Empanada Gallega Feast or Failure?

Okay so for starters I LOVE empanadas, the Cuban kind that I have had in the past, pastelitos. Flaky deliciously filled; so I was very excited about this months Daring Bakers challenge...
 
Blog checkin lines: Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished!

Now I gave this a single try so that means that I realize that I could have had a different experience had I tried a second time, but I did not. I was actually more worried about running out of time this month. We were suppose to be going to New Orleans this week, that fell through with recent storm. In addition to possible traveling work has been incredibly stressful this month and so my sleep has been highly necessary.

I wanted to try some of the more exotic fillings that Patri had suggested on the challenge but I stuck with a less exotic one of ham and cheese, now I did stick with Spanish cheese and used Manchego because I LOVE it. Anyway you can find Patri's recipes here, who knows maybe one day very soon I will try the salt cod or tuna version.

So the dough was a beautiful dough, which I used my Kitchen Aid mixer and dough hook to make. I really think that had I worked the dough with my hand I would have actually had a softer dough. For me I felt like the dough was somewhat tough and it was very crisp when it was baked. I do not know if that is how it is suppose to be or not. I would have preferred a more delicate dough.

So the night we had the empanada gallega I made a wonderful salad to go along with the empanada, Ashley had two pieces of empanada because his hunger was not satisfied from the first piece. I making this again though with some modifications, in addition to trying one of the other fillings, if I do a ham and cheese version again I will add a lot more ham and a lot more cheese, possibly something not as fancy as Manchego. Here are some photos.

 As you can see it looks like it baked well, however the filling is a bit thin.

 

 

While the experiment was fun and it tasted okay I feel like I failed the experiment in the fact that I was not thrilled with the results. I guess that is what part of this process is, success and failure, learning things I would do differently. I know I at least enjoyed the time in my kitchen, hope you will enjoy yours a bit more. Thanks for reading! 

A Little Tango on the tongue!

Blog-checking lines: Our Daring Cooks’ September 2012 hostess was Inma of la Galletika. Inma brought us a taste of Spain and challenged us to make our very own delicious Paella!

OH my, anyone who knows me knows that I love to experience cultures through their foods! I will host entire dinners around a menu complete from one country at a time, so this months challenge fell right into my love of this kind of travel. This month we were challenged to try our hand at Paella. I have made paella only one other time, and that was with a big group for a dinner party, so this time the challenge I added into the dish was to make it small enough so Ashley and I would not be eating Paella for the rest of our lives. I was fortunate enough to find a recipe that I wanted to use that would allow for such a thing. I will add that our hostess offered a suggested menu that was smaller in portion as well. I however went the route of finding one on Foodnetwork.com that was presented by Tyler Florence, Paella with Seafood, Chicken, and Chorizo. Now there were suggestions from our hostess to not use onion because her family reports that it "agglutinate(s) the rice." I had to look this term up to ensure that I knew what it meant, I had suspicions because I had thought I had heard the term before, but was not certain, the term means essentially that the the onion could cause the rice to stick together. Regardless of what the term meant, it seemed something to try, leaving the onion out, though I do love some cooked onion. So the modifications to the paella I made included leaving the onion out, I did not use jumbo shrimp because they are far too expensive, and the little neck clams were not used. I was so excited to use clams, and I was going to have Ashley try them I think maybe for the first time, however I got to the grocery and the clams in my store looked terrible, the young woman behind the counter suggested that I use frozen precooked clams, UM NO WAY! So we were clam less as well. To go along with our paella I made a Spanish olive tapanade from Epicurious that I have made many times before, and LOVE, with toasted baguette to go along with it. Because the dish begged for a salad with a citrus feel I made a grapefruit and avocado salad to go along with everything else. It was all so good, and I had grand plans to cook more paella however the days got away from me and well exhaustion won out. Here though are the photos of my paella experience.

The chorizo and the chicken, a very blurry photo. 

 

This is the rice browning with the tomatoes and the fat from the chorizo.

 

 

 

The liquid added after the rice has browned a bit.

 

No for the meats and shell fish to be added to the pan.

 

 

 

The final outcome was amazing!

 

I could almost lick the screen it all looks so wonderful. I have to share too that my sister was the one who gifted me with both the paella pan for Christmas last year as well as the saffron. What a wonderful gift she gave me, and now I know that I can make paella a regular dish. I will be trying this again very soon, maybe even rabbit the next time, now if I can just find a good place to get rabbit around here. Enjoy your kitchen a bit more! 



Did you know swans mate for life? How about pastry swans...

Blog-checking lines: Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!


