You Can Only Do One Thing at a Time

20/2/11
Kristen says...

Happy Birthday Daddy!!! :)

Apparently a 4-day weekend means I have enough time to do things...and obviously blogging is one of them.

I actually made a list of what I wanted to do this weekend...many of them have been achieved (Pip went to the vet, we bought some art, I have read a few hundred pages in "At Home" by Bill Bryson), but a few of them have not (grading papers...ugh!) Unfortunately, I still have some things I want to do...which aren't getting done before you can only do one thing at a time...so hopefully I really do get some tatting done...

However, I have also done a bit of cooking...I made empanadas today. If you're not familiar, empanadas are kind of like a British pasty (rhymes with nasty, but doesn't taste like it!) or a mini chicken pot pie, it's pastry dough filled with some kind of savory filling.

I started out using a combination of 3 recipes to make my empanadas:

Dough, Filling 1, and Filling 2

I used the dough recipe exactly, except I halved it. Here's what it looked like when I got it out of the fridge:

In reality, I pretty much made the filling up...

I used:
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-1/2 medium white onion, finely chopped
-1 can diced tomatoes
-aprox. 1 1/2 c. chicken (left over from a baked chicken--I am not a fan of leftover chicken, and am kind of surprised I didn't make this fresh today, either way, you want pre-cooked chicken)
-about 1/4 cup spaghetti sauce (also left over)
-spice blend of 1 tsp cumin, 1 chili, and salt
-3/4 of a small can of corn

I cooked it down until it was pasty, then rolled out the dough. I decided to make small circle empanadas, and used one of our bowls to make them the right size (more or less)

Then I added a little shredded mozzarella cheese...I don't know how much, a few pinches:

And then the filling! A big spoonful+

Then I folded it over, wet the sides, kinked the corners with a fork, and popped them into a 400° oven for 20+ minutes.

<-Before After->

I lightly brushed the tops with butter and we sprinkled a mixture of the cumin/salt/chili blend and some Parmesan cheese on top.

Overall, they were pretty good. We both agreed they had good flavor, but could have used more cheese (of course!). I would also like to leave out the chicken and add beans instead, but that's just me.

Chris added a little katsup to his (ew!) but said it made it more tomato-y, so go figure.

Here's a look at the insides of the finished product:

Not bad, not bad at all :)

Chris apparently is in the mood for an apple crisp (he just walked out the door to get some oatmeal) so I guess more baking is in the future...fun!

Happy Sunday, everyone!
KF

PS: With the excitement of the paintings, I forgot one of the pieces of art we bought yesterday: this guy was selling these by the side of the road on the way to Valle, and we thought they were pretty cool, so we picked one up on the way home: