Are They the Really Thin Pancakes?

I love stupid comedies, especially anything the Will Ferrell in it.  So when Jason came home tonight and I said I was making crepes he immediately started quoting from the scene in the movie where Ricky is forced to say he loves crepes or his arm will be broken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDqXbk_ThH0

I've never made crepes before but I remember eating one years ago in France and it was amazing.  I figured I would give them a try tonight since I could make them work for both dinner and dessert.  I started with a crepe recipe from Rachael Ray but I cut it in half so as to avoid having too many leftovers.

1/2 cup flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/8 cup brandy (you can add more milk if you don't want the brandy)
Mix this all up in a blender and let sit for at least 25 minutes before cooking the crepes.

Well the batter was relaxing I poached a couple of chicken breasts.  I used some chili lime ones from Festival as that's what I had on hand but any flavor would work.  When they were cooked through I took them off the heat and shredded them.

Once this was done I started on the cheese sauce. 

3 Tbs butter

3 Tbs flour

2 cups milk

lots of cheese (about 2 cups)

1 Tbs of smoked paprika

I melted the butter in a sauce pan and whisked in the flour.  Let this cook for a minute or two to get rid of the flour taste.  Whisk in the milk and cook over medium high heat until the mixture thickens.  Add the cheese and paprika and continue whisking until it's all incorporated.  Keep warm over very low heat while you make the crepes.

For the crepes I spread a little melted butter in a frying pan on medium heat and added about 1/3 cup of batter to the pan.  Very quickly tilt the pan so the batter evenly covers the bottom and let cook for about a minute, until it's very lightly browned.  Using a spatula flip the crepe so it can cook on the other side. 

Stack the crepes on a plate and cover with a towel to keep them warm.  Continue until all the crepe batter is gone.

Once the crepes are all cooked it was time to fill them.  I put one crepe back into the pan, now on low heat, and added a little cheese sauce on one half.  I topped that with some chicken and additional shredded cheese and folded the other half on top.  I let that cook for a minute and flipped it so the cheese melted on both sides.

When the cheese was melted I flipped it out of the pan and added some additional cheese sauce on top.  And there you have it; yummy cheesy crepesidillas.  We were both too full from dinner to make any dessert crepes.  Maybe I'll save that for a different day.

Making Whoopie

I've never eaten a Whoopie Pie but it's something that I have always wanted to try.  What could be wrong about not one, but two light cake-like cookies with a creamy frosting sandwiched in the middle?  Although I was looking forward to being completely lazy today I couldn't keep myself out of the kitchen so I decided today was as good a day as any for making my first whoopie pies.

On the site allrecipes.com I found a recipe for pumpkin whoopie pies and since I happened to have some pumpkin on hand and my favorite cookies are my mom's pumpkin chocolate chip I figured I would give them a try.  I got my ingredients together and started mixing.

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups solid pack pumpkin puree ( used one whole can of pumpkin, it's a little more than called for but this way I wasn't wasting any and the cookies had a little more pumpkin flavor)

2 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon ground ginger

1/2 tablespoon ground cloves

I preheated the oven to 350 and started by mixing the oil and sugar and then added the pumpkin and flour, once that was well incorporated I added the rest of the ingredients and mixed some more.

The recipe called for dropping a few teaspoons of batter onto a cookie sheet but I used a scoop instead to get more uniform cookies.  I also lined my cookie sheets with parchment instead of greasing the sheets.  I used the large Pampered Chef scoop but next time I think I'd use the medium one as the cookies turned out a bit large. 

I popped them in the oven and about 10-12 minutes later they were done (when they spring back if you touch them on top).  I placed them on racks to cool off for a bit.  They turned out really nice and light but next time I would flatten out the batter a bit before baking because they were pretty round on top and not quite as flat as a whoopie pie should be.

Once the cookies had cooled I started on the frosting.  I wasn't really excited about the frosting in the recipe so I decided to make something else.  I was thinking about doing a basic cream cheese frosting but I wanted something a little lighter (in texture not necessarily in calories) so I decided to mix in some marshmallow.  I didn't have any marshmallow fluff on hand so I started with some regular marshmallows.

1/2 bag marshmallows (or 1 jar of marshmallow fluff)

8oz cream cheese, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

I started by melting the marshmallows in the microwave (about a minute).  Then I mixed in the cream cheese and added the sugar and vanilla.  I mixed until all the sugar was incorporated.  You could probably add more sugar to make the frosting a little thicker as mine was still a little thin. 

