Tamale Dinner, Vegetarian Menu for Lent

Tamale dinner menu for Lent
Photo by Pam Stephan

Every Lenten season, we try to stick to a vegetarian or pescaterian (fish-based) diet. Since we live in Texas, the home of barbequed beef brisket, pork roast, and traditional TexMex food, this is no easy ride.

We have tried the Daniel Diet in previous years, but decided that while my Dad lives with us, we'll modify that to keep the peace. Dad is a steak and potatoes, cheeseburger and fries, BBQ brisket and beans kind of a guy. Going for 40 days without any kind of Real Meat would be very hard for him, even with dementia.

Fortunately, Dad loves fish (so long as it is not shrimp or oysters or squid or sushi.) Fry it, bake it, broil it, smother it in sauce, and Dad will put away the fish. So we have that option through Lent, but we crave variety. I like to be creative, and that has led to us trying many foods that we may have never known about before going on this adventure.

This Tamale Dinner menu is 100% vegetarian, but don't tell my Dad that. As long as it looks and tastes pretty close to traditional TexMex, we are all happy.

Menu:

• Corn chips
• Fresh guacamole
• Traditional Style White Mountain Tamale 
• Sweet Corn Tamale (tamal de elote)
• Yellow Rice, Mahatma brand

Notes:
I use McCormick's Guacamole mix with 3 avocados.
The Traditional Tamal is drizzled with molé sauce.
Spoon some salsa and then sprinkle cheese shreds on the Corn Tamal.
Serve that yellow rice while it is hot!

Buen provecho!