Tamale Meatballs

I was perusing one of my sister's cookbooks and came across a recipe for tamale bites.  This interested me because my husband loves tamales but I'm not about to make them.  The recipe in my sister's cookbook wasn't to my satisfaction so I looked up some recipes online and found this one that tempted me.  However, there were some things I didn't like about the recipe: making cornbread from a box?  canned enchilada sauce?  I don't think so people.  That's not the way I do things.  So I made the cornbread from scratch the day before, taking care to use only whole grains.  I took immense pleasure in crumbling up that cornbread.  This, of course, took about an hour to make and bake and then another hour or so to cool and about five seconds to crumble.   

I also made homemade enchilada sauce because I love my homemade enchilada sauce.  It is such a treat for me.  This added on a half hour to cooking time. 

I got my ingredients together and started mixing things up.  

The recipe says it makes about 40 meatballs depending on size.  These cooked in the oven for 40 minutes.  Here's what my forty meatballs look like:

And here's all the leftover mixture.  I thought to myself, 'really?  this only makes forty?  where did I go wrong?'

So I had to decide whether I would (a) make the rest of the meatballs that night and cook them in a different pan or (b) freeze the mixture to enjoy for another night.  Well, I decided on option b and it turned out just right too.  I made them into little balls and stuck this pan in the freezer so they could freeze individually before I put them into a bag.  I also just happened to have exactly enough leftover enchilada sauce.  So now I have a full meal waiting in the freezer for a time when I need a meal quick (and when I say quick I mean an hour to bake!).

And here's my finished dinner product.  After 40 minutes of cooking you throw on the enchilada sauce and cheese and bake for about another 10 minutes.  I must say, this took ten years to cook.  Put together that I had to make it over two days, and it still took about an hour and a half to cook on the day of, and this makes a recipe I will not make very often.  My husband, however, enjoyed them and said they were like enchiladas, tamales, and meatballs all rolled into one.  He is so eloquent, that one.  I don't love tamales so I'm not sure I'll put this one high on my list, but I will make it special for my husband if he wants (and I already have enough for a meal in the freezer so we can have that in a few months).  The other problem with these babies was the high fat content.  Oh well, at least the food was as "real" as I could make it.