In the past I made turkey with mole. I was pressed for time so I used a jarred mole that I doctored to taste with some tomato sauce and other seasonings. So no recipe. The time after I made chicken with green chilies and queso fresco. I roasted and peeled Anaheim chilies The chicken was simply a dismantled roasted chicken with some onion inside and cumin and chili powder rubbed on it. This weekend I am making beef with chili Colorado, pork with a verde sauce, and chicken with cheese and green chilies again. I am still figuring out the sauce recipes. The meats I cooked yesterday and the day before. All of the meats were done in the crock pot. The beef was a chuck roast I seasoned with tomato powder, a bit of sherry, some onion and cumin. The pork roast got some wine, onion, cumin and coriander, pepper and bay leaf. The chicken was rubbed with mole inside and out with a bay leaf inside the cavity and a splash of white wine. I am very much a toss it in and taste kind of cook unless I am baking or trying something really out of my comfort zone. I use this recipe for the masa from About.com as I like it to have flavor of its own: Ingredients: 6 cups masa harina and 5 cups chicken broth 2 cups lard or shortening 1 tablespoon onion powder 1 tablespoon cumin 1 tablespoon chile powder 1 1/2 teaspoon salt I add 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Not completely traditional but I like the lighter masa. I also nix the salt so I can send some to the ex. Everyone else can salt at the table if they feel the need. These tend to be flavorful enough without salt. I'll get back here with the sauce recipes for these batches after they are done and if they are successful!

I posted on the "convenience foods" thread that TJs has good tamales. A couple days after I posted that I was at TJs there and they had a 4th kind. Sweet corn tamales - similar to the green chili/cheese ones but with corn kernals. I bought a pack and put them in the freezer. I did not try them myself but the guy that rents the lower half of my duplex thought they were delicious. I need to get some more so I can actually try them. Mine will not look that fancy. I will put one on a plate and heat it. I might shred a little Queso Blanco on the top. Teresa

junkyardgirl, I have a couple of friends that I used to travel with to waterlily symposiums and iris conventions. Just being around them....their enthusiasm...always made me come home inspired. Ang, I used to eat those tamales too. I haven't had any in years....I will have to go out and buy a can and see if I still like them. :)) I don't have any pleasures that I feel guilty about. But, some of the things that I love...Grape Crush soda in glass bottles. I try to limit myself to one a day, but since I buy 3 or 4 six packs at a time and I always have so many of them around, it is hard to drink just one...and usually I have more. I love talk radio. One of the stations in Houston made some changes and have this morning show...Walton and Johnson. I love them. They have been around for years...various places and stations, and are a little controversial for some people's tastes. I am so addicted to them that I turn on their station at 4 a.m. They have a rebroadcast of the previous day then, and then their regular program comes on at 5:30 and runs until 11 and then the hour between 11 and noon is a rebroadcast. I don't even turn up the volume of the tv any more. I just listen to the radio. Finally, someone who thinks the same way I do! Another pleasure is sleeping with two or three of my cats. Always Peaches and Peanut. Sometimes Flicker Girl or Quarter Pounder. I just sleep better with a cat. The last thing I love to do is talk to my possums. My husband always fusses at me when we are doing chores because I have to talk to them all and maybe pick up the little ones and cuddle them. He says it takes me too long to get chores done....but what point is it in having possums if you can't talk to them? :)) Oh...one more. Marbles. I love marbles. I never can find any around here at sales I go to, so I bought two big collections on ebay. I have spent several days going through them and sorting them and every time I look at them, I find new ones I love. I guess that is a silly pasttime for someone 61 years old. (Like I care!)

Not to discourage you but... I made tamales. Once. They are a stinking lot of work. And the end product was that my masa layer was way too thick and the tamales didn't have enough filling...i.e., what I didn't want to happen ended up happening anyway. It is harder to do than it looks like it would be. No doubt that practice makes perfect but tamales are what I would call a labor of love and, though I like them, I don't love them enough to go through that again. Masa--easy to obtain the dried mix....Maseca is supposed to be the best (widely available) brand. I don't have any problems finding masa even here in central Wisconsin. It's in the Hispanic foods section. You will probably be able to find corn husks there, too, or in any Mexican food store. Alternatively, you can use parchment paper to wrap the tamales. Fresh masa is supposed to be lots better but I don't have a source for that. (That's a west coast California thing, I think.) If you're really adventurous, you can find instructions on-line to make your own. Essentially you make hominy and grind the fresh wet hominy. I make a lot of spicy chicken soups and quite often use masa to thicken the soups as well as add a wonderful flavor element. So dried masa is something that I consider to be a staple. You can also use masa to replace part? (maybe all?) of the cornmeal in cornbread/ hush puppies...just recently read about that....I think Lars mentioned it. I have not done that but plan to next time I make some cornbread. (Mentioning this so you will have some ideas on how to use up the remainder of that bag of masa.) I'm almost sure that I used lard...a local butcher shop renders fresh lard so I have a source for it other than the commercial hydrogenated stuff. Otherwise, it is easy enough to render your own from pork fat...either fat trimmings from a butcher shop or you can save excess fat trimmed from pork cuts and render it yourself. If ya' can, enlist some help making the tamales. With good company, it might turn into being a fun project.