Posted on 12/21/2006 7:29:07 AM PST by varina davis
YOu asked for it!!!LOL
2 cups instant masa
1 taspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups lukewarm water or broth
2/3 cup lard or shortening
Combine instant masaa, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Work in water or broth to make a soft, moist dough. In another bowl beat lard or shortening until fluffly. Add to masa and beat until it has a spongy texture. Continue to beat dough until a small piece placed in a cup of water floats.
Place about a tablespoon full on a corn husk (soak corn husks for 2 hours in warm water to soften) and spread it out. Place filling on dough and using the husk mold the masa dough around filling. Fold sides of husk over dough and pointed end underneath away from seam.
Stack in a steamer pot and steam for 1 to 1- 1/2 hours.
I always double the masa dough recipe. They are time consuming to make, so I figure I might as well make a lot of them at once. After I steam them I let them cool and then freeze in zip lock bags.
A friend showed me the greatest White Elephant gift ever. It was a book he found it at the Dollar Store
Rev. Ted Haggard "From This Day Forward: Making Your Vows Last a Lifetime"
Germany:
Since Holy Eve is the night we present gifts and family assembles, dinner is quite easy. According to a poll, most people eat bratwurst with potatoe salad (no joke!), but it depends from family to family. We start with a soup of "stone mushrooms", then an avocado salad, followed by a cheese/salmon plate with baguettes. All of it must be easy to prepare, since we´re going to the cemeteries first, and then to church.
The real Christmas dinner takes place on the 25th, with a goose, red cabbage, dumplings, Brussels sprouts, variations of potatoes (not fries!!). Side dishes vary from family to family, also the desserts. Most often, it´s ice cream "bomb", or fruit pudding, sometimes also a dessert cake.
No matter whether you celebrate the birth of our Saviour in a banana hut in Ghana, in your manson in Wisconsin, a cold appartment in St. Petersburg or in a stable in Israel - the message is what counts!
Y´all have a truly merry Christmas, and a good 2007!
Michael
A glass of Vintage Port will be poured, a few slices of Stilton and cracked walnuts on a plate next to it. I will put my arm around my wife and bask in the joy all that we have to be thankful for.
We are unashamed fruit cake eaters. The thing has been sitting in brandy soaked cheese cloth since the day after Thanksgiving.
Of course, we'll have a ham with who knows what before we eat that.
Thank you Gabz. Do you have a recipe for the filling?
"My wife never fails to fix a green bean casserole..."
Oh dear, nothing can deter her? What a shame. :(
If you want my marinade recipe, I'll be happy to share it. As a matter of fact here it is:
This is for a 3-5 pound leg of lamb.
Mix together the following until well blended:
1/2-3/4 cup olive oil
1/4-1/2 cup Lea & Perrins Worc. sauce
juice of 1-2 fresh lemons
2 cloves of finely diced garlic
oregano, salt, pepper - as much as you want
Cut slits in the lamb.
Pour marinade over the lamb and then rub it on really good.
Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.
Just before cooking in 325 oven, pour marinade juices from pan over lamb.
Cook uncovered for approximately 1 1/2 hours, depending on how rare or well done you like it.
That's a lovely Christmas story.
We're changing the "seafood Christmas Eve" tradition to Christmas Day. Since it's just my husband, my father, and me, I'm doing a favorite of all of ours - the Silver Palate's seafood lasagne, with scallops, shrimp and lobster in the sauce, and crab in the cheese filling. It will just bubble away in the oven while we open presents. :)
A few years back I was exchanging e-mails with a talk show host on Phoenix's KFYI. Jewish tradition, he said (at least his), was to have Chinese food on Christmas. Since we can never find a Chinese restaurant open on Christmas Day around here, we may need to resort to Christmas Eve. Have thought of doing the tamales, but don't know how ambitious I am after trying twice this year. First time, we ate the roast beef for lunch. Second time, I made the filling then realized the masa was missing for the dough.
For Thanksgiving, I made a duck with orange sauce-all dark meat, and so tender you could cut the meat off the bird with a spoon!
For Christmas this year, I'm doing something other than the game hens : I'm going to cook a goose. Never did a goose before, but I have high hopes that it'll be as good as the duck. The goose will be stuffed with a raisin/nut bread stuffing.
For Easter, I think I'll forgo the usual and dull ham and buy a turducken (precooked with seafood stuffing).
Have had the "7 Fishes" Christmas Eve dinner for 30 years. But due to taste changes, reduced it to crab legs, crab cakes, shrimp scampi and fried shrimp. All with the usual trimmings of course.
While my kids were growing up, they always got a "Christmas-themed" stuffed animal of sorts - now they have passed that same tradition on to my grand kids.
To all Freepers - Have a Happy, Safe and Joyful Christmas. God Bless
Antipasta Garlic Bread, Ravioli, Egg Plant Parmgiana, Lefsa and Coconut Cream Pie. A well balanced Italian, Swedish, American menu. Uffdah!
Christmas: Standing rib roast (prime rib), yorkshire pudding, kugel, peas with sweet onion.
No presents this year, it's just the Mrs. and me this Christmas. All the kids are miles and miles away.
Merry Christmas everyone!
FMCDH(BITS)
The rib roast is our New Year's tradition.
************
That sounds lovely. A Merry Christmas to you and your family!
We have spent this week opening 1 present per night (my hubbie and I).....his elderly parents always buy a lot of "stuff" and this year we got them early, so decided to do this. It actually is better to spend more time appreciating the gifts this way. Plus re-gifting is easier...LOL. (Sorry, but sometimes, like this year, they give exactly what they gave last year! and we don't have the heart to tell them.)
Oh, and we'll have Crabcakes for Christmas Eve dinner....Christmas Day? Don't know yet.
Christmas Eve
We go out to eat at Red Lobster, this has been the tradition for many years. It started when we went to a church that had 2 Christmas Eve services and we had to attend both to sing in the choir or our son had to acolyte. We would go to RL between services. We still do it even though we now attend a church that only has one service.
Christmas Day
I cook
Standing rib roast w/ horseradish sauce
Roast potatoes
Yorkshire pudding
Brussel sprouts
7 layer salad
Plum pudding
Christmas cake a frosted and decorated fruitcake with
marzipan
Assorted cookies and candies
and Crackers/Snappers (those English decorated tubes that
make a loud snap sound when pulled and have a
funny hat and a not very funny joke and a prize
inside)
We wear the hats while we eat dessert and everyone
reads their joke out loud.
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