My wonderful librarian mom always says, "If you can read, you can cook." Whenever my brothers or I would ask her how to make something, she'd point us to the army of cookbooks on her counter. I sat down and read The More-with-Less Cookbook from foreward to index. I flipped through The Joy of Cooking to see which recipes it fell open to. I remember when I got my first illustrated cookbook with step-by-step photos-- I felt invincible! I tried lemon meringue pie and braided challah with that one. The other day Mark reminded me of my brief foray into vegetarian(cookbook)ism with The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Even in the age of youtube tutorials for everything, I love me a good cookbook. And once I get an idea of something to make, it rattles around my head and bumps into things until I do it. This week my general cooking optimism and attraction to mountainous projects culminated with making tamales. **Ominous music** I have met my match. I used this recipe and this video to help me through the process. Background info: there are three main parts of the tamal: the corn husks, the meat filling, and the masa-- cornmeal dough that surrounds the meat. Here they are. So I got the ingredients at one of the Mexican grocery stores in town. And then I figured Saturday was my day to conquer the tamales. I didn't get started until the afternoon, and I had to go to an open house, so it was late afternoon when I was shredding up boiled meat and food processing it with ancho chilies. I had the corn husks soaking and the masa made, and I was finally all ready to assemble the tamales... and it was 11:30 pm. There was a huge mess on the counter, H was finally asleep, and I realized sleep was better than finishing up. I put what I could in the fridge and went to bed. Round 1 to the tamales. Sunday-- a ceasefire. I had worship team in the morning and a get-together in the evening, so I left the mess on the counter all day and all night and vowed to finish them the next day. On Monday I rallied somewhat and got the ball rolling. I threw out the masa I had made before and made some more and started assembling the tamales. It's definitely a process! I learned that corn husks have a smooth side and a rough side, and you want to spread the masa on the smooth side so it easily peels away from the husk. Here's the general idea... After I had made about 20, my masa was running low but I had tons of meat. So I made more masa. And ran out and made more again. My masa:meat ratio was off for sure. And after a little more than 3 dozen, I called it quits even though I had a huge bowl of meat still left. Then I had to figure out how to steam them. I used my canning pot and a colander, with a wet towel on top of the tamales and the lid on top of that... They steamed for an hour or so, and I have to say they were tasty. But I was still left with a huge bowl of meat!
So Tuesday I did it all again... made masa 2-3 times for all the meat. So, the end result? About 6 solid hours of kitchen work and 7 dozen tamales in my freezer, all from a recipe I thought I was doubling to make 32 tamales. I would call this a draw. Some of my students' moms sell tamales for $10 a dozen, and considering all of the work that went into it I think that is a bargain. Now I know why people make them around the holidays when everyone can sit and help. But hey, at least now my freezer has some goodies, and if you invite me to a potluck you know what I'm bringing!
This got me thinking about cousins. Hendrik is blessed to have lots and lots of aunts and uncles, and so far he has 8 cousins, with another one almost here. He's gotten to meet the five oldest ones-- met E and J at Cassie's lovely wedding on Saturday-- but not the three he's closest in age to. So I decided to be dorky and stage cousin twinkie pictures.
Even though I looked numerous times in the van, I did not look in the little pocket at the bottom of the passenger door until just now when I helped my mom out. And lo and behold.... I hope they enjoyed their 10-day vacation. I am once again feeling very loved by the Father. :)
What better to do with free days, a little boy, and a camera with some bells and whistles? Take pictures! Digital cameras are great because they give you lots of chances to get that perfect picture. Yesterday I wanted to get a picture for H's calendar, and I wanted it to be something he can do that's a little new... so sitting in the Bumbo seat it was. He's not exactly a pro at it, so taking that good picture took a little work... Here's the one I ended up liking the most: Cute, right? But I almost like seeing the outtakes better...
As my husband, brothers, parents, and any former roommate will attest, I am really talented at losing keys. We're talking virtuoso here. Give me a set of keys and stick me in a padded cell with no furniture or corners, and I guarantee I will somehow lose them. I can't explain it, other than maybe keys and I are allergic to each other, or we magnetically repel each other, or it's the warning sign that little wormholes in the universe are opening around me pretty often. After Dirk and I had been married a little while, he remarked, "You told me that you lose your keys a lot. I had no idea that meant every day." Yep, I'm that girl. Don't believe me? Here are some of the more interesting times...
2005. Driving from one job to another, I stopped at a few stores to kill some time. I looked at shoes in TJMaxx, browsed around Old Navy, and hit a shoe store. I went back to the car and went to get the keys and... nothing. After about 15 frantic minutes of talking to store clerks and retracing my steps I found them, inside a shoebox in a big stack. I had set them down when I tried the shoes on. 2004. Living in Uganda. I got home from an excursion to the carpenter to find out my keys were missing. Again, I had to retrace my steps, but this time I had to call my friend with a Land Rover to drive me the 3 miles to the carpenter's, who hadn't seen them. I felt all defeated, and as I was getting back into the vehicle looked down and there they were. On the ground next to the car. I guess we parked in the same place. 2012. Hendrik, Dirk's mom, and I were traveling to visit her family in Michigan. Mary drove, and when we got back to our house I could not for the life of me find the keys. I used a spare to get in, and she headed home. I dumped out my purse, nothing. Checked all our pockets, nothing. Finally when I was getting ready to call the sub sandwich place in Michigan, Mary called and told me she had found them in her purse! 2010. This time was really a doozy. My school keys went AWOL for a month. It was Christmas break when I lost them, so I didn't even know they were gone for a week. I looked everywhere, turned the apartment upside down, and suspected students of stealing them. When school started up I had to ask the janitor to let me into the classroom every day. After a couple of weeks I finally decided on the way home from work that the next day I would confess to the principal and pay whatever fine I needed to. As I stepped out of the car and passed our front lawn, I saw my keys just laying there in the grass. Turns out the day I dropped them it snowed, and we hadn't seen the ground in a month. But there they were, not even rusted. For a while there it was happening so often I figured God was trying to get my attention. And he did, because each time when I realized they were gone and that familiar helpless dread settled in my stomach, I would pray. And sooner or later the keys showed up (or came back, if you subscribe to the wormhole theory). So the only conclusion I could make was that God allowed me to lose my keys to show me that he loves me. Something so small in the grand scheme, but he would even listen to my little prayers about lost keys. He has answered those prayers over and over and let me experience the relief and euphoria of actually finding them. You've probably guessed why keys are on my mind. Yep, I am looking for my keys. It's like a classic mystery story-- I used my keys to drive home and get in the house on Thursday, and then they disappeared. No footprints in the snow, no other clues. We have looked everywhere in the house, and I'm about to empty each room out one by one to continue the search. What I hate the most is the feeling that I'm going crazy. I'm hoping and praying that we find them, and maybe this time there will be some evidence that God really does use wormholes to disappear my keys and get my attention. Here I am, Lord! I'm listening! :)
What made the difference? The grace of God and medicine. For weeks we had been trying stuff to help with congestion... humidifier, elevated sleeping, saline drops & bulb syringe, etc, and the cough just persisted. This weekend we went to Dirk's parents' house, and Grandma noticed that the cough was in his chest and that he was wheezy to boot, and Grandpa prescribed some albuterol and an antibiotic. After he took the medicine around lunchtime yesterday he conked out for a 2-hour nap. It is so nice to hear him breathing without that awful wheeze! Last night he went right to sleep in the bouncy chair and stayed asleep for hours and hours. I hope the medicine knocks out the rest of whatever bug he has.
Other notes: we weighed him yesterday, and he's at 17 lbs! Wow, Hendrik! I think a good part of that new weight went to his cheeks and multiple chins. You can also see his belly in the photo. And one thing I'd like to do this summer is shift H's schedule earlier... it has just worked beautifully for us to have him sleep when we do and then a good part of the morning at daycare. We'll see how it goes. So happy to be done with school and have nine weeks home with him! |