Once the frosting was done I added couple tablespoons to the flat side of a cookie and sandwiched another cookie on top.

Show Mommy How the Piggies Eat

I have always LOVED the movie A Christmas Story.  I watch it every year at Christmas time (usually multiple times) and sometimes even throughout the year.  It is one of my favorite all-time movies.  I remember one time when I was in high school and my sister was home from college we sat down to watch the movie together.  When it got to the part where Randy wouldn't eat and utters the "meatloaf, smeetloaf, double beetloaf I hate meatloaf" line and the mom tells him to show her how the piggies eat we started laughing uncontrollably.  We had both seen the movie many times but there was just something in that moment that struck us as hysterically funny.  I still laugh pretty hard at that part every time I watch the movie to this day and I will always remember watching it with my sister that day at my parent's house. 

I was a pretty picky eater growing up and there were many things I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole but oddly enough meatloaf, something many people despise, wasn't one of them.  It is, however, one of those dishes that I would only really enjoy if my mom made it and never would have ordered it in a restaurant.  I also recently saw a Rachael Ray episode where she added beer to her ground beef while making burgers and I decided that if it works in burgers it would work in meatloaf too. 

We recently purchased half a cow and split it with Jason's brother so ground beef is plentiful in our house and I have been trying to come up with new ways to use it.  Tonight was an experiment in combining some of Wisconsin's greatest things; beef, cheese and Miller Lite.  I started with two pounds of ground beef and added about half a cup of beer, some worcestershire sauce, about a cup of bread crumbs, a little chopped onion, some roasted garlic and some various other seasonings.  I mixed that all up and put half on a piece of parchment paper in a cake pan.  I learned this trick a while ago from my friends on the Food Network that if you bake the meatloaf on a cake pan all the grease comes out in the pan and the meatloaf doesn't get greasy.  Once I had half the ground beef mixture down I layered on some swiss cheese and sliced mushrooms and then topped it all off with the remaining ground beef.  I made sure all my edges were sealed up and topped the meatloaf with a mixture of beer, ketchup and balsamic vinegar and popped it in the over at 350 for about an hour.

While that was baking I started my drunken potatoes and gravy.  I quartered some baby reds and smashed and peeled some garlic and threw it in a pot with the rest of the can of beer and some water.

While the potatoes and garlic hung out on the hot tub I got started on the gravy.  I sliced up the rest of the mushrooms from the carton that I used for the meatloaf.  It's funny to me that I now love mushrooms because they were a food that as a child I would not go near.

I melted some butter in a sauce pan and added the mushrooms and a little flour to thicken it up a bit.  Once the mushrooms started to cook down a little it was Miller Time.  I added a little beer to the pan and let the sauce thicken up a bit.

 My sauce got a little thick so I added some beef stock to thin it out and then threw in a wedge of french onion laughing cow cheese to add some creaminess and a little flavor.  Once the gravy was all together and simmering away my potatoes were ready to be smashed.  I pulled out one of my very favorite tools for this job, my Pampered Chef Mix n Chop.

This thing is amazing!  I use it all the time for ground beef and turkey and I love it for potatoes too (I like my potatoes lumpy).  I smashed up the potatoes and garlic and added some butter, cream, some more Laughing Cow french onion cheese, a splash of beer and some seasonings.

By the time I had the potatoes all complete m gravy had simmered down a bit and the meatloaf was ready too.  I pulled the meatloaf out of the oven and slid the sheet of parchment paper it was baked on onto a cutting board.  I have recently started to use a digital thermometer, which I love, so I can really know when food is done and I don't have to cut into it and hope for the best anymore.  The meatloaf was perfectly done and the mushrooms were cooked well in the middle and the cheese melted beautifully.

Everything turned out great!  The meatloaf had good flavor and the cheese was a nice gooey addition to the center and the potatoes were nice and creamy and the gravy had a hint of beer flavor that somehow balanced nice with the earthiness of the mushrooms.  This dinner brought a whole new meaning to cooking with beer, which up until now in our house is when Jason grilled out with a beer in one hand.  It was a good experiment and one which I will continue to do in the future.

Whisked Away

Cooking has always been a release for me, a stress reliever and a source of pride.  There are very few things that I won't try to cook (anything with ham being one of the few).  I love trying new recipes and creating new dishes with what I have on hand.  Jason often says that we never have the same thing twice because I very rarely measure things and just throw in a little of this and a little of that until I feel the dish is complete.  One of my other loves (besides my husband) is travel.  I love seeing new places and trying new foods when traveling.  When I'm at home in the kitchen I like to not only create dishes from not only places that I have been but also place I would like to go and besides indian food I don't think there is a cuisine that I haven't tried at ome point in time.  Tonight's dinner was inspired by Germany with a little bit of Polish sausage thrown in for good measure. 

I can't remember the first time I had spaetzel but I have loved it from the beginning.  I have bought packages of it at the grocery store before and put it in different dishes at home and Jason was always less than enthused with it so I have been determined for a while to try to make my own and show him how good it could really be.  I found a recipe on foodnetwork.com for a roasted red pepper spaetzle with a mustard cream sauce so I though I would give that a try. 

I usually have a jar of roasted peppers on hand but after tearing apart the pantry I realized I was out so I had to make my own.  I set the burner to a medium heat an placed my peppers on the burner until they were slightly black on all sides. 

Once they were blackened I put them in a bowl and covered them in plastic wrap so they skin would sweat off.  I let them sit for a while and then peeled the skin off and took out the stems and seeds and put them in the food processor.  I added some Laughing Cow cheese (I love this stuff!!) and a little chicken broth and blended it up.  When it was blended I added water, flour, eggs, parsley and salt and mixed it up.

While I was mixing the dough, I had sliced up some polish sausage and was frying that on the stove.  I also had a pot of water coming to a boil so I could cook the spaetzel.  This is about the extent of the multitasking I can handle at one time.

Once my water was boiling it was time to give the spaetzel a bath.  I place about a cup of the dough into a large holed colander and used a spatula to push it through the holes and into the boiling water.  This part was a bit labor intensive and in the future I think I will be purchasing the spaetzel maker we have at work to make my life a bit easier. 

After they took a little bath and floated up to the top I let them drain and started the process all over again until all the dough had been turned into spaetzel and was cooked.

While that was draining I started on the sauce.  I melted a little butter and added some shallots and cooked until they were soft and then deglazed the pan with a little white wine.  Then I added some cream and horseradish mustard and cooked until it thickened a bit.  Once it was thick I added a little shredded parmesean cheese and added the spaetzel and sausage to the pan.  The sauce wasn't really enough to coat everything and got a little too think so I threw in some more cream and a little chicken stock to loosen it up a bit. 

Overall this dinner was pretty successful and the spaetzel was very yummy.  I would try a different sauce in the future but Jason liked it enough to try it again so it just goes to show that homemade beats store bought every time, well at least in this house it does.

It's a Bee-utiful thing

I have had the idea in my head for a few weeks to make bumble bee cake pops.  Not sure where this idea came from but they look super cute in my head so I figured to give it a shot.  I decided to start with a lemon cake for the center because I had a lemon mix on hand and because bees are yellow.  I added the amount of oil called for on the box along with four eggs, a cup of sour cream, and a juice of a lemon mixed with enough milk to equal the amount of water called for on the box.  I also zested the lemon to add some additional flavor.  I couldn't wait to try it and see how my creation turned out.  I had to sneak a bite when it came out of the oven and it was delish.  Somehow my combination of ingredients ended up tasting like delicious lemony fruit loops.

Once the cake cools I crumble it up and add frosting.  I did cheat here and used canned frosting (about half to three quarters of the container).  Then I mixed it up until it forms a thick paste-like consistency.  This is the fun part where you get to use your hands and play with your food like your mom always told you not to do growing up.

Once it's all mixed up I shaped it into balls and tapered one end a little bit since a bee isn't perfectly round.  I put these cake balls onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet and put them in the fridge to cool down for a couple hours.

Once my little bees had a chance to cool off, I melted some yellow candy melts over low heat in the microwave and pulled a few bees out of the fridge for their candy coating bath.  It's best to only pull out a few cake bites at a time so they don't get too warm.  Once my candy was melted I started dipping.  The first step is to dip a little of the stick in the candy and then placing the stick about halfway into the cake bite.

Then it's time to dunk the cake pop into the candy and make sure the entire thing gets a nice even coating on it.

Sometimes I have to take a spoon to get the whole thing coated if the dish isn't deep enough.  Once it's covered I lightly tap it on the edge of the bowl while turning the stick to make sure the coating is even and to get rid of any bubbles or  weird shapes in the candy coating.  Once it's covered evenly I place the cake pops into a piece of foam  so they can dry upright.  While the coating is still wet (it dries pretty quickly) I added a flattened black gumdrop to the front for the bee's face.

Once all the bees are coated and dried it was time to add the black stripes.  I initially thought I could just draw the stripes on with my black food coloring marker but that didn't work so well as the marker was too thin and it would have taken me days.  Because my initial idea failed, I decided to melt some black candy melts and put them in a squeeze bottle so I could add stripes that way.

I have to admit that the stripes were more difficult than I thought they would be and for some reason my hand wouldn't stop shaking so the bees have pretty wavy stripes but oh well.  After all the stripes were done it was time for these bees to get their wings.  I melted some white candy and put that in another squeeze bottle and made some little heart shaped wings on some waxed paper.

When the wings dried I "glued them on with a little more candy melt and then added some eyes to the bees.  They didn't turn out quite as perfect as I had envisioned but they are still pretty cute.  At least I think so.



Forgive Me Betty Crocker For I Have Sinned

I have a confession to make. . .


I am a cheater.  I have been making cakes for years but I have cheated on them all.  I have always taken the easy way out and made my cakes from a boxed mix.  It just seemed so much easier and saved me a lot of time, so I thought.  I'm not sure why I never made my own cakes because I take great pride in making things from scratch.  I like following long recipes with all kinds of crazy directions and take hours to complete.  For some reason the buck stopped with cake.  I have always made my own frosting as I think that's the part that really counts.  And I put a lot of effort into the decorating but I always felt it was like the final product fell short.

I recently made a cake for my niece's birthday and followed a Paula Deen recipe (with a little twist) and made a purple velvet cake.  It was delicious and since then I have changed my mind on the boxed cake mixes.  I will be making my cakes from scratch in the future.  There is only one problem with this, I have quite a large stock of mixes already in my pantry.  So I decided to use up what I have on hand but doctor them up so they are much more flavorful than the boring mix straight from the box.  I'm taking baby steps to wean myself off the box and back into the pantry to make cakes that I can really be proud to call my own. 

Sugar, ah Honey Honey

I have very mixed feelings about spring.  Don't get me wrong, I love that winter is finally leaving (hopefully), but I hate the early stages of spring.  You know, when everything is a drab shade of brown and you can see all the garbage that the snow has been so cleverly hiding all winter.  I do however love the later stages of spring when all the trees are starting to bud and the world turns from brown to green. 

My mixed feelings about spring are mirrored in my feelings about maple syrup.  A few years ago Jason and his dad and brother started to make their own maple syrup.  I hate it!  To clarify, I hate the process but I love the end result.  Just as the weather starts to change they head out to the woods and tap the maple trees and to start collecting the sap.  Then they head back into the woods daily to empy the buckets of sap.  Once the sap is collected they spend entire weekends boiling it down into syrup.  This is the part that I hate.  I really have no reason to complain as I don't really do any of the work, I just reap the benefits.  I hate that the process is always much longer than they think it will be and it takes Jason away from home for an entire weekend.  I'm also not a fan of the various empty glass bottles that accumulate around the house every year that Jason insists on keeping because they would be great for syrup.  I know I shouldn't complain and that there are much worse things they could be doing with their time but I just can't help myself.  As much as I hate the process I love the suppy of syrup that we end up with to get us through the year. 

Because they split the syrup between the three guys, we always end up with more than the two of us can ever go through in a year.  After giving some away to my family and our friends we are still left with way more than we could ever use.  As I usually do when faced with an abundance of something I decided to figure out some ways to integrate maple syrup into something more than a topper for waffles and pancakes.  For a brief moment I comtemplated just chugging it like in the movie Elf but then I figured that only elfs or people that play them in the movies could get away with that.  So I decided to get creative and find some uses for syrup that go beyond the breakfast table.

When I asked Jason what he wanted for a dessert yesterday he said pie.  He didn't care what type, just pie.  I'm very lucky that he's not picky so I can pretty much make what I want and he will always be willing to try it at least once.  I thought about the usual pies, pumpkin, berry or apple but then on my way to wok it dawned on me that I could probably find a recipe for some type of pie that used maple syrup.  Thanks to my trusty iphone and its wonderful epicurious app I was able to find a maple pie recipe in no time.  I even bought some new treats at work to make my pie fancier; a maple leaf cookie cutter to make a decorative crust and a nifty little gadget called a first pie slice.  This thing is great, it gets set in the pie plan and you put the crust over the top and bake the pie with this metal slice underneath.

I made an old standby crust recipe from my favorite Betty Crocker cookbook and rolled out enough for the pie pan and a bit extra so I could cut some maple leaves for the crust. (I forgot to take pictures of this one until the pie was already done).  Then I put my first pie slice in place and added the crust to the pan. 

The filling was super easy and only took a couple minutes to put together.  I whisked 2 room temp eggs with 1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar (if only I would have had maple sugar it would have been even better) once that was mixed together I added 1/2 cup of cream, 1/3 cup of maple syrup and 2 teaspoons of melted butter.  This is where the recipe I found stopped, but I decided to amp it up a bit and I added some chopped macademia nuts to add a little contrast in texture and to cut the sweetness a bit.  Once the nuts were incorporated in the filling I added it to the crust. I brushed the crust with egg whites and added some of my cut out maple leaves to the edge and brushed some more egg white on top so it would get nice and golden in the oven.

I baked the pie at 350 for about 50 minutes (until the top had formed a crust but there was still a little jiggle in the middle).  Then the pie needs to cool so it sets up in the middle and you don't end up with a soupy mess when you try to cut into it.

Waiting is the hardest part. . .

While we waited for the pie to cool we made dinner.  We stuffed the last of Jason's trout he caught in Canada and baked it.  Normally we grill trout but we decided to try something different this time.  In the future we'll go back to grilling, it was still good but not the same as it usually is.  I could just live on fish and starch so I would have been fine with just some bread to go with it but Jason likes a vegetable with his meals so I decided to bring the syrup into dinner too and glaze some baby carrots with it.  Yum!!

Once we polished off the carrots and all the trout we could stomach (and after a little digesting time) it was time for pie.  I cut along the sides of my first pie slice and pulled it out.  This allowed the slice to come out perfectly intact, not a broken mess like normally happens when trying to remove the first slice of pie.  I topped the pie with a little whipped cream (the recipe called for creme fraiche but I have yet to find that in Green Bay) and we dug in.  I am not normally a sweet eater but I have to say this pie was excellent.  Light flaky crust and a melt in your mouth filling with just the right combination of salty and sweet.  I don't often make the same thing twice but I have a feeling with all the syrup that my Honey made this year I will be repeating this recipe in the future.

No Thanks, I'm Stuffed

My name is Betsy and I am a foodie.  I love food and everything about it.  I love shopping for it, I love reading about it, I love creating with it, I love watching shows about it and most of all I love eating it.  I love to cook and I love being creative but sometimes I cheat and I steal my ideas from somewhere else.  Last year I was watching one of my favorite shows, Man vs. Food and I saw the episode from the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  One of the first things they showed were dueling bars that both claimed to have the original and the best Juicy Lucy.  What is a Juicy Lucy you ask, it is an amazing creation that takes the cheese from on top of a hamburger and stuffs it inside so when you bite into the burger all of the ooey gooey cheesy goodness is baked right there inside.  Sounds delicious right? 

I have tried to master this technique at home before but the burger always managed to break open and the cheese oozed out on the grill and just ended up in a big ol mess.  It was far from the  amazing creation that I had watched Adam Richman enjoy on MvF. 

Today I decided to try again and this time I was determined to get it right.  I had also decided that I was going to amp up my fillings to make these burgers even more decadent.  I started with two pounds from the abundance of ground beef that is in our freezer (we bought 1/4 of a cow this winter and have more meat in our freexer than we know what to do with, but that is a story for a different day).  We always make our own burgers at home and stay away from the pre-formed patties you can buy at the store.  I started as I normally do by adding a little worcestershire sauce and about a quarter cup of ranch dressing (this is my secret to super yummy and juicy burgers), I also threw in some random seasoning and mixed up the meat.  Then I formed eight patties by pressing the meat into a round cookie cutter to get evenly shaped burgers.

Once I had my burger shaped it was time to stuff them.  Jason loves swiss cheese any time but his favorite is when it's on burgers.  I normally don't like swiss cheese (it's a little too strong for me) but for some reason when it's on a burger I like it.  Maybe it's a little like the movie Runaway Bride where the way she likes her eggs changes with each guy.  But I only like my eggs scrambled and always have so then again maybe not.  Because of Jason's love of swiss, I decided to make two of the burgers stuffed with swiss cheese and mushrooms.

Then I decided to make the other two burgers for me.  I stuffed those with roasted garlic, feta and some Laughing Cow french onion cheese (don't worry I had a mint after eating this).

Once I had my fillings done it was time for the hard part, putting the tops on the burgers and sealing them up so none of the goodness tried to break out of the middle while they were on the grill.

