looked at to find out how to make the masa (corn-flour) and assemble the tamales, but this is what you reserved the cooking liquid for. Put the liquid in the fridge and let the fat separate, then skim before adding to your masa mixture. (Though I'm not sure why that is technically necessary, since the masa is made with LARD, of all things).
I really thought I would have Gina as I was convinced she wouldn't use lard to make her masa (which is how she failed the corn dog challenge - she baked her dogs instead of frying them up), but she suprised me and *did* use it. She put more effort into this one so I'm glad she won (and she needed the ego boost as well).
Next time, though, the challenge will be MINE! (again)
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2 Comments:
s good. You need to convince Erik to make that for me.
posted at 2:09 PM
Why is blogger being a total dick hammer and knocking off the first half of my comment? What I originally said was, "Good lord that sounds good"
posted at 2:10 PM
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