Thanks!

L&J

Jesse’s mom gave me the recipe for these delicious savory empanadas!  They are pretty labor-intensive but trust me they are worth it; each one is a little pocket of delicious goodness.   These are Columbian style– they are like little arepas stuffed with filling and fried, as opposed to other styles of empanadas that have more of a bready or doughy crust.

First, follow the arepa recipe here for the crust. Once you’ve made the arepa dough, cover and set aside in the refrigerator.

To make the filling, cut three peeled small potatoes into bite size pieces, around the diameter of a dime.   Put the cut potato in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil.  Cook the potato for about fifteen minutes after boiling, or until fork tender.  Drain and set aside.  In a skillet, heat up two or three teaspoons of olive oil and sweat some a few cloves of garlic and a small, finely minced onion for a few minutes.  Add a cup or so of frozen peas, a finely diced tomato, a handful of diced cilantro, and the potatoes.   Cook for another five minutes over medium heat and season with salt, pepper, and a little bit of hot pepper if you would like.  Remove the filling from the heat and let it cool.

While the filling is cooling, you can make the Aji: the dipping sauce for the empanadas.  Juice three limes and zest one.  Combine the juice and zest with one bunch of finely chopped green onions and one finely chopped jalapeno pepper.  Add a tablespoon of white vinegar and a pinch of salt.  Refrigerate while you stuff and fry the empanadas.

Now that you have the dough and the filling ready, you just need to assemble! Get out a piece of saran wrap or a plastic bag and roll out a piece of the dough in between two layers of it. The plastic will prevent it from sticking to the rolling pin or your table. Then take a tablespoon or so of the stuffing and place in the middle of the round that you have rolled out. Fold the dough in half (still on the saran wrap) and squeeze shut. Here’s a link to a really great video that shows epanada makers in action; this is way more useful than any description!

Now that you’ve formed these guys, get ready to fry them. You’ll need a big pot with tall walls; look for the one you boil a ton of pasta or make lots of soup in. The oil in this guy is going to get HOT and splash everywhere; you don’t want that oil on your hands or face and the pot will prevent this from happening. Pour four inches of oil in your pot (canola or vegetable oil preferred– these oils can get hottest without burning) and heat over medium heat until around 360 degrees; or just under the smoke point. Then drop in a few empanada; just enough so that they are not touching each other or the sides of the pan. If you crowd them they will touch each other and stick and it will be a big mess. Their filling will pop out and ruin the whole batch. Do not touch them while they are in the pan! Just let them hang out and brown! Once they are nice and golden brown (a few minutes) pop them out with a spider and lay them on a paper towel. Let them all cool down and then eat with aji!

So these take forever to make and are difficult until you get your groove down but they are so good and your friends will all be so impressed that you made delicious treats for them. You can make the filling and aji in advance to break it up. I suggest that you make a giant batch because everyone is going to want more than one once they hear that you made these!

These are so easy they barely count as cooking, but they taste really good and for one of those days where you don’t feel like spending a ton of time in the kitchen, why not make make some quick comfort food from scratch?  You can cook these in about 15 minutes, and they have a really great homemade taste and texture to them.

Saute two finely minced shallots (click here for a shallot mince tutorial) for a minute or so in some butter.  Add a bunch of spinach and cook until wilted, and then set the shallot and spinach mixture aside.  Then grab three large potatoes or five small potatoes.  Give them a rough peel and then grate them with a large sized grater.  Squeeze the grated potatoes with a paper towel or cheesecloth to get out any excess moisture; you don’t want a runny or mushy pancake.  Mix the potatoes and spinach mixture together and add two beaten eggs, salt and pepper to taste, and a tablespoon of all-purpose flour.

Add a tiny amount of canola oil to a non-stick frying pan– you’ll want 1/4 teaspoon max.  Once the pan is really hot; almost to the smoke point, you’ll start to add the pancakes.  Just form the pancakes with your hands, they should be about the size of a baseball in diameter.  Cook until golden brown on one side and then flip.  They are best served with applesauce, sour cream, or Greek yogurt!

I always struggled with polenta; when I tried to pan fry it it was always too thin, or I had too much oil and it would totally disintegrate. I experimented this time and came up with a great recipe that is easy to make and tastes great! It takes a bit of prep, but it’s not hard, you just have to be patient!

When you’re going to be frying the polenta later, you want to make it really thick to begin with, so if you have a regular polenta recipe, throw it out. Get three parts of boiling water going on a cooktop and add one part polenta slowly and stirring constantly and a pat of butter. We used about a cup of polenta. Cook for about 10 to 20 minutes– until the consistency is thick, like a paste. Your spoon should stand up in it. Stir in a pinch of salt and pepper and half cup or so of parmesan cheese. Take off the heat and pour it out like a slab onto a cutting board; lay wax paper on top and place a heavy object on top of the wax paper. If you put wax paper on top of the polenta, it will make two smooth surfaces (the top and the bottom) to make frying easier. Put this in the refrigerator to cool.

Once the polenta slab has cooled, cut into triangles. Heat a teaspoon or so of olive oil over medium heat in a nonstick frying pan and place your triangles inside. Move the pan around a little so they don’t stick, and use a good spatula to flip! I only do one or two at a time and keep the rest warm in a 200 degree oven once they have been pan fried.

The fried olive sauce is the easiest and most delicious way to dress up this polenta! Chop up a handful of black olives and a clove or two of garlic and add them to a few teaspoons of olive oil over medium heat. After they’ve cooked up for a few minutes, add salt, pepper, and a two or three finely chopped tomatoes. Finnish with the juice of a lemon and some minced fresh basil and take off the heat to serve!

We served this over a bed of wilted arugula (arugula, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil left to hang out for thirty minutes while everything else cooked) and it was delicious! We laid down the arugula, then the polenta triangles (that were being kept at slightly above room temp in the oven) and then the hot fried olive sauce! So delicious and a really great treat.

Breakfast potatoes are one of those things that you think are a no-brainer until you try to fry a raw potato for the first time. With a few simple steps, you can make a delicious and easy breakfast that’s a healthy update to traditional fried potatoes.

Before you put the potatoes on the pan, you’ll need to partially cook them, or they will take forever and be crunchy in the middle and burned on the outside. You can either quarter and boil them for twenty minutes (start with the potatoes in cold water and then bring to a boil) or microwave for three to five minutes (until they are partially cooked). I like the boil method, as it gives a more even cooking. Strain the potatoes and rinse in cool water. While they are cooling, roughly chop a handful of parsley, an onion (in large pieces), and a few cloves of garlic and heat up some canola or olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Chop the potatoes as small or large as you would like. Throw the onion and garlic in the pan and saute until translucent and then add the potatoes. Add salt, pepper, paprika and chili pepper in your preferred proportions. We added a package of vegan sausage, but if you are meat eaters, feel free to add regular sausage and fry with the potatoes for another few minutes, until all are brown.

Stir in the chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. We served with a bit of toast and coffee! This is a filling breakfast– it has carbohydrates and protein so you don’t really need much else. We used four small potatoes and a small package of veggie sausage and still had leftovers for each of us for the next day, so plan accordingly!

This was one of my favorite recipes when I was a kid; my parents would buy them from the Italian store! We would eat them with our hands as a snack. These are also great with tomato sauce on top as part of a larger meal, or you can make them small and serve them as an appetizer. They are so delicious and are both kid friendly and impressive for an adult dinner!

I used leftover risotto to make these; this is really the best way to go. If you don’t have any risotto in the fridge, make some arborio rice in the portion you would like for the arancini. You’re going to want it very starchy so the balls hold toghter, so stir the rice constantly as it’s cooking and add the vegetable broth a little bit at a time as it boils off. Once the rice is done cooking, let it cook in the fridge completely. Once the rice is cool, stir in one egg, a half cup of defrosted frozen peas, and a bit of salt and pepper. Chop some mozzeralla cheese into half inch cubes and set aside while you heat two inches of canola oil in a deep pan.

Take the rice mixture and make a little nest and tuck the cheese inside. Cover with more rice and make a ball and then roll in Italian breadcrumbs. Once the oil is hot– I put it on medium-hot heat, put the ball on a metal strainer spoon and place in the oil until golden brown. Roll the ball in the oil once (don’t futz with it or it will break open) and then take out with your metal straining spoon and onto a paper towel. Let these cool for a minute and then cover with this red sauce!