Pate a choux is actually one of my very favorite pastry dough to work with. I have used it a few times before and enjoy it. I remember too when I was a kid my mother would make these pastry puffs that were filled with a pineapple cream of some kind; she made them for special sorority meetings and I frankly cannot remember if she made them for anything else. Why did I not ask for those for a birthday one year! Fortunately for me, she made us all wonderful family cook books several years ago, and in there is that recipe, which frankly I should have used for the filling in this month's challenge but for the fact that the husband does not like pineapple. 

This months challenge was pate a choux, specifically a choux shape, with an encouragement to try our hands a swans. I wanted to give the swans a try as for me I have always admired the window of pastry shops in Paris with their assortment of beautiful pastry both shaped and molded. So I gave it a shot. I was very nervous at first as many people in the Daring Bakers Group had reported struggles with their pate a choux. The other issue that I am very aware of is my need for perfection when in the kitchen; I was terribly afraid that I would not make swans that were pretty. After much hemming and hawing over which recipe to use, what filling to make I settled on using the Daring Baker's suggested recipe which I later learned is very similar to the recipe that Jacques Pepin uses for his Paris-Brest. The issue that I had with the Daring Baker's recipe was that there were no times, so I had to "wing" it. My heads baked for about 12 minutes, and my bodies baked for about 45 at the suggested 375. I should share with you as well that I have plans in the near future for my mother's pastries as well as the Paris-Brest from Jacques Pepin; I had a mini Paris-Brest the last time were were in Paris. Regardless here is my attempt at pastry swans. 

These are the bodies and the heads before filling. I did use a pastry bag and two different sized tips for piping. 

These photos were my for the photo shoot shots. They are filled with a chocolate pastry cream. More to come on that. 

This last photo is how I served them that night for dessert with friends after a wonderful dinner out. 

So the question remains, "Do pastry swans mate for life?" Only if you plan on eating two at one sitting, and well shamefully we did. I stuffed mine with a chocolate pastry cream because that is Ashley's favorite. I used the recipe from the book Encyclopedia of Classic French pastries by Susan Whatley. I have used this book many times, there is an earlier post about my croissants on my blog, and I love this book. I was not so happy with the pastry cream, but then I believe that may be my fault. The cream was too runny, which I attribute to my not cooking it long enough. I tried to remedy that by folding in some whipped cream when our guests were here for dessert. I specifically asked for statements from my guests about their impressions on the swans and there were many mmm, and yumms, and delicious; next time I must remember to write down direct quotes. I also took one to a friend at work who celebrated his birthday this past week and he enjoyed it, though I was surprised that the re-crisping made them too crisp, I won't do that again. 

What can you do with pate a choux that I did not do. It can be used for desserts as well as for savory dishes. One of the women in the group filled hers with a tuna mousse I believe, and made it into a crab, it is beyond cute, go to the link on crab to see her post! I think though my absolute favorite is shared by my sister, who may kill me for putting this final photo up. While in Paris we had a little bakery across the street from our hotel, and they had all kinds of pastry, regularly at night we would pick up a few eclair and enjoy them as we were winding down. She had two several times at night. 

She loved them, and ate both in that sitting. They were amazing. You can see the glee in her eyes as she devours them. Now if I could only figure out how to reproduce the pastry cream that was used in those eclair!!! I hope you try your hand at the pate a choux if you have never done so. Hope you enjoy your kitchen a bit more, I know I am enjoying mine

Cornmeal not just for cornbread!

Blog-checking lines: Rachael of pizzarossa was our August 2012 Daring Cook hostess and she challenged us to broaden our knowledge of cornmeal! Rachael provided us with some amazing recipes and encouraged us to hunt down other cornmeal recipes that we’d never tried before – opening our eyes to literally 100s of cuisines and 1000s of new-to-us recipes!

Well here it is my first Daring Cooks Blog!!! I though long and hard about joining daring cooks, wondering would I actually be able to participate in the challenges that the hosts were presenting. With encouragement from my husband and my mom I realized that of course I could do it, I may have successes and I may have disasters, but it would be fun and challenging none the less. So here it is. My very first blog. The challenge this month was cornmeal. For me cornmeal has been ever present in our home, from cornbread to hush puppies and then coating for fish; however that was really the extent of my experience with it so I was interested to try a few things I had not done yet.

