Chicken and Black Bean Empanadas

Today's adventure is making empanadas - those tasty meat-filled pockets of love that come to us from South America. Now to really do justice to a savory empanada takes quite a bit of time and the filling is more often than not beef-based with raisins, chopped green olives and hard-boiled eggs infused with plenty of yummy spices. I've made "authentic" empanadas before, but it was pretty much an all day affair. Mrs. Hendo tires of beef easily (unimaginable in my universe) and I was being lazy today so I opted for a chicken based filling and simplified lots of other stuff too. This recipe is based on one from Dave Lieberman, host of Good Deal with Dave Lieberman on the Food Network.

Of course there are two basic parts to this recipe - the filling and the dough. We'll start with the filling which is really quite easy and it turned out incredibly tasty. Before you begin, you'll need about a cup and a half of cooked, shredded chicken. I poached a chicken breast how I always poach chicken - toss the breast in the bottom of a saucepan large enough that it's in a single layer. Cover with fat-free, low sodium chicken stock so that the stock covers the breast by at least a half-inch. Toss in a bay leaf and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to a very low simmer and partially cover. Simmer for 10 minutes. Cover the pan, remove from heat, and let it stand for another 15 minutes. You'll have perfectly moist cooked chicken which can be used in all kinds of recipes.

Now you'll need one medium to large onion, diced fine, and at least four cloves of garlic also diced fine. The basic spice mixture is a teaspoon of ground cumin, a teaspoon and a half of dried oregano, a teaspoon of ground coriander seed, and about a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

Bring one-quarter cup of oil (I used grapeseed oil but olive oil works just as well) to heat in a saute pan and add the onion and garlic. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Once the onions are mostly tender, add the spice mixture and saute for a few minutes longer.

Now we're ready to add the shredded chicken and the black beans. Use one can of black beans, drained but not rinsed. Add to the pan and heat through. For good measure I also tossed in about a teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes - they can never hurt!

Now comes the tedious part - making the dough. Now maybe you're lucky enough to have a good Latin market where you can buy pre-made empanada dough - no such luck in Moab. There are a zillion good recipes for empanada dough on the web but remember I said I was being lazy today. Hailey will likely be mortified at my solution - she lived in Buenos Aries for six moths last year so she knows real empanada dough from fake empanada dough. So what was my solution?  Ta da........

Something as simple as frozen puff pastry sheets. Hey don't laugh - instead of all that mixing and rising and kneading and rising and rolling and shaping.... all I did was pull the dough out of the freezer about an hour before I needed it and let it thaw on the kitchen counter.

You'll need to flour your work surface as we do need to roll out the pastry sheet. Out of the box they are a square about 10" by 10" - we want to turn that into a square of roughly 16" by 16".

Now we want to cut that into four-inch strips both ways, so that we end up with 16 4" by 4" squares.

Scoop a blob (that's a technical term) of filling into the center of each square.

Now the recipe didn't call for it, but I added some grated sharp cheddar cheese to each - cheese is your friend!

With a small finger-bowl of warm water, dampen two sides of the pastry along the edge to seal the pastry when you fold it to make a triangle. Which two sides you wonder? Just remember that you always want to be sealing "wet-to-dry".  Press the sealed edge with the times of a fork to ensure the seal and to give them that cool look. You'll end up with 16 little lovelies all ready to pop into the oven..

Now there are two sheets of puff pastry to the box and for the second sheet my laziness has really kicked in so I'm making only four big empanadas from the second sheet. Obviously these get more filling that the appetizer size ones in the batch of 16.

So we have two parchment-lined baking sheets ready to go. All we need now is to brush the empanadas with an egg wash which will give them a wonderful golden color as they bake.

Now since it's just Mrs. Hendo and I for dinner I'm only going to bake the four large ones. I'll cover the sheet of small ones with a piece of plastic wrap and place the whole thing into the freezer. Tomorrow I'll put the frozen ones into a zip-lock freezer bag and stow them back in the freezer to be baked at a later date.  Baking either the large ones or the small frozen ones is basically the same - 15-18 minutes at 400 degrees, until golden brown.

Glorious! Tasty, flaky, and perfect! Serve with a good salsa (we had a habanero-mango) and some sour cream! Delightful!

Big Cluster Maple Granola

Well, this whole eating meat thing has been fun…But it’s time I start acting like the granola I really am, so what better way to return to my veg head than with a warm batch of homemade granola?

 

For Christmas, Mamma Hendo gave both Dad and I our own copies of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. The recipes come from Perelman’s small kitchen in Manhatten. It is a truly wonderful cookbook, filled with detailed recipes, anecdotal, witty directions and tantalizing photographs of each and every recipe. 

 

So I went to the kitchen to gather the ingredients, and I was so excited that there were actually oats, olive oil, an egg and cinnamon in the house that I got a little carried away and thought I could just improvise with the other several ingredients. You see, in my kitchen in college we rarely have any ingredients found in any sort of edible recipe, forcing us to invent makeshift dinners of whatever’s around in the kitchen. Thankfully, my dad reminded me of the importance of a recipe. Disgusted with how far I was about to stray from the recipe, he told me to get dressed so that we could go buy the missing ingredients. “Never experiment with a recipe until you have followed it.” 

 Then the fun really started! I started measuring and combining ingredients! Yay!

Combine all ingredients except for the dried fruit and the egg white. Tossing to coat evenly. Whisk the egg white in a small bowl until frothy. Stir in the granola mixture. 

I needed my dad to teach me how to separate the yolk from the white.

Next, spread it in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

While I was carefully distributing the granola with my spatula my dad stepped in saying "God made hands for a reason"

Bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes and then use a large spatula to turn over sections of the granola. 

Bake for about 25 more minutes. 50 minutes in total. When the granola is evenly browned and feels dry to the touch, transfer the granola from the oven to the cooling rack. Cool completely. Once it is completely cool, sprinkle in the dried fruit. 

The granola keeps at room temperature in an airtight container for 2 weeks. It keeps even longer in the freezer, if you're the stockpiling type.

YUMMMMMMMYYYYY!!!!!! I will definitely be repeating this recipe. Next time I will press the "batter" more on the parchment paper so that the granola clumps together better. Mom and Dad both love it and I already want to make more tomorrow so that I can bulk up before returning to my makeshift college kitchen.

Tracey's Chicken Wings

As Hailey noted - this is an old family favorite - and with me it goes back a lot longer than that. Tracey was a college roommate of mine and she got this recipe from her mother. When we were in college back in the dark ages (mid 1970's) - chicken wings had yet to be discovered as the favorite appetizer/stylish bar food that they would eventually become. They were basically toss outs, sold almost like soup bones, and pretty much only cash-challenged college students and Chinese restaurants bought them. We had a grocer down the street where we could get all of the chicken wings we wanted for something like ten cents a pound. We got a lot of them. There were many months that after paying the rent and the utilities we would have enough cash left over to buy a mess of wings, a 20 pound bag of potatoes, some fine red wine at $3.79 a gallon and a case of Rhinelander beer that sometimes went on sale for $2.99 a case but usually came in at an even four bucks. Oh yes - we were living high style to be sure - but were it not for this recipe I might have starved to death.

Of course you start with the wings - they were on sale today at $2.29 a pound - a long way from the dime a pound in the mid-70's.But then they do come in a pretty little meat tray now and not just stuffed into a plastic bag. Begin by cutting each wing into three pieces - cut at each of the two joints and you end up with the wing tip, the middle portion, and the thickest part of the wing, that part which is closest to the bird, literally the upper arm of the chicken. The upper arms make marvelous little drumsticks.

Now my original hand-written recipe just said "cut off wing tips and discard" but you can always toss them into a plastic bag and freeze them, using them the next time you make chicken stock (what? you don't make your own chicken stock? oh but you should!). Whatever you do with the wing tips - you don't need them for this recipe - we're only using the middle portion and the mini-drumsticks.  Place them in a non-reactive (plastic or glass) bowl.

Now we make the marinade - and here's most of the lineup - we'll need frozen orange juice, lemon juice, ground ginger, crushed garlic, soy sauce, granulated sugar, table salt, and Tabasco sauce.

Mix all together and pour over the chicken wings. Let these bad boys marinade for at least an hour but two or three hours is even better.

When ready to cook spray a glass baking dish with canola oil. Place the wings in a single layer and reserve the marinade.

Place the wings on the center shelf of an oven preheated to 325 degrees. Bake for one hour, basting with reserved marinade every 15-20 minutes. Now the one hour this is just a guideline - the meatier the wings are or the more you stuff into the pan - will all cause the cooking time to be extended. I knew from the outset that these would take a bit more than an hour but especially since Mrs. Hendo decided to make a batch of croutons at the same time which meant opening the oven door at least a half-dozen times to make sure they weren't burning, it ended up taking about an hour and a half. But no worries - bonus croutons from that French bread that was trying to go south on us.

Here they are after the second baste - and you need to be careful about how much of the marinade you're adding to the pan - you don't want too much liquid nor do you ever want them to dry out.  This is a good start, but there is still a lot of color to come.

At the third basting their getting close - but they still don't have the right color.

Okay - four bastes at 20 minute intervals and these bad boys are ready - the glaze is a dark brown and just  on the verge of burning.

What you're really going for is a golden "crust" of almost candy-like glaze, but the sweetness is tempered by the citrus juice.  Serve with plenty of napkins - this is finger food. They reheat well and they're good as cold leftovers too.

These babies are ready for the table - and note the fancy serving dish - hey, it was just us the three of us for dinner and we had waited in great anticipation for an old family favorite - I could have served these things off a garbage can lid and I'm not sure anyone would have noticed!

Thanks Tracey - wherever you are - who would have thought that over 35 years later I would still be cooking our college version of chicken wings? Now about those 20-pound bags of spuds - do you have any idea just how many ways there are to cook potatoes when you're a broke college student? A lot - but those recipes just don't seem to have the lasting allure of a good batch of wings.

Tracey's Chicken Wings

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic (crushed)
1/2 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 drops Tabasco

Combine all ingredients.
Cut off wing tips & discard.
Cut remaining wing into two pieces.
Marinate in mixture for 1 hour.
Bake at 325 for 1 hour, basting with mixture every 15 minutes.

What's for dinner tonight?

An old family favorite! CHICKEN WINGS!

Yummmmmmmmyyyyyyy!

This was always my favorite meal growing up. I would beg for Chicken Wings and quickly fill the bone bowl to the very top. This orange, gingery, flavorful glaze creates the perfect blend of moist and yet crispy. (Maaaaaybe I can try the recipe for the glaze on some chicken-less chicken substitute when I get to Salt Lake, but we are making them Paul style in his kitchen today)

Here is the recipe. Hand-written by my dad on an oil stained page. While I love new cookbooks filled with silky pages and professional photographs, there is something really special about the well seasoned cookbooks like this one. I love pages like this in old, well-used cook books, that's how you know the recipe is good. (You can tell my dad's mom was a first grade teacher because his penmanship is absolutely perfect!)

They may not be vegan, but they shall be made with love and gratitude for family, flavors and tradition!

We're a good team in the kitchen! Happy Holidays to all!

Best Ever Cranberry Sauce - Really!

Sooner or later I would hope we all graduate from buying canned cranberry sauce to making homemade.

Now in my progression I started by buying a bag of fresh cranberries and followed the basic recipe on the package - a cup of water, a cup of sugar - boil all for 10 or 15 minutes. It was exquisite. A year or two later I got fancy, you know, substitute orange juice for the water and maybe add a splash of triple sec just for good measure. How gourmet can you get? Let the rave reviews begin.

But with such an incredible ingredient as cranberries I just knew there had to be the ultimate cranberry sauce recipe lurking out there somewhere. I branched out for the past few years - always making one batch of "regular" cranberry sauce (the bag recipe plus some orange liqueur of some sort) and a batch of whatever variation caught my eye that particular year. Seems like almost every cooking magazine we take will have a "best cranberry sauce ever" recipe every fall. I sometimes wonder what happens to all the past "best ever" recipes. Perhaps it would be better to name them "best so far" but that's just me.

This year I found a truly good recipe from my friends at allrecipes.com - Cranberry Sauce Extraordinaire - and it really is about the best cranberry sauce we've ever had, certainly the best so far, and very possibly the best ever as I can't really imagine feeling the need to experiment any further.

Here's the lineup - fresh cranberries, an apple, a pear, an orange, chopped pecans, mixed dried fruit and a bit of both cinnamon and nutmeg (and still that splash of either triple sec or some other orange liqueur). Depending on what time of day you're making this - feel free to have a snifter of that liqueur yourself, it clears the pipes and allows you to sing along with the Christmas carols!. It's oddly reminiscent of those fruit-flavored cough syrups that you had as a kid.

I always start with a bag of Ocean Spray cranberries - really, are there any other brands? I suppose there are but I'll always be loyal to Ocean Spray for stepping in and keeping the cranberry bog industry alive on the southwest Washington coast.

Peel, core, and dice both an apple and a pear. It needs to be a fairly small dice, somewhere between a quarter inch and a half inch.

Peel one navel orange and puree in either a blender or a food processor.

Chop (somewhere between course and diced) one cup of mixed dried fruit - whatever your fancy is. I use a mixture of apples, pears, plums, peaches and apricots. Use whatever you have - raisins would work just fine.

Now you'll need a cup of chopped pecans - I prefer an almost fine-chop and if you're so inclined toast the pecans for a minute or two in a saute pan over medium-high heat. Don't feel like doing that step? That's completely okay too. Don't feel like adding pecans at all? That too is okay.

Okay, now it's really easy. This bad boy starts out just like the basic recipe on the cranberry bag: bring one cup water and one cup sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add all other ingredients and toss in a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg and a half-teaspoon of salt (and don't forget that splash of orange liqueur - today I'm using orange Curacao).

Cover and let simmer (and remember that simmer does mean simmer!) for 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool for a few minutes and then pour into a serving dish. I've been searching for a really cool vintage jello mold for my cranberry sauce, just haven't found it yet! Don't tell my sister-in-law, I decided to use the "sanitary cheese preserver" that she gave us - it's meant to store blue cheese but I'm thinking it will be just fine as a cranberry serving dish.

Make up to three days in advance - time certainly helps meld the flavors.

This stuff is the shit! (I've been led to believe that "being the shit" is a compliment). In old-speak; this cranberry sauce is nothing short of spectacular. I need look no further - it really is the "best ever" for us.

The complete recipe (less of course that tasty orange liqueur!) can be found here:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cranberry-sauce-extraordinaire/