Cranberry-apple upside-down cake

Fruity upside-down cakes are probably my favorite kind of cake to make...

This one, I did with a mix of cranberries, grated apple, cinnamon, and some ground hazelnuts, with some brown sugar (doesn't need much, with the nice fruit, and I like to leave it a bit tart) and some oil as the bottom fruity mix, and the usual egg-mixture cake batter, beating the whites separately with some salt and the sugar, the yolks with a spoon of oil and some citrus zest, and folding those together,then folding in the small quantity of flour with the baking powder.

This time, I was just missing having some fresh whipped cream on top as a perfect dessert...

The apple-cranberry bottom:

Eggs all whipped up and ready for folding:

Folding egg yolk mix into egg-white mix:

Then folding in the flour mix in 3 parts until all incorporated like this: (important to use folding motions, to not lose its volume and bubbliness)

Fill the batter over the fruit:

Bakes about 30 min till set and a bit spongy in the middle bounces back when gently pressed:

Invert:

Voila!

Just would have loved freshly whipped cream with vanilla!

TAMALES! YEAAHHH!!

I'd probably sound nuts to inarticulately express how much I like tamales--the concept, the excitement of making them, the taste, texture, everything, so I'll skip the attempt.

In any case, I made them today! BIG batch just for ME!
I invested in a bag of the prepared masa flour from the Mexican foods store downtown Zurich (El Maiz), (check out the receipt total: 16.00! Indeed, it's that expensive here--hence any guests visiting me from the US/mexico are enthusiastically welcomed to bring me a housewarming present of either corn husks or masa flour for the purpose of making this dish in the future.) I remember buying the equivalent in Texas for $1.50... (and mind you the swiss franc is stronger than the dollar now)
So, I prepped two fillings-- pulled chicken/turkey and BEANS. I do the meat one by heating a pot, pouring in some oil, slamming in the chicken breasts and turkey fillets (1.2 kg in total), and covering it to slightly brown and simmer them down for a good while. In the meantime I chop some onions (about 4), then toss those in, as well as a serious load of spices: garlic, paprika, onion powder, oregano, basil, cayenne pepper, CUMIN, salt, and black pepper. I use a similar spice mix for the beans filling (~1.2 kg beans), also adding some sauteed chopped onions (~5-6), and tomatoes (~400 g), and olive oil.
I prepared the masa not using lard, but a vegetarian version that also does not use vegetable shortening--a product of hydrogenated (hence solidified) unsaturated oils which leaves me suspicious. I've done this before, and it worked fine--so again this time-- a mix of butter and olive oil, giving a decent mixture or the saturated and unsaturated fats that can get the masa dough to a nice texture-- I prefer what's probably considered a bit firm... Don't freak out over the quantities, since this makes a LOT of tamales-- so with the 2 kilograms (4.4 lb) masa flour, I added also over 2 kg water (2+ Liters), 350g olive oil, and 350g butter. Hence I have about 5 kilograms (ll lbs) of masa dough in that bowl there.
In any case, I also season the masa flour with paprika (gives a nice golden-orange texture and I like the flavor, too), a "little" cumin, pepper, onion powder and veggie boullion. Then bring that up with water.

Then when the meat's cooked, let it cool down, and then get all in there with your hands to pull it apart into nice tendrils, mixing all those spices and chopped cooked onions into it.
Okay! Assembly time!!! Best with company.... but allright, with some good music, still fun alone.

I prefer pretty large tamales with lots of filling (opposed to ones with lots of the masa dough), so this is how I like to do mine:

Great! Assembled 28 large chicken/turkey ones, and 21 bean tamales:

So here's my big pot for steaming:

I learned long ago from my friend's mom Yolanda, that it helps for steaming to put extra corn husks to make a sort of cone in the middle of the pot, then the open end of the tamales can angle upwards for the steaming process:

All packed in, so ready to steam! About 2 hours does it...

A finished chicken-turkey tamale, with homemade salsa and sour cream for dinner:

And many more to enjoy later:

And with tamales this large, just 1-2 is a good-sized meal :-)

Soybean hummus

Delightful.... I had pre-soaked for 1.5 days some soybeans which I needed to then cook and use that night, so searched "soybean" on epicurious.com and saw a recipe for soybean hummus-- in essence replacing chickpeas for soybeans. Liked the idea! So, I boiled the soybeans, and in my food processor, blended those with some garlic, a pile of spring onions, fresh juice of one lemon, salt, chopped HOT red peppers and impulsive quantities of the following spices: onion powder, paprika, cumin, ground black pepper, oregano, thyme... and I think that was it. Blended, adding olive oil and water to achieve the right smoothness texture, and presto!
I made some "garlic butter" to make some garlic bread to spread it on-- the garlic butter including half butter and half olive oil for the fat content, then lots of garlic, and basil, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper, also blended, spread onto the bread and baked in the oven (wrapped in foil). Yum!

First attempt *FAILED*

:-D Here's the result of my first attempt at making corn tortillas (with none of the right ingredients, since I didn't have any of the right ones in stock!) hahah No doubt... it failed, awefully! ...both in terms of flavor and more importantly in texture, giving tortillas far too brittle, and too thick (to even keep them remotely intact)
BUT the concept of the meal I do love: homemade "corn" tortillas with fresh-sauteed peppered fish, sliced cabbage, a sort of herbed cream sauce made with quark and a onion-tomato-cilantro pico de gallo....
Just need to work on the corn tortillas, and next time for an honest re-do first attempt at them, should use the right ingredients and perhaps even *gasp* follow a recipe hahah ... sometime... or go back to making flour tortillas which are really easy.