After quite a while I had all the burgers sealed up and ready for the grill and I was fairly confident that I had mastered the Juicy Lucy and there would be no cheesy goodness leaking out this time.

Once I had the burgers ready it was time for some camp potatoes.  There is nothing original about camp potatoes, I'm sure veryone has had them and many have made their own at home.  Original or not, I love these things.  Thinly sliced baby red potatoes with onions, oil or butter and some seasoning all wrapped up in a tin foil blanket and grilled until the bottom layer gets a nice crisp to it.  We probably eat these potatoes one out of every two times we grill out and we grill out a lot.

This is about the time that I turned over our meal to Jason and let him work his magic on the grill.  I hate to stereotype but in this house the wife is in the kitchen and the husband is on the grill.  I can cook pretty much anything but I'm not very good with a grill so I put our dinner in the very capable hands of my husband.  Between my mad burger pressing skills and Jason's talent with the charcoal, our Juicy Lucys turned out perfect!  The only problem was that I forgot to mark them so I had no idea which burger was which flavor once they were all cooked. 

These burgers were amazing!  A perfect start to our grilling season.  And after eating one of these Juicy Lucys I can honestly say that I, like the burger, am stuffed.

Love at First Bite

When Jason and I go out to eat I always try to order something diffferent than him.  When we get our food I always offer him a bite of mine, I do this partly because sharing is nice to do but more because I hope that he will then offer to let me try his food without having to ask for it.  This happened a few years ago when we were at a mexican restaurant and he let me try his tamales.  I have always loved mexican food but for years had been too scared to try tamales because I had no clue what was in them.  It was love at first bite.  I always knew that Jason liked them because I had often heard the story from his mom how when he was little and they lived in Texas he used to eat tamales all the time.  So I decided like I do with many foods I have eaten in restaurants that I should try to make my own version at home. 

I started as I so often do by letting my fingers do the walking and tried to find a recipe online that I could base my version off of.  After a bit of searching I decided to make up my own filling and follow a recipe for the masa portion of the tamale.

The first step was to soak the corn husks in hot water.  I guess you could make life easier and wrap the tamales in foil but I have a tendancy to not take the easy route when cooking and I wanted them to be more authentic.

Then I started by poaching a few chicken breasts in chicken broth.  I used some of Festival's chipotle flavored ones because that's what I had at home (and because I love them).  I have taken a tip from one of my favs (Rachael Ray) and use chicken broth in place of water in recipes as much as I can because it adds a lot more flavor to the finished product.  Once the chicken is cooked I let them cool a bit and then shredded them up.

While the chicken was cooling, I strained the poaching liquid and added it back into the pan with a chopped onion and a few cloves of minced garlic and let cook until the liquid was reduced.

Then I added the chicken back to the pan along with a can of black beans (drained and rinsed) and I added a small can of chipotles in adobo sauce.  (My end result was super spicy so I would suggest not using the entire can in the future.)  To make the filling more creamy (and to downplay the spicy a bit) I added some cream and about a quarter cup of Philly Cooking Cream.  I just discovered this stuff a couple of weeks ago and I am in love with it!  Then I let the filling cook down a bit over low heat while I made the masa.

Masa is something that I have never worked with before so I wanted to follow a recipe for this part to make sure I didn't screw it up.  I heated three cups of chicken broth with a teaspoon of each, sea salt, garlic powder and cumin until the seasonings dissolved and the broth was warm but not yet boiling.  In a mixing bowl, mix three cups of masa flour with two teaspoons of baking powder on a low speed.  Add the broth to the masa about a cup at a time until a wet dough forms.  In a separate bowl beat one cup of vegetable shortening until light and fluffy.  Add the masa mixture one large spoonful at a time to the shortening until it's all combined.  Continue to mix until a pea sized ball of masa dropped into a cup of cold water floats.  The goal is to get the filling full of air so the final product is light and airy.

Once all the fillings were ready it was time for assembly.  I drained the water from the corn husks and layed them out on the counter.  Then I spread a layer of masa on top, about a half inch thick in the middle of the husk.

Then I spread some of the chicken filling over the masa.

Once the fillings are in place, I rolled them up and continued until I was out of filling.  I ended up with about 15 medium sized tamales.

Then they were ready for their steam bath.  I steamed them for about an hour, until the masa was cooked through.  I served them with some spanish rice and a mixture of salsa and sour cream that I drizzled over the top.  Besides the level of spice being a little higher than desired they turned out very good for my first attempt.