We served these with our favorites– vegetarian chicken and fried broccoli, but you could make these with any meal! As I said earlier, these are great to make a ton and have for snacks or make them smaller for party appetizers.

Jesse requested a rice recipe last weekend. He is away for a few weeks this summer working on his masters and has been subject to bad college cafeteria food; I told him when he came back to visit I would make him whatever he wanted. Apparently the dining hall doesn’t have any “fresh food” or “vegetarian options” and “all their salad dressings are nasty.” Lucky for him I made a ton of food as usual and sent him back with leftovers!

Start by finely chopping a large onion into pieces no larger than a grain of rice. Then finely slice two stalks of fresh lemon grass (to prepare lemon grass, peel off the outer leaves and only use the part that is fleshy, not the woody part), grate or finely chop two square inches of ginger, zest and juice two limes, finely chop a few cloves of garlic, and finely chop a small hot pepper. Also set aside a pinch of cumin, coriander, and salt to taste.

In a large pot, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onions and cook until they are translucent. Add a cup and a half of rice and the spices and stir. Cook for a minute. Add the lime juice and three cups of vegetable stock and cook on high heat uncovered until the stock is at the same level as the rice (should be about ten minutes). Cover and turn the heat to low until the stock is absorbed (should be about fifteen minutes). Do not stir the whole time!

Garnish with lime wedges. We served ours with tofu in soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and asparagus in honey and sesame. It was all at room temperature, perfect for summer!

Here’s an easy risotto recipe that has a lot of flavor and color! We roasted the peppers ourselves, but you could easily use roasted red peppers from a jar or can to cut down on preparation time. It takes about an hour to cook, but most of that time is just the rice sitting on the stove top, so you can spend time doing other things while the meal is cooking! We made a lot of risotto so we would have leftovers to make rice balls with. For two people you would want half of this recipe.

To make the roasted peppers, turn the oven to broil for five minutes to heat it up. Take four large red, orange, or yellow whole peppers of the same size and place them on a foil lined cookie sheet in your oven. Broil until completely burned on each side, rotating every five minutes. You want the peppers to cook evenly, so make sure they are placed evenly under your broiler.
Once they are charred, quickly remove them and place them in a paper bag for ten minutes. The moisture from inside the peppers will help steam their skins off.

While the peppers are roasting and steaming in the bags, heat up around eight cups (you may not use it all) of vegetable stock in a large saucepan. Finely chop one onion and a few cloves of garlic (pieces no larger than a grain of rice) and zest and juice a lemon. Finely chop a handful of parsley. By now the peppers should be cool. Peel off their skins and remove the charring. Slice into strips and then chop the strips into pieces no larger than a grain of rice.

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and add the onions and garlic. Cook until they are translucent and then add the rice (around two cups). Add some white wine and the lemon juice and zest. Cook for another three or four minutes. Add the peppers and then start ladling in the broth (which should be hot by now) a cup or so at a time, stirring frequently.

Add more liquid every five or so minutes as it absorbs. Add some salt and pepper to taste. At the last two minutes, stir in some parsley and Parmesan cheese (about a half a cup or so) of each and stir quickly for a creamy consistency. Garnish with a parsley sprig and lemon zest.

This is best served fresh! We made so much because we wanted to use for rice balls (recipe coming up) but you can eat as-is as leftovers if you’d like! Also, red peppers are great in sandwiches or salads, with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and they are much cheaper to make on your own than to buy!

We’ve been wanting to make this FOREVER and I finally got the stuff together to do it the other day. It’s a great complete meal but it’s not an authentic Southeast-Asian satay seeing as how we didn’t grill it or even use skewers. We did marinade the tofu in a pretty typical marinade and serve with the sauces and accompaniments you would see in a Thai restaurant. This makes plenty of food and the prep can be done ahead of time; I did the pickled vegetables the night before so they could really soak up the flavor, and you could do the same with the tofu!

To make the pickled vegetables, get a large cucumber, two large carrots, and half a pepper. You can of course vary these as you like, but cucumber should be the main ingredient. You’re going to brunoise all the vegetables, essentially cutting them into small, equally sized cubes. Here’s a video; it’s not in English but it illustrates very well how to brunoise a vegetable.

Place the vegetables into a seal-able jar or tupperware container. Cover with equal parts rice wine vinegar and water and add a good amount of salt, pepper, and sugar. Smash a few cloves of garlic and a thumb sized portion of ginger and throw those in as well; if you’re not pickling for a few days/weeks, finely mince the ginger and garlic.

Next, slice your tofu and lay in a pan to prepare for the marinade. To make the marinade, combine a good amount of tumeric with a pinches of cumin, hot pepper, coriander, fennel seeds and enough soy sauce to cover the tofu. You can also add garlic, brown sugar and sesame oil if you happen to have any of these kicking around. Let this sit for as long as possible and then drain the liquid.

You can buy peanut sauce or make your own. I make my own, but do it the the easy way but you can make it on a saucepan and it will have a better flavor. The quick way is to microwave some peanut butter and mix it with equal parts hot water, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I also add about a tablespoon or two of sesame seeds and a dash of cayenne pepper. Whisk it all together until it combines.

To fry the tofu, get your pan really hot and add a bit of oil. Lay the tofu in and shake it around a little so it doesn’t stick. If the tofu sits in one place for too long, it will stick to the pan and will get really nasty. I like to use the combination of shimmying the pan around and moving it a little bit with the spatula/turner. Once you’ve cooked these to a brown on both sides, you can broil them a bit to get them more brown, or just leave as is.

We served ours with green onions and sesame seeds on top and sides of avocado and jasmine rice! It was delicious and enough to serve about five people. If you wanted a more authentic satay, you could skewer the tofu and grill (or add the skewers later!)

We meant to make strawberry cupcakes, but I procrastinated a little bit and the strawberries started to go bad– oops. I still wanted to make cupcakes, though, so I improvised big time and decided to use some lemons we had kicking around. These came out great– they are dense but moist, and the lemon gives them a great kick. The frosting, though, is the best part; it has the consistency of whipped cream but it tastes like cream cheese. I really heaped on the frosting because it’s so good; this recipe will give you the right proportions to give each cupcake a generous amount of frosting!

Preheat your oven to 350. Start with one half of a cup of butter at room temperature cut into small pieces and mix with two thirds of a cup of granulated sugar until you have stiff peaks. Again, I don’t have a mixer so I whisked by hand and it was a pain but it can be done! Add three extra large eggs, one at a time, and beating each so the mixture is fluffy. Beat in a teaspoon vanilla extract and the zest of three large lemons.

In a separate bowl, whisk together one and a half cups all purpose flour, one and a half teaspoons baking powder, and a teaspoon of coarse salt. Also get a half of a cup of whole milk ready. Mix alternately the milk and dry goods with the butter/sugar mixture in about four or five parts. Don’t over mix.

Take the lemons that you zested and slice into wheels and then small wedges, about the size of a quarter. Remove any white parts (the skin/zest– you just want the inside fruit). Fill your cupcake cups with the batter and insert the little wedge; cover with more batter. Don’t overfill your cups. Bake for 18 minutes; they will be a little goozy in the middle from the lemon, it’s fine, they will firm up when they sit. Let them cool on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, start with an eight ounce package of cream cheese at room temperature. Add two thirds of a cup of granulated sugar, a pinch of coarse salt, and a tiny dash of vanilla (if you add too much it will discolor your icing; another option is to buy clear vanilla extract). Beat these until light and fluffy– stiff peaks! Again; it can be done with a hand whisk. In another large bowl, pour a cup and half of heavy whipping cream and beat or whisk until it is whipped cream. It will take a few minutes; make sure it really stiff or it won’t pipe well! Fold the two together until just mixed and chill for twenty minutes.

Once the icing is chilled and the cupcakes are cool, put the icing in a pastry bag (or a ziplock back with the tip of one end cut off) and pipe on to the cupcakes. We added yellow sugar, but you could add lemon zest or more lemon wedges! Pop these back in the fridge; they are liable to melt if left out and should just be pulled out before eating! Here’s a cross section so you can see the inside. Happy baking!