Empanadas (sort of...)

OK- another theme you may have noticed on this blog is some sort of butter pastry wrapped savory filling. This is another one - spicy empanadas! The blogger also made a cilantro cream, but for the sake of our waistlines and fellow beach-goers I left that out. The dough is weird though - only 4 tablespoons of butter. How am I supposed to work with that???? It's predictably less buttery/flakey and more bread-like. It also rolled out much thicker... not sure if I like that- I could not crimp the sides into pretty little braids like the blogger. It's ugly, but still tasty.


Also I changed the filling. I don't need any more bacon in my life right now so I switched to ground turkey. And some potatoes because I had them lying around. So I don't know if this really counts as an "empanada" anymore, but it was good. I use a LOT of cilantro- an entire bag full.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Why doesn't any grocery store sell small containers of buttermilk? It always goes bad before I can use it all. Sadly that was the case again this week, but at least I made some biscuits! They were strangely not overly-buttery and somewhere inbetween savory and sweet. As in you could eat this for dinner or dessert. I don't have as many fluffy layers as the blogger, but I went and got some biscuit cutters the other day so I won't smash all the layers together when I'm cutting biscuits out with cups.

Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

Oh man this was such a fail I don't even want to post it, but this recipe is so good I'll share it anyways. It all started with a crazy craving for banana cream pie and lo and behold I had a few brown bananas. It was looking good until I made the pastry cream. It looked thick enough in the pan, but it was just messing with me. It was a runny mess. I hoped it would firm up in the fridge - nope! And I made some whipped cream.... which un-whipped itself. And a fat layer of chocolate. But the crust was delicious.

So when I cut the first slice, the cream slid down and so did the whipped cream.... and then the chocolate sort of melted into it. The pie plate was a funky mess of brown, white and pie crust. It still tasted good, but it was the ugliest pie I have ever made/eaten.

Sourdough Bread

I am a potato and bread fiend. I especially love sourdough bread, but was always intimidated by the recipes I found online. You have to make your own little colony of happy bacteria that will make your bread all nice and sour (and also help it rise). I was really turned off by most of the recipes I saw which involved specific proportions of pineapple juice and water. But I found this recipe and I figured I would give it a try. It only takes water and flour and it has specific steps for each day.


I was still sort of scared I might kill someone with my funky bread, but the comments on the daily pages helped sort out what a "bad" starter looked like. It takes a few days, but you can make your own starter too! I made 3 batches of bread, but only the 3rd one really tasted like sourdough. The holes weren't quite there yet and then..... I killed my starter. I killed it so bad I couldn't bring it back to life (which you can usually do quite easily- another reason to make your own starter). It grew mold. It got funky. I threw it away.


I'll have to save this for another time when I have time to bake bread more than once a month and can feed a starter more often. Poor thing, it only lived for a few weeks!

Shrimp Quesadillas and Mango Salsa

(please excuse the bite marks, I was hungry)

Ok I'm addicted to shrimp and making tortillas. It's an addiction and I can't stop. This variation is easy I'm sure you've had it before. It's easy peasy corn tortillas + shrimp and a really great mango jalapeno salsa. The salsa is sweet, salty, smoky and spicy. It was a pain to slice the mango - am I doing it wrong? But I gotta say I'm getting better at making tortillas without a press- instead of using my hands and/or a rolling pin I've been using a pot.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok... sorry again I'm not done with the peanut butter - I had to use almost a whole jar. This might be my new favorite cookie. They're chewy and slightly crunchy and I loovveeee oats. (They look weird in my photo because I flattened them out right when they came out of the oven.)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies

Sorry peanut allergists, I really love peanut butter. I was tasked with getting rid of the "gross" peanut butter, which isn't even "gross" it's just the natural type where the oil separates from the rest of the peanut butter. So I had to make these brownies and I'm really glad I did. It takes the brownie to another level. There's only a slight peanut-ness to them. Delicious and not too sweet.

Spinach Stuffed Shells

This was so easy I'm embarrassed to post it. And yes it's just another variation on lasagna, but it looks cool. It's a stuffed pasta shell! I see them on menus, but I never order it - I don't know why. I want to say this is healthier than a lasagna since there is way more spinach per serving, but don't quote me on that. If you're sick of making plain pasta or lasagna, make this instead.

Ad Hoc Brownies

My sister got me 3 Thomas Keller cookbooks for my birthday, I spent a week (and actually I still do this) reading them before I go to bed. There are a lot of background stories and helpful tips about techniques and equipment. I also found the recipe for the Ad Hoc Brownies online. I've never actually been to Ad Hoc, but it is on my list of places to go.

The brownies were so chocolate-y. I think one slice was enough for most people- it was just so. much. cocoa! (one whole cup!) whew, make sure you share- you will not be able to finish it yourself.

Molten Chocolate Cake

This is a really quick and delicious recipe for molten chocolate cake. You don't need to break out the mixer for this, just stir a few ingredients together and pop it on the oven. Take it out of the oven, let it REST (I was too eager with the first cake and ended up with half a cake on the plate, half in the ramekin).

I made a cinnamon whipped cream while the cake was in the oven- also very easy. Make this the next time you're craving a rich chocolate cake.

Home made Pasta & Scarpetta's tomato sauce

Another home made pasta recipe- this was a bit better than the other one, less egg-y. I also added some dried herbs so there was more flavor. I used the smallest/thinnest setting to make spaghetti, but it clumped up a bit while cooking.

