Tamales...1st Attempt!

This week my daughter and I tried something we have never tried before. We made tamales.
My husband was born and raised in Arizona so tamales at Christmas have been a tradition for him. His family didn't make them, they were always purchased from a talented woman who owned the local, very popular Mexican restaurant.
After our marriage, we took on the tamale buying tradition. Each year  vows were made that next year we would make our own. 
Christmases came and went...we never made tamales.
When my daughter came home from college for this year's holidays, she assured me that we could make our own Christmas tamales. 
I found a recipe in a cook book, but it didn't give enough detail, so I headed to the land of online recipes. The capital of this land has to be Allrecipes.com. 
Finding a recipe that looked good and provided the needed detail was easy. I just typed in tamale recipe and it came up. The recipe title is simply, Beef Tamales. It is, however, an authentic, time consuming recipe, and I am a "gringa" from Wisconsin, so I was a bit overwhelmed. After all, this isn't brats and sauerkraut. 
After reading the reviews, (which were all raves) I discovered that a would-be tamale maker (probably another gringa) had found a less complex way to make the meat for the tamales, in a crockpot.  The recipe title is Charley's Slow Cooker Mexican Style Meat (allrecipes.com). 
The meat was prepared and slow cooked the afternoon before and placed in the refrigerator for the tamale construction the next day.
I woke bright and early and soaked 3 bags of corn husks (suggested by recipe) in a plastic tote in the bathtub for 3 hours.
Once the husks were pliable, the construction began.

As you can see from the photo, an afternoon of tamale construction requires liquid fortification in the form of beer (a nod to my roots). 
We built 68 beef tamales. The first 20 or so taught us how to spread the masa, then add meat, and then roll and tie. 
My Nesco roaster makes a great steamer. It holds about 30 at a time.

After steaming for about an hour, the tamale testers at my house (husband and son) proclaimed them delicious!
The pile of tamales in the fridge has been depleted by about 1/2 in the last 2 days, so they must be at least eatable.
This will definitely become a family tradition for us at Christmas. The tamales were not difficult...just labor and time intensive. 
Next year, we will only use 2 bags of husks, as we had a lot left over. I am also going to try the meat recipe with pork or chicken.
Not bad, if I do say so myself...especially for a gringa from Wisconsin. I plan to grab a cold beer and a warm tamale later today. Merry Christmas!