Empanadas

Dear Turkey,

Remember when we lived in the same town and you used to take me out to lunch all the time? And a lot of the rest of time you would invite me over for lunch? Yeah, that was great.

I moss you,
Tofu



Just kidding. Now that I must depend on myself for lunch, I have a lot more to say about it. In fact, I've been dreaