.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.

.berry cream puff.

I had a luncheon today with some girlfriends. We all had our babies within a month of each other. We all had GIRLS! So we get together every month to hang out and eat and let our babies play together. It's a lot of fun. Today we had lunch at my house. I fixed some grilled chicken, grilled vegetable pasta salad (recipe below), greek salad (recipe to come), and for dessert...... berry cream puffs.



My husband insisted we didn't need a dessert for lunch. Puh-lease. I told him what I was thinking of making and he quickly jumped on board. LOL I guess you can have dessert with lunch!



I didn't want to do your typical strawberry shortcake, but I did want a fresh, fruity type dessert that screams SPRING! When I was at the store picking up supplies, I saw blueberries and blackberries with the strawberries. Mmmmm.... oh yah.



We made cream puffs daily at the bakery and filled them with pastry cream folded in with whipped cream, and topped the puff off with some ganache. Very popular. Making cream puffs isn't difficult, and they don't take very long to make. You will get a great upper body workout though from working in the flour and the eggs. Let me show you how to make them.



In a pot, put 1 cup water, 1/4 cup butter (cut up), and 1/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil.

While you're waiting for the water to boil, break open 4 eggs and put in a bowl or measuring cup. You want to have all of your stuff ready to go because it's going to go fast and you won't have time to do all of this.

Butter a cookie sheet (I took that pat of butter off after I took this picture).

You want to butter this because those cream puffs will stick horribly bad if you don't.

When the water comes to a boil and the butter is melted, dump in 1 cup flour. Stir immediately using a wooden spoon. Stir until the flour is cooked and it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and form a ball. Remove from the heat.

Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well between each addition. This is what it will look like when all the eggs have been added. The reason why you want to add one at a time is if you dumped all of them in, it would cool your dough down too fast and you will get the wrong consistency and your cream puffs won't "puff" up the right way.

Spoon the dough into a pastry bag and pipe in a circular fashion little "hives". I made these puffs big today. Normally you can get about 8-10 regular sized puffs out of this recipe. You can easily double the recipe to make more.

Bake in a 375* oven for 35 minutes or so. You want them to be nice and golden brown. If you pull them out too soon, they will collapse as they cool. Big concern is you want to make sure the centers get cooked. Pull too soon and it'll be doughy inside. Our motto at the bakery with these were overbaking was better than underbaking.

Allow to cool.



In a bowl, mix together your berries. Like I said earlier, I used blackberries, blueberries, and sliced strawberries. Add a little sugar and some lemon juice. Let the berries macerate for awhile.

To assemble, cut the top off your cream puff. Take some whipped cream (which you can whip up while the puffs are cooling) and put a large dollop on the bottom half. Spoon some berries on top of that, then add another little dollop on top of the berries. Put the top back on.

Using a sieve, put a little powdered sugar in it and then tap lightly on top of the cream puff to dust them.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

[Chef's notes: Cream puffs are great for parties. Make the puffs a lot smaller and fill with chicken salad, or with pastry cream or just whipped cream. You can make them up ahead of time and freeze.]

Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_43c9tqv6cp