Paula’s Chicken Empanadas:
Years ago I was horrified when Warburton's Cafe (now long vanished) stopped selling their Cornish pasties in the Harvard Square shop. Shortly after that, Warburton's followed the pasties into the cold oven of history, and the site became an Au Bon Pain, with O.K. food, but it wasn’t Warburton's.I remember sitting outside on a bench in the early spring sun with the beggar sparrows cheeping around my feet as the flaky crumbs of the pasty fell from my fingers. Together the sparrows and I devoured that wonderful, savory pasty.Of course, with the buttery crust and the red meat within, the pasties were "nutritionally incorrect" and that's probably why the Harvard Square Warburton's stopped producing them. Little demand. Except mine.Flash forward to Friday, when the Food Network’s Paula Deen (she of the butter and mayonnaise recipes) made chicken empanadas on her show. Lordy, I was salivating to beat the band and on Saturday I bought a jalapeno pepper and some pepper jack cheese.I changed the recipe to use my own crust (see previous post) and made other changes to spice things up. Yowza! Couldn't stop eating them. Here is Paula's recipe:http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/chicken-empanadas-recipe/index.html
My changes: cut filling in half, except for the jalapeno, add 1/2 sautéed onion and substituted pepper jack cheese. I used adobo seasoning instead of cumin and added the last dabs from the garden of cilantro before it froze.
The crust, which I make in the Cuisinart, is 1 1/2 cups flour, one egg yolk, salt, 1/2 t. medium chili powder, 1 stick unsalted butter and enough ice water until it forms a ball.
Showing posts with label pie crust tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pie crust tips. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Frost is On the Newly Purchased Pumpkin
Pumpkins are gold-plated this fall, having to do with the wet summer, I hear. Anyway, a nice big one set us back $10.00 at the supermarket. Walmart didn't even get them.
I made Paula's (food network) Mexican style chicken turnovers, and being cheap really paid off. Instead of using the store-bought pie crust ($3.49), I decided to make my own. Browsing thru recipes, in Elena's Mexican Cookery, she recommended putting chili powder in the crust. Yowsa! Did that even rock!
I made more or less Paula's filling except for adding half a chopped plum tomato, and substituting Adobo spice for cummin. I also used pepper jack cheese which gave it extra kick. Didn't remove ALL the seeds from the jalapeno. Yum, yum, yum. We baked, rather than deep-fried, and they were so good, served with salsa.
My pie crust recipe is from a food processor cookbook (Abby Mandel's) and the pie crust almost comes out to be amazingly good and it takes all of 5 minutes from measuring to fridge to chill. Rolls out like a dream. Man, I remember times I had to heave the whole mess in the garbage and start over, but this never fails.
Frost forecast tonight. I dug up my geraniums and put them in smaller pots (they spent the summer outside in a whiskey barrell) and brought inside. Big messy job, but won't I be happy come may when they can be moved back outside and I don't have to go out and buy 10 new geraniums. In this economy, one can take frugal measures.
Feeling smug because I saved $40.00 at the grocery this week and wrote some more of my book, did the estimated taxes and so on. Doing the estimate was not as hard as I had feared. There's something about those IRS forms that intimidates. Yup. I sucked it up and actually did it, and didn't take all day either.
So. . . off to watch the Red Sox game. Wore my shirt today for good luck. Being part of Red Sox Nation is not for the faint of heart. Onward.
Grapeshot
I made Paula's (food network) Mexican style chicken turnovers, and being cheap really paid off. Instead of using the store-bought pie crust ($3.49), I decided to make my own. Browsing thru recipes, in Elena's Mexican Cookery, she recommended putting chili powder in the crust. Yowsa! Did that even rock!
I made more or less Paula's filling except for adding half a chopped plum tomato, and substituting Adobo spice for cummin. I also used pepper jack cheese which gave it extra kick. Didn't remove ALL the seeds from the jalapeno. Yum, yum, yum. We baked, rather than deep-fried, and they were so good, served with salsa.
My pie crust recipe is from a food processor cookbook (Abby Mandel's) and the pie crust almost comes out to be amazingly good and it takes all of 5 minutes from measuring to fridge to chill. Rolls out like a dream. Man, I remember times I had to heave the whole mess in the garbage and start over, but this never fails.
Frost forecast tonight. I dug up my geraniums and put them in smaller pots (they spent the summer outside in a whiskey barrell) and brought inside. Big messy job, but won't I be happy come may when they can be moved back outside and I don't have to go out and buy 10 new geraniums. In this economy, one can take frugal measures.
Feeling smug because I saved $40.00 at the grocery this week and wrote some more of my book, did the estimated taxes and so on. Doing the estimate was not as hard as I had feared. There's something about those IRS forms that intimidates. Yup. I sucked it up and actually did it, and didn't take all day either.
So. . . off to watch the Red Sox game. Wore my shirt today for good luck. Being part of Red Sox Nation is not for the faint of heart. Onward.
Grapeshot
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Pie Oh My!
With the approach of summer we have a world of pie possibilities: cherry, berry, plum, and any demented combination you can dream up.
With pie in mind, here are some tips on making the perfect crust from King Arthur.
Maybe the Knights of the Round Table used ye olde table to roll out the pie crust on. What do I know?
When I was fourteen and knew everything, I worked one summer at my uncle's restaurant and variety store in central Kansas. Early every morning, a bunch of aunts and cousins, all elderly, all women, came in and baked a host of pies. From scratch, natch!
They made everything: cherry? yup Berry, amen! Apple, of course, and some things my mom never made like custard, yum! Raisin! Chocolate. to die for. Pie oh my! I still remember it.
Peach and apricot! Don't forget them. Ah what could be better than a slice of fresh peach pie?
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