Tamale Making: Preparing the meat

I have now gathered MOST of the ingredients in two separate trips.  I will make my final trip in the a.m.  I did NOT like needing three trips to gather the ingredients, but at least I learned a lesson.  I had at least gathered all the ingredients to complete step 1:  Cook the tamale meat.

This was time consuming and messy, but not really THAT bad.

Noah helped 

(can I just say that these boys I am raising are going to be SOME kinda CATCH!  Actually my girl won't be a bad prize either.... I'm hatching four little foodies here.  They LOVE to help me in the kitchen!)  So we boiled the meat as instructed.  

Then we shredded it by hand (BLECH!).  

Finally added the seasoning and mixed it all about.

TWEAKS:  Next time I make tamales, I am considering doing the meat in my slow cooker... less oversight required.  But really and truly the boiling part wasn't hard it just took FOREVER.

TIP:  Use a fork to shred the meat.  It is quicker and does a better job of separating the meat into filaments.

It is 1:30 a.m. and I am READY for bed!  More tamale making tomorrow (after a trip to Hartford for the Holy Grail... I mean corn husks and corn masa.)  Good night all!