Saturday, November 2, 2013

Smoking Tamales for Dia de Los Muertos






Feliz Dia de Los Muertos. I've always been drawn to the art and images surrounding this day and am still relatively uneducated about it but always feel drawn to this day. My assignment before next year will to get more education about it.

My husband decided it would be a good day to use the smoker. I decided it would be a good day to repurpose the red kuri squash I cooked on Halloween. Thinking about the Day of the Dead I decided it would be a good day to try cooking some Mexican inspired dishes.

I started with some horchata. I used this recipe I found and incorporated some of the suggestions in the comments to make it.
In the morning I blended
1 cup of uncooked white rice until it began to break up
I put it in a pitcher with 5 cups of water
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
When I had dinner cooking, in the evening I pour it through a strainer to strain out the rice pieces and cinnamon sticks then I added

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond milk

and put it in the fridge to chill. When dinner was ready I served it over ice.



Squash Tamales 
First get the corn husks in warm water to soak so they'll be soft enough to wrap
I used left over red kuri squash I mixed with sliced poblano and padrone peppers 
and spices - paprika, onion powder, garlic poswer, oregano, salt, pepper
Then I followed the directions on the masa for the dough, spread it thinly on the corn husks and put a scoop of the squash in the middle. I also had some queso fresco so I added some of that too and then rolled up the tamales and folded in the top and bottom and steamed them for about a half hour. 

We ate them with a little avocado on top, beans on the side and some smoked pork. 






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