Sweet and Savory Empanadas

Thank goodness we get an extra day off this week! You know where I'll be spending it...in the kitchen :)! Especially now that I'll be working twice as much as I used to during the week. Yay! No complaints here, though, I look forward to a busier work schedule. I love the feeling of having my hands full -- especially when they're full of dough! Even though I'll be working more, I still plan on keeping up with this blog. No excuses, I promise! Later on this week, I'll post a couple of pie recipes (and even a tasty summer cake recipe) because there's always time for baking and blogging, right?! Yes. I won't even let the 95 degree weather stop me from baking; I'll sweat my way through one dessert recipe after another while the AC is off any day! I can't decide if that makes me a dedicated baker or just plain crazy... :)


On to the post! Earlier this week, Mansi from Fun and Food invited me to join in on the Monthly Mingle event. I thought it sounded like fun, especially since I'd never put together an actual appetizer before, so I told her I'd like to do it...then, earlier today, I thought I could combine the Monthly Mingle appetizer with my Traveling the World One Plate at a Time recipe. To come up with ideas, Jose and I flipped through a few of the many half-read foodie magazines stacked up near my desk. Jose came up with a great idea after reading an inspiring recipe -- why not make empanadas, little ones? So that's what we did. I wanted to make a savory version...and because my sweet tooth has a bigger mouth than I do, I couldn't ignore it's unrelenting cry for sugar, so I gave-in and made sweet empanadas too. The savory vegetarian empanadas are stuffed with a variety of hearty ingredients (like tomatoes and portabella mushrooms), while the sweet empanadas are filled with sweet potatoes and warm spices (like cinnamon and cloves).

This is how they should be stuffed, except this one is really loaded! :)

I was inspired by Chef Jim Moffat's empanada dough recipe; as for the filling -- I decided to get creative with that. You'll find the recipe for both the sweet and savory empanadas below. Please note that there was quite a bit of filling leftover from each recipe. So, tomorrow, I plan on using the savory ingredients to make omelets for breakfast...and I might just bake up something using the mashed sweet potatoes :). The spiced sweet potatoes can be eaten on their own, though, they're so good!

Very Tasty Caribbean Stew and Jerk Tilapia

One of the best parts about cooking is that you can take a handful of random ingredients that are actually good for you, cook them with a few interesting spices and sauces, then you end up with something colorful, tasty, and healthy. Last week at work, my friend brought in a bowl of wonderful stew, it was from a recipe that her father initially introduced her to. She gave me some to try so that I'd know how to describe it on the Key Ingredient blog. Right after the first spoonful, I was convinced that this was a stew I definitely needed to make, asap!

This hearty meal was inspired by Moosewood's Caribbean Stew. The recipe is delicious as is, my friend Heather just added a few more veggies - I pretty much did the same. In my opinion, the more veggies, the better! This is a vegetarian stew that's filling as is, but it can also be served with rice or jerk tofu. I loved the idea of the jerk tofu, but I recently purchased some fish that needed a marinade; I thought the spicy/sweetness of the jerk would complement the tilapia quite well, and it did.

Because I wanted a baked and breaded fish, I mixed a few tablespoons of breadcrumbs with a tablespoon of melted butter and created a topping for the fish that also included some of the marinade. The end result was a flavorful meal without the fishy flavor, but I think next time, to preserve the light flavor of the fish, I'll just marinade then bake the tilapia in the jerk sauce. Though I only added half the amount of chili in both recipes, it was still spicy enough to be considered tasty.

If you want to give your taste buds a wake-up call, the stew and jerk recipes will do the trick. As for the stew, its spiciness wanes against the sweet potato's natural honey-like taste and the kale's deep earthy flavor. What's more, together, the cilantro and lemon add an herby freshness while the onions give the already rich broth an even fuller flavor. This stew is mouth-watering, to say the least, and your body will definitely thank you for eating such a healthy meal! The jerk sauce/marinade has a sweet and spicy flavor that even smells great, thanks to the freshly grated ginger that's like heaven for the olfactory glands. If you can't already tell, I'm a huge fan of this soupy stew. If it were a musician, I'd definitely make it a point to get its autograph.

The Jerk recipe will make enough marinade for about 3-4 small fish, I marinated the fish for about 2.5 hours before popping them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 425. Jose and I decided to take our fish and stew outside and make a picnic out of our dinner; the weather was beautiful and the meal was the perfect end to a fun-filled day spent at Wimberly and in the kitchen baking. (This month I'm baking 60 different batches of cookies for a little project I was assigned at work. My last day is the 23rd of April, so I'll be busy baking for the next few weeks! I can just see the Doughboy planning an invasion in the name of sweets, just like last time!)

Speaking of the little guy, look who I saw tagged and behind bars at Wimberley Market Days early this Saturday morning! It's a very old Doughboy, an antique! But I decided I couldn't deal with anymore tricks, so I had to leave him there for someone else to adopt!

easy ravioli minestrone soup

Jose came down with a pretty bad cold this weekend: fever, cough, sneezing, and all those other nasty symptoms associated with this common but vicious virus that strikes us all, at one point or another. I wanted to make him something that would make him feel better. We still had some chicken left-overs, but I thought a soup would be much better for someone fighting a bad cold on a fairly cool (thank God! I have been waiting for this cold front's arrival!) Autumn evening. So, after work, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a couple of items to make a very quick minestrone soup. It was already pretty late at night, so I couldn't exactly dedicate hours to cooking, the way I could in the past. This soup was perfect because even though it quickly came together, it was still very healthy and really cheap to make. Those are two things I definitely like any meal to be, whether I make it myself or purchase it at a restaurant.

Since I keep talking about how little time it took to make this soup, I should mention the actual amount...about 20 minutes! Even if you're tired and cold (and I mean really tired from driving around far too long, lost in some obscure part of the Texas Hill Country for a good 40 minutes because you were really trying avoid traffic on the congested highways...hmm, that sounds way too familiar!), it's still no trouble to make because the soup basically makes itself, you just have to throw a few things into a pot and wait for it to cook.

Though I used primarily frozen veggies to make this soup, I did add a few extras for more color/flavor, like:

green bell pepper
corn
a few chopped carrots
green onion

The spices I added amounted to about
a pinch or two of black pepper
about 1/2 tsp garlic salt 1 tsp parsley
1-1/2 salt free garlic & herb spice
and also a few others that would match this soup, like basil

This soup is so flexible, you can pretty much add whatever you like and it'll taste good. The main components of the soup were a small can of tomato sauce and 16 oz of chicken broth (basically the amount that comes in the little carton). I also added 1/2 a bag (about 1 1/2 cups) of a Mediterranean frozen veggie blend, along with 1 10 oz bag of 4 cheese ravioli. I guess this was a vegetarian meal, but it was still very filling and hearty-the colors were very Christmasy too :).