My first thought was to give polenta a try and OMG was I glad I did. The polenta recipe I found was from Epicurious, their recipe is skillet polenta with tomatoes and Gorgonzola, I modified it a bit and doctored my recipe a lot. I did follow the base recipe for the polenta however I did not add the fresh basil as I did not purchase it at the store, and instead of Gorgonzola I used a blue cheese that I picked up and actually stirred it in the polenta with some Parmesan and two tablespoons of butter at the end. It was fantastic, the best thing I though initially to come out of this experience. To go with the polenta I prepared some chicken sausage with tomatoes and onions which we spooned over the polenta. It was all so yummy, it was all we could do to not eat the pan of polenta that night!

Creamy blue cheese polenta with sausage tomatoes and onion.

The photo just does not do it justice, and I realize I did not take pictures of the process which is disappointing I must try to do better next time. I did have to ask Ashley to assist some while cooking as I put the sausage and tomatoes on at the same time as the polenta because I wanted both done together. I will certainly be doing this again in the very near future.

My second attempt at the cornmeal challenge was a dessert; which I can report I failed at. I attempted to make one of the desserts that was suggested in the challenge; Poudine Mais. I tried and that is the most important part of this whole challenge. I was so excited, I was trying something new again, and after the polenta success I thought there really is no way I can mess this up. Boy was I wrong! So the things I realized after the fact was that I did not cook the cornmeal long enough. I was not able to find the sultans that the recipe called for so I added yellow raisins. I also felt like the dessert was not sweet enough. Ashley and I talked about this and as this is a dessert not made for American tastes we figured that it may be a less sweet dessert; which was confirmed once I posted my failure to The Daring Kitchen's forums. Regardless I tried it, and here is an actual photo of my failure.



Photos of the process.

Finished product, you can't really see it well in the photo but liquid gathered on the edge of the pudding which makes me think I should have cooked it longer; also I did not top with extra coconut because Ashley does not care for it.

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in the final outcome of the pudding, but I was determined to not end my first challenge on a sour note! My final attempt at the challenge was to try something not only that I had never made, but in all of my years in South Texas and trips to Mexico that I had never eaten! I wanted to make Gorditas, and am I glad that I gave them an attempt. The recipe I used and modified came from a little book I picked up while we were in Florida and at Epcot in the World Showcase Mexico attraction; Recetas De Viejo Mexico (Recipes of Old Mexico). I ended up modifying it a bit as after following the directions I realized I needed more liquid and some lard or butter, so here is the full recipe I used with my modifications in parentheses.

Gorditas

2cups of masa harina

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup (plus two tablespoons) water

(2 tablespoons of unsalted butter)

Mix the ingredients to form a stiff dough (added the extra water and butter when I felt the dough was not coming together well.) Pinch off small portions of dough and form 2-inch balls. Flatten to form a patty about 3 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick (mine were a bit bigger, I went with 3 inch balls and about 4.5 inch wide patties.) Fry in hot oil until golden brown, turn to cook on both sides (I tried to use as little oil as possible in this situation). Drain on paper towels. Make a slit through the middle, open slightly and stuff with filling of choice.

We filled ours with a shredded chicken mix I can pick up at the local grocery store so I cheated a bit here, but I figured I was making Gorditas at home after working all night the night before, this was the best I could do. Regardless of using premade chicken, they were DELICIOUS!!!! We topped them off with lettuce, tomato, and cheese and had them with some refried beans and sliced avocado. We did realize it is important to have a bit of sauce as the gordita shells can be a bit dry, but that was easily remedied and they were so good. Here are some photos of the process.

The prep, cooking, and before stuffed photos.

These were so yummy, and they reheated very well a few days later!

In all I would say that my first Daring Cooks Challenge was a success. I loved the experience of trying to make new things, and eating new things. Ashley enjoyed the experiment as well. I might even continue in my attempts at the cornmeal pudding as it was an interesting concept. I have done some research, and looks like there are many cultures that have a cornmeal pudding of sorts. Anyway, I look forward to the next challenge and hope to have as many delicious results as I did this time around! Enjoy your kitchen a bit more, I know I am enjoying mine! Thanks for reading. 



Day at Hollywood Disney!

