.beef and cheese empanadas.

I love empanadas but have never made them before. I'm always looking for new things to make because I get very bored with the same ol' same ol'. I hardly ever cook with hamburger, yet I had a pound in the freezer that I wanted to use up. Taco salad? Nah. Chili? Nah. Empanadas!

These little hand held pockets are so delicious. They're a little time consuming to make, but well worth the effort. Mine aren't very traditional, but they were exactly what I wanted. My kids ate them up!

Here's what I put into my empanadas:

Ground beef
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeno, seeded and fine diced
salt and pepper
garlic powder
cumin
chili powder
approximately 2 cups grated monterey jack cheese

Heat 3-4 Tbsp oil in a skillet and saute the onion, garlic, and jalapeno until fragrant. Add the ground beef and cook until done. Add 2-3 tsp chili powder and cumin. Season with salt and pepper. Add more seasoning if needed.

Remove from the heat and add the cheese. Stir in until melted and coated.

Make the empanada dough --

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup masa harina
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup water (plus or minus 1 tbsp)

Mix together dry ingredients. Using a fork, mix in the butter and distributed within the flour. Slowly add water, carefully mixing with the fork until it begins to pull together. Form into a ball and wrap with saran. Pop in the fridge and hold for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into approx. 1 ounce balls (think ping pong ball size). Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out into a circle. Spoon filling into the middle.

Now here's where you can decide how to close the pocket. Traditionally, you are supposed to braid the edge, but some people use a fork to crimp it closed. Personally, the braid/twist thing is MUCH prettier and it isn't very difficult to do. I found a very handy YouTube video showing you how to fold the edges to give it the braided look.

Once your empanadas are made, cover and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.

There's one final decision to be made. Fry or bake? They can be cooked either way. We fried ours because I think they looked better that way. Plus, I didn't want a super hard crust from baking, know what I mean? (Not saying they would, but my husband was pushing for fried)

If you use the oven, preheat to 375* and bake for 25-30 minutes.

If you're frying, heat your oil to 375* and fry for approximately 5-6 minutes or until the empanada is beautifully golden brown on both sides. Remove from the oil and sit on paper towels to drain.

Serve with fresh guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.

.grilled chicken tostadas.

This was a new recipe I found in an old magazine of mine. We had been purging like mad a couple weeks ago and there was a magazine stash in our closet upstairs that had almost a dozen old Bon Appetit on the shelf! What a surprise!

I was really interested in making these because they're grilled, which means not as fattening ladies AND it meant I didn't have to turn my stove or oven on for anything. Even better! Very fast and easy to make. I know it's fast because we were starving and I had them done within a half hour.


Let's start with our prep.


Start with some shredded chicken. I had cut up a fryer the other night to make Jerk Chicken Salad w/ Grilled Pineapple Salsa. I only used the breasts for the salad, then cut the other pieces for fried chicken. There was still quite a bit of meat left on the carcass so I tossed the rest of the bird into a pot with celery, onion, bay leaf, and carrot and then filled it up with water. Left on a stovetop to simmer and I have some chicken stock now and all of this wonderful cooked chicken. I pulled it off the cooked meat and then seasoned with chili powder (about 1 tsp) and some salt.



Grate some Cotija cheese. This is a mexican cheese made from cow's milk. It's a harder cheese and when you go to grate it, you'll find it more or less just crumbles on contact. It also has wonderful flavor. I found this at Walmart. If you have a Mexican grocery store, you can also find it there.


Cotija doesn't melt like normal cheese, so for added measure I grated some cheddar. Mix the two cheeses together.

Seed and dice some tomato.


Finely shred some lettuce.


Dice a little onion.


Chop a little cilantro.

Now comes the fun part! Grilling!


Place three fajita size flour tortillas on a hot BBQ grill. I didn't put any kind of oil on these. They don't need it.


When they start browning nicely, flip them over. Let them grill for just a minute before putting the toppings on.


Pull all of the tortillas close to the edge away from the heat. Top with some pinto beans (drained and rinsed), a little onion, tomato, chicken, cilantro, and cheese.

Push them back a little, turn the heat down to low and put the lid down and let the cheese melt.


This is what they'll look like when done. As you can see the cotija cheese holds it's shape. Remove from the grill and bring inside.

Top with shredded lettuce, sour cream, and guacamole. We also put some salsa on top. Enjoy!

.chicken tomatillo tamales.

I get on these kicks where I read gourmet blogs and this one I happened across one night talked about these amazing chicken, corn, and tomatillo tamales they had at a restaurant somewhere in New York. This, of course, sent me on a mission to find a recipe for them! I wound up using two different recipes and adjusting them to my own personal wants. They turned out really good!





I've never made tamales before so if you are a seasoned vet, please do not make fun of me! LOL I was surprised at how easy they were to make. Having asked around, it seemed like it would be a more arduous task. I think if you use pork it would be. From start to finish, these took about 2 hours to do. I made extra and froze them so I can have more another night. Yessss. I love that!








Begin by putting cornhusks in a pan of water. Set something heavy on top to keep them submerged in the water.








