Lazy Tamales

Waste not want not. You will probably hear me say this a lot in this blog. I hate waste. Makes me feel as though I am just throwing away hard earned money. We had tons of corn tortillas left over from a taco night in the end of June! I kept them in the fridge so they were still good but I figured I had better use them. I had heard about people running them through a food processor and using as a topping for a tamale pie...I thought why couldn't I do that but add some liquid and make it a paste and just do a tamale?! So this recipe was born....My dad liked it so much he asked me for the recipe 3xs before we were finished eating yesterday.

Lazy Tamales

Left over corn tortillas (we had about 25 or so)
Tapatio (or hot sauce of choice) spice to taste
Ketchup (in case you add to much Tapatio like I did!)
Grilled chicken deboned or meat of choice beef, pork, sweet potato (we just grilled extra from the night before and I seasoned it with a Mexican flare with cumin, chili powder etc) apx. 1 pound.
small bag of frozen mixed vegetables. I used the corn, carrot, and green bean one
chicken stalk or water

1. Boil up your vegetables until soft and strain. Set aside.
2. Tear up the tortillas and pulse in the food processor until sandy. Place in bowl and set aside.
3. Take left over chicken and pulse in the food processor until its just chopped up.
4. Mix the chicken and the vegetables together for the filling.
5. With the processed tortillas add chicken stalk until it begins to get to the consistency of oatmeal cookie dough. squirt in some tapatio/Ketchup to taste.
6. Take a piece of tinfoil and smooth out a blob of your tortilla masa mixture with the back of your spoon into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick.
7. Spoon your filling in the center smooshing/ packing it down. Make sure to leave enough room on the long sides for when you fold them up.
8. Lift the tinfoil and pull the sides up like you are going to put the long ends flat against each other and press the filling closed into a little tube. fold the top down sealing the top all the way tight to the rolled tamale and twist the ends closed.
9. Bake with a water bath underneath at 350 for 30-45 min depending how large you made them. Mine are quite large so they took 45-50min.
10. Let rest 20 or so min so they don't fall apart from being to hot when you open them. But even if they do they are still super.

Here are pics of the process