Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (lower sugar)

Ingredients:
1 cup chunky peanut butter (or smooth)
1 cup margarine (or butter)
¾ cup splenda baking sugar (white) (u can also use reg splenda here)
¾ cup splenda brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2 cups oatmeal
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda


PREHEAT oven to 350⁰


Use either a hand or stand mixer.
In a separate bowl mix baking soda, flour, & oatmeal.

Mix peanut butter, margarine, sugars, eggs, vanilla, & salt until well blended (will be a bit fluffy)
Slowly add flour/oatmeal mixture.
Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet
Using a fork, press cookies down slightly (especially if you used regular splenda instead of baking white)
Bake in oven for 7-10 minutes, or until just golden for soft chewy cookies

Old Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits

For those not used to Buttermilk...it can look and smell bad straight out of the carton. It's not...

      

Ingredients:

4 cups Flour

2 2/3 tbsps Baking Powder (or 8 tsps)

½ tsp Baking Soda

1½ tsps Salt

4 tbsps Butter

4 tbsps Shortening (u can use only butter if you must)

2 cups Low Fat Buttermilk, chilled (u can use half & half if u want, but I don't)

Directions         (preheat oven to 450⁰)

1.   In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, & salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixure is crumbly. (the faster the better, you don’t want the fats to melt)

2.   Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

3.   Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times.

4.   Press into a 1-inch thick round.  Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter (or just use a glass) Be sure to push straight down through the dough. (I do a bit less thick than 1")

5.   Place biscuits on a baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working as little as possible and continue cutting.

6.   Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top.  Approx 10-15 minutes.

**Makes about 16 biscuits depending on the size you cut**

RED CHILE SAUCE

This is good to use to make tamale filling.  Or serve with finished tamales.

Ingredients:          ¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tbsps flour
¼ cup california chili powder
1 (15oz) can tomato sauce
1 ½ cups water
¼ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp onion salt
salt to taste

Directions

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Stir in flour and chili powder, reduce heat to medium, and cook until lightly brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning flour.

Gradually stir in tomato sauce, water, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt into the mixture until smooth, and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes, or until thickened slightly.  Season to taste with salt.

This goes well spooned over ready to eat tamales to serve.

PORK TAMALES RJ style

Already unwrapped & served

Masa:                     4 cups Maseca for Tamales

                                4 cups Broth (from pork roast)
                                1 ²/₃ cups Vegetable Shortening
                                2 tbsps Baking Powder
                                1 ½ tsps Sea Salt
                                2 ½ tsps Chili Powder
                                Corn Husks, soaked in hot water

Filling:                    1 Pork Roast (at least 1 ½ lbs)
                                1 lg 28oz can Las Palmas Red Chile Sauce-medium
                                (or you can use my red chili sauce recipe)
                                2 tsps Chili Powder,     ¾ tsp Cayenne Pepper (alter to taste)
                                1 tsp Garlic Powder       1 tsp Onion Powder

Directions for Pork
     Boil pork roast in a large pot, add enough water to cover the roast well. Bring to a boil and then turn down.  Simmer until nice and tender when you can shred with a fork. Remove from water and cool.  Set aside broth for tamale masa.
     Once cooled, shred pork with a fork. Return to pot and add red chile sauce, 2 tsps chili powder, cayenne, garlic & onion powder. (remember, the heat of spice at this point will seem much milder once in the tamale)  Simmer until sauce mixture cooks into pork. Then set aside to cool.

Directions for Masa (I use a stand alone mixer, if you don’t have one mix by hand)
Using triangle cookie dough mixing attachment (the triangle one with three holes)
Mix Maseca for tamales, baking powder, Salt, 2 ½ tsps Chili Powder in a bowl and set aside.  In mixer, mix vegetable shortening until fluffy, slowly add in dry ingredients from the bowl. Slowly add in broth until mixture has consistency of cookie dough.

Using a spatula or tamale spredder.  Take corn husk (should be about 6-8” wide)
spread masa on corn husk in approx 4x4” square. Make sure to leave a ½” space from top of husk to allow for swelling during cooking. Also make sure masa is closer to edge facing you.  In center of masa place about 1” wide by 3” long strip of pork (again amount depends on you) take edge facing you of corn husk and fold over so that masa edges touch. Tuck corn husk in and continue rolling. Fold up bottom of husk. Continue until all masa is used.

I have a tamale steamer.  Add water to steamer pot, place tamales on rack facing open side up so they are stacked side by side.  Bring to a boil & Steam for 1 ½ hours.  Be sure to track water level about every ½ hour or so. After 1 hour I place a cotton towel over top of the pot and put lid over that to absorb the extra moisture during cooking.  This helps the tamales to dry during the last half hour of steaming.

Yields approx 40-50 tamales, depends how much you use per tamale