Cut up one small onion. I had to use green onion because I was OUT of regular onion. Bummer.








Mince one clove garlic.



Cut up three tomatillo.

The recipe calls for Pasilla chilies. Pasilla are the name of the fresh pepper, which is a very dark green. Can't find them around here, sadly. Dried are called chile negro and work fine as a substitute for fresh. You will want to cut the stem off then cut into pieces.

Put all of the pepper pieces into a spice grinder and grind until you're content.

If for some strange reason you can't find fresh or dried, use chili powder.


Cook up some chicken breasts. Remove from the pan and let cool.





Once cool, shred with your fingers or with a fork.


Heat a little oil or butter in a skillet. Add the onion, garlic, and chili powder to the pan and saute for a minute.


Add the tomatillo and stir in. Cook for another minute or two.


Add 1/3 cup frozen corn.


Dump in one can drained and rinsed black beans.

Cook this down for about 5 minutes. Add a little water to the pan if needed to avoid burning.


Add the chicken in. Season the entire filling well with salt and pepper.


Squeeze in the juice of half of one lime.

Set the filling mixture aside.

Now to make the masa cake.

In a bowl put 3 cups masa harina, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup oil, and 3 cups chicken stock. You want almost a playdough type consistency.

Take some of the cornhusks and carefully pull them apart into thin strips. Tie two pieces together to create laces. You're going to need these to hold the tamales closed.

Take some of the masa (about 1/4 cup) and put it on one of the soaked cornhusks. Press it out using your hands.

Don't ask me what is going on with the lighting on this picture. Put a spoonful of filling on the masa.

Fold the husk over in half, and then fold the edges in.

Take another piece of cornhusk (one of the smaller, thinner pieces) and fold it over the top opening. To secure it, wrap and tie using one of the husk laces we made.

Keep repeating this process until you've used up all the masa and/or filling.

Now it's time to cook these babies. If you have one of these pasta pots, great! You want to steam the tamales - not bake. If you don't have one of these pots, put a colander in a pan upside down. This will keep the tamales from resting in the water on the bottom of the pot. Put a lid on the pot and bring the water to a boil (make sure you don't use too much water!! Just enough to steam these guys!).

Put the tamales into the steamer and cover with a lid. Steam for about 40 minutes, rotating them halfway through the cooking process. You'll know they're done when the masa pulls away from the husk easily.


Serve with rice and beans if you want. Top with sour cream and guacamole.

These weren't very spicy so we had salsa with them too. Perfect!

So you can see that homemade tamales CAN be achieved in your house and it won't take 3 days either!!! You'll definitely want to make a lot of these so you can enjoy them again and again. This recipe made 16 tamales. Enjoy!


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_84c5dkrzhk

.grilled fish tacos.

I get requests from time to time from blog readers. I *love* these requests because it gives my family the opportunity to try dishes that I probably would never fix. This recipe for grilled fish tacos was requested by Jenni. (Hey Jenni! :D)

If you've had fish tacos, you're probably familiar with how they are made. The fish is usually battered and fried. We were looking for a more healthy alternative so instead of frying, we grilled. Of course, you'll have to overlook the fact that I heated the tortillas in oil, am using Mexican crema, and guacamole. I mean... yah.. it's "healthy". LOL You could probably heat the tortillas in the microwave to soften them up if you want to skip the oil route.



I started with some tilapia. You're going to want a fish that will not fall apart once it's cooked. Sea bass and cod are other options if you can't, or don't like, tilapia.



In a bowl, mix together the juice of two limes, 1/4 cup olive oil, some cilantro, and salt and pepper.



Pour on the filets and let marinate for about 20 minutes. The acidity from the limes will actually start to cook the tender fish, so you don't want to let them marinate for too long.



While those sit, thinly slice or shred some cabbage.



For visual color, shred up a little red cabbage as well.



(I'm going to have to figure out a dish to use up the rest of my cabbage. Hubby is NOT a fan so it'll have to be a)really good that he will love it, or b)something I will enjoy eating a lot of. LOL)



Slice up some red onion.



And wedge some limes. These are to squeeze onto your tacos right before eating, and also to help hold them up on your plate. Pretty cool huh?



Oh and we can't forget radishes. You can slice these nice and thin so you can put them directly on your taco. I left mine halved to eat on the side.



Arrange everything all pretty like on a tray.



Heat a little oil in a skillet and carefully put two CORN tortillas in, stacked on top of each other. We want to fry them together.



After a minute, flip them over and do the other side. Pull from the oil and let sit on paper towels. Do this until you have as many tortillas as you need. If you do this step ahead of time, throw them in the oven to warm back up.



Grill up your fish. Look how yummy that looks.



You're going to want a bottle of this. Mexican Crema. If you can't find it, do a google search for it and you can find easy directions. It takes a day to make though.

Now it's time to assemble. Put some fish on the tortilla, spoon a little crema on top of the fish, then some cabbage and onion. Top with some hot red salsa and guacamole.

I topped ours with fresh pico de gallo instead of salsa. It was very yummy. Serve with beans and rice.