Oh! how the smell of Christmas fills the air!! :)

ahhhhhh..... I can smell it now!!! the fresh smell of cooking tamales!!! At my house the "holiday" season is not necessarily marked by the holiday decorations, it is marked by the succulent smells of freshly baked cookies, and tamale "weekend"!!! Tamale making at my house is usually a two day event, but this year there are were so many other things going on that it turned into a whole weekend event for my mom.... poor lady's exhausted right now, but as she said.... at least the tamales are done!!! YIIIPPPEEE!!! She went back to work this year so we had to work around her weekend off work schedule, which happened to be on the weekend when i had something planned for literally everyday, and my sister did too..... but it all worked out anyway, as with every other year my brother came over to cook the masa on friday night, which allowed him to spend some quality time with my parents..... it's funny he got "given" that job years ago, because the pot my mom cooks the masa in, is SOOOO big and tall that no one used to be able to reach into it to stir it, once it was on the stove.... that is until my sister's husband started helping..... :) so the masa and banana leaves were cooked on friday night, while I was out celebrating a birthday party..... hahaha!!! :) then on saturday my mom woke up early to start cooking the "recado", which is the red sauce that goes with them..... yummmmm.... this has to be my favorite part..... I could probably sit down to a bowl of that with just rice, but since I was at work and then another party I missed my chance this year..... ugh!!! oh well there's always next year!!! :) this morning (sunday) after I got back from watching my friends kids perform a Christmas Play at their church we started putting together the tamales..... here is what the set up looked like.... :) yummm..... the meat my mom uses is Turkey!! other people use different stuff, but I guess we're "picky" here!!! at least that's what I'm told!!! ;) Guatemalan tamales, are wrapped in a banana leaf which gives them a very yummy flavor..... they also have olives, capers, (both of which I pick out before eating) :) and cooked stewed bell peppers, my mom makes these herself.... hence the 2 days needed for tamale making! ;)

the pot of masa!!!
This is what the tamale looked like on the banana leaf before we cooked it..... I know it may not look that appealing, but they're soooo tasty!!! :)

This year my sister got to try her hand at "wrapping" them..... she did very well if I do say so myself!!! We had to wait another hour, for the first batch to cook so we could eat one..... while that was cooking we finished the rest, it gave us motivation, since we knew that as soon as we finished, there would be a steaming hot freshly made tamale waiting for us for dinner..... and let me tell you that I could hardly contain myself when they were done!!!

The finished product, once again, looks kinda weird, my camera phone isn't very good I guess!! :/ oh and pardon my mom's fine china.... if only she knew I had posted this picture on that plate...... hahahaha!!!! :)