Cookish: What's for Dinner?

Turkey Empanadas

I was inspired by Thursday Night Smackdown (Warning: The language on this blog is rated R. But it is funny.) I even used her empanada dough:

For the dough:

3 c. AP flour

1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces (note: I used salted butter and left out the pinch of salt. Next time, I will use salted butter and add a little extra salt. I like salt, ok?)

1 egg

1 tbsp. white vinegar

up to 1/3 c. ice water (I believe that I used about 7 tbs, but I lost my notes, so who knows?)

pinch of salt

Put the flour, butter, egg and salt into the FoodProcessor and pulse until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is pea-sized.

Looky! I actually took pictures for you. Don't make fun of my ancient Cuisinart.

Add the vinegar and 2-3 tablespoons of water, pulse a few more times. Keep adding ice water and pulsing until the dough just starts to pull together - you don’t want so much water that you end up with one big, wet dough ball. Dump the dough out onto your work surface and briefly knead/mush it around until it comes together. Flatten it into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

While refrigerating, you can get to work on the filling.

Ingredients:

1/4 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 carrot

olive oil

salt & pepper

1 lb ground turkey

1 can canellini beans

1 cup tomatillo salsa

cumin

chili powder

cheese (optional)

Dice your onion. Saute in a skillet with a little olive oil

While onion is cooking, dice your carrot and chop or grate your garlic. Add to the onion, along with cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add and brown your ground turkey. When turkey is browned, stir in beans and add 1 cup of salsa.

Pre-heat your over to 425.
When 30 minutes have passed, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thick and cut out rounds the size of your choice. I don't actually have a biscuit cutter or anything, so I just traced a small plate with a paring knife. Add a spoonful of stuffing to the center of each round. I also sprinkled some mozarella cheese (because it was what I had) before sealing. It didn't add too much. I think I'd use a stronger cheese next time and maybe stir it into the filling rather than sprinkling on top. Moisten the edges with water and fold the rounds in half. Crimp the edges closed with a fork to seal. I also cut small steam vents in the top.
Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Let rest for a few minutes before biting in so you don't burn your tongue off! Serve with a salad. Sour cream would be good, too.

Cookish Blog: Smitten Kitchen

http://www.smittenkitchen.com/


What do you do when life hands you lemons, but you don't want lemonade? A friend's in-laws sent her and her husband a styrofoam cooler of lemons from their tree in AZ. That's a lot of lemons, and said friend is not that into lemons. So, I ended up with a bag of lemons. What to do? I turned to my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen, and Deb came to the rescue.


1. Whole Lemon Tart: This tart uses a whole lemon. Peel, pith, and all (except the seeds). This creates a powerful lemon flavor with a backslap of bitterness. This is not a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned, but you should be warned. Deb has a great tart crust recipe as well, which I multiplied by 1.5 to fit my 11-in tart pan, since the original recipe is for a 9-in tart. I don't roll out the crust, just push it in to the tart pan. This provides a nice, thick crust. I did not increase the filling for the tart, so the crust-to-filling ratio was very nice, in my opinion.


2. Lemon Pound Cake: This is an Ina Garten recipe, and made two lovely loaves; one was a gift for a friend's birthday, and the other...well, I had to taste-test it, right? This uses up a lot of lemon, so it was just the right recipe. The resulting cake is moist and packs quite a lemon punch. Next time, I think I would use a toothpick or skewer to poke some holes in the cake to help it soak up the lemon syrup. It didn't quite drain all the way through the cake, so it wasn't as evenly distributed as it could be. Tasty, though.


Smitten Kitchen has great recipes and awesome pictures. Check it out!

Cookish Blog: Meanwhile, Back in the kitchen

http://hcrecipes.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen is a fun cooking blog. My latest find there: DELICIOUS hot cocoa. I, for one, love hot cocoa, but I never really make it from scratch. Or, I should say, I never used to. I think I am ruined for microwave cocoa forever.

Here you go:

"Hot Cocoa

1 serving

1 tablespoon cocoa

1 tablespoon sugar

Pinch salt

1/3 cup wate

r2/3 cup milk

Mix cocoa, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan, slowly stir in water. Heat and stir over moderately low heat until mixture boils, then boil slowly, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add milk and heat to scalding [almost boiling] but do not boil."