I finally made the tomato sauce from Scarpetta. It's $24 at the restaurant- why not make it at home? I was very skeptical about the amount of oil- it just seemed like it would be an overly greasy sauce. It turned out quite good, but yes a bit greasy. I don't know how they can manage to suspend the oil within the tomato sauce. It was my first time using San Marzano tomatoes (wow they are expensive) and they were very tomato-y even after cooking for half an hour. Often the tomatoes I get, unless I get them from the farmer's market, are taste-less, bland fruits. I'm definitely going to be splurging on a few more can of these great tomatoes.

Homemade corn tortillas and corn meal crusted shrimp

Home made corn tortillas are not hard to make at all- I would say they're a bit time consuming if you don't have a tortilla press though. I alternated between using my hands and a heavy pan to get them thinner.

Corn meal crusted shrimp sort of worked, but I think the original fish would taste better. A lot of the cornmeal ended up falling off the shrimp anyways so it was just... a regular shrimp taco. Sigh... don't worry there's a better shrimp taco recipe coming with a mango salsa!

Chicken Nuggets

Let me say I first made this with the intent of making these chicken nugget replacements healthy (that's lettuce under the chicken!), but the in the process of frying the chicken it turned into sort of deep frying the chicken because I put a bit too much oil in the pan. I also didn't have a meat pounder so I used a glass cup, which seemed to work fine. It was a fast process- easy weekday dinner.

Coffee Ice Cream

This coffee ice cream was awesome, it turned out amazing even though I only used 4 egg yolks. I thought it was just sweet enough, but my sister thought it was too sweet and soft, different ice cream tastes I guess! There is a lot of coffee in this- there are coffee grounds in the ice cream and the cream was steeped with coffee beans too. Another ice cream recipe winner from David Lebovitz.

Apple Pie, Apple Jam and Apple Tart

It's raining apples. Let me start from the beginning.... Ilya requested an apple tart for his birthday so I bought a few apples, which turned out to be too much. So I bought a few more apples to make miniature apple pies... and I STILL had some apples left over so I made some apple jam.

My first time making jam and despite boiling ALL the peels and leftover apple bits my jam would not thicken. A night in the fridge helped a little, but it was still a soupier jam than I would've liked. I have to work on this- Summer 2011 is going to be the summer of jam for me.

The pies were delicious and cute! The apple tart really was the simplest apple tart ever. There's very little sugar in the apples so it was rather tart, not sure if I like that or not... But if you find yourself with a lot of apples, give these recipes a try.

Peruvian Chicken

Peruvian Chicken, it should have its own facebook page. There are a few Peruvian chicken places in LA, the most popular being Pollo A La Brasa Western. The chicken isn't very smokey despite being cooked in a wood oven, but the chicken is tender and you have to get their delicious green sauce made of aji peppers.

This is similar only in name. The marinade is really good- made mostly of mint, cilantro and jalapenos. I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated and I'll type it up soon. You also cook it with a half-empty can of beer .... uh shoved up the chicken. My first time doing that... my chicken was so small it barely fit. Also be sure you put some extra pans under your chicken, mine spilled everywhere and I spent a fun time scrubbing all the bits off.

Vegan coconut cake

One of my favorite cakes is the vegan coconut cake at the Golden Mean Cafe, introduced to me by an old roommate. She also managed to get me the recipe for the cake! Still have to figure out the recipe for the frosting so I whipped a batch of strawberry butter cream and, for fun, colored it pink. It tasted similar, but not exaccctttllyy like the real cake... time to experiment!

3 cups of spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbspn vanilla extract
1 tbspn coconut extract
2 cups vegetable cane sugar
2 cups cold water
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tbspn apple cider vinegar

bake 350 degrees.

and now... all the photos I didn't shoot

I lost my camera for a few weeks (later found thankfully) and here's a quick list of what I made and ate:

Chewy Pretzel Bites. These taste pretty much like Wetzel's Pretzels. They take a bit of time to make, but it makes a LOT of pretzels. Eat the day you make them or else they turn into stale bits of dough, no good.

Chocolate Kettle Corn. I used my leftover popping corn to make this gluttonous snack. There's butter, sugar and chocolate. You can't go wrong. It's good and it's bad.

Breakfast Pizza. bacon + eggs??? So good! Didn't try the dessert pizza, but it looks drop dead delicious as well.

Victorian Sponge Cupcakes. Not quite as light as I expected, but a good simple cake with a jam filling.

Houston Style Carnitas

You probably get that I'm very inexperienced at cooking meat by now, but I was even able to make these really, really good carnitas. I did exactly what the recipe said and even though it looked and smelled unappetizing in the beginning, I let it keep cooking and by the 2nd hour it was looking like real carnitas.


I added some guacamole, onions, cilantro and lime. Pickled red onions would be a great addition. Make this, impress your friends. (I forgot my camera so these are iphone photos courtesy of Ilya)

Jambalaya

Let me preface this by saying I rarely make rice in a pot- I mean I always use a rice cooker. That might explain how my "jambalaya" pretty much turned into a risotto. I guess I had too much liquid in the pot... but it was still good. Oh and those burned black bits? That happens when you forget to stir the rice and there's a nice burned layer of rice at the bottom of the pot... which you then accidentally stir up.... at least it still tasted okay.