So we as a family are currently here in wonderful Orlando Florida spending time together as a family that is often 5.5 hours apart. So it is me and Ashley, Steph her kids and her fiancé Mike, then mom and dad! Let's talk ride and adventures first. We rode the Star Tours first which was a ride based on Star Wars which is one of my favorite series. Then the rest went and rode the The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror then on to the Rock'n' Roller Coaster Staring Areosmith while mom, Kali, and I went shopping around the park. I shop because I so do not most of the rides, yep yep I am a whimp! I do have to say though that the Star Tours which was a 3D ride was awesome. We did the great movie ride which was okay but not necessarily as good as I expected it to be. We participated in a little bit of video gaming when the whole family tried their hands at the Toy Story Midway Mania, Ashley had the top score in our crew with 138,000. We also went to The Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which is a live show spliced with clips from the movie. I though the first part of the show was the best when they used black like and had people dressed in black moving the puppets, then back to the Rock'n Rollercoster as Steph and Mike and the kids wanted another go at it, I should add the kids went a total of two times. Now I think I should talk about the food. So we are staying in one of the park hotels, which is nice, the food though is terrible. So far I have had stuff that would certainly only be considered sustenance. So certainly not something to write home about but certainly something to blog about. The best thing I had today was the beef with broccoli that was for dinner. We are all so very exhausted today but we all had a blast. Tomorrow is on to Epcot and we get to have dinner at the french restaurant; the one dinner most are looking forward to. Shopping has been good. I got a hat, and then noticed that there are some really nice looking things that might be fun to have for the kitchen. Will hopefully keep you posted about tomorrow. Sweet sleeping...

Summer is upon us...

This week while I was off I did a bit of cooking and really got to enjoy the season. I did a recipe I have done before and followed it up with two I had not tried yet. I will share them with you in order of preparation.

Mom and I went to Fredricksburge to Marburger Orchard, which we do every year and have now done for the last 5 years. The trip is always long it takes us about two hours from the house, and we leave before most people are up to get ready for work. We always get out there with in about 10 minutes of opening and this year we had to try for earlier as their crops have been ready earlier then years in the past, and apparently folks are really enjoying going out to pick because they have regularly had to close early this year. We were the third car out there when we arrived at 8:05am and there were more coming behind us. We listened to the same education we have had for the last three years and then we were off. The peaches were not the largest this year but they were still delicious!

The peaches were just wonderful!



My mom and I canned 11 jars of peaches before she had to leave; we did them in light syrup and followed the Ball Canning Book directions. My mom and I split up the remaining 3/4 of the bushel, and sent 1/2 a bushel home with her and kept a 1/4 bushel to use in peach butter. I love peach butter and actually made it the first time with my sister the first time we canned together.

Steph and I canning the peach butter in 2007.

This year I did them on my own. The book is The New Preserves: Pickles, Jams, and Jellies the recipe is for the peach butter, there is also a spiced peach butter version as well. I like the book because it allows one to make a small batch as you get four 1/2 pint jars with about 9 peaches.

Peeled peaches no sugar.

Peach puree with sugar

Peach puree with sugar turning into peach butter.

I do not have a photo from the final canning process but I can say it is wonderful. It tastes like summer. I can not wait to have it on toast, biscuits, and maybe even in a petit fours recipe.

The second recipe I tried was specifically for my mom. I found the recipe on Pinterest.com (I totally feel like the I found it on Pinterest card). My mom is planning on a throwing a beach themed party for her sorority next May. So I have of course been looking for ideas and recipes for her it is like party planning vicariously through my mom. One of the things I found were some sand dollar cookies, they are so pretty, they are courtesy of Monda Rosenberg from the website lcbo.com. Well fortunately they taste as good as they look.









Sand Dollar cookies with almond slivers.

The final thing I made tonight was corn dogs. I made them from scratch; my dad made them for us several times when we were kids and it is a nice memory. I was talking with Ashley today and learned that he has never in his life had corn dogs. Since growing up in England and Norway I am almost certain there was not a Sonic or a State Fair down the road so I wanted to give it a shot and see what he thought. He was not impressed. The thing that he disliked the most was the texture. I liked them okay however I actually prefer the ones that you get at Sonic. While we were talking about the corn dogs before I made them tonight I told him it is a must to have mustard with them. Then while at lunch with my dear friend Emily the three of us were talking and she too said you must have a corn dog with mustard. There is just something about the tartness of mustard that cuts through the fat of the corn dog. I would try them again at least maybe a different recipe or a different cooking method. Again this was a recipe for corn dogs I found on Pinterest.com courtesy of the homesicktexan.blogspot.com, the recipe makes a lot of batter and I most likely could have battered several dogs, but chose to stick with the 8 that the recipe suggests; it's just the two of us and we will have lots of left overs.

Final results of the corn dogs. Ashley is not so keen on me taking his picture while eating.

So three things in a matter of two days. I am hoping to come up with more posts soon however it will not be for a week or two as we are headed to Disney and the in-laws next week. Happy cooking, happy eating. 

Quick Upday on Daring Kitchen.

Okay, so we got thedaringkitchen.com challenge, I am so excited! I can not wait to start cooking, I may have to start today and see what I come up with. No reveal for about a month, how am I going to keep it secret.. I guess I will have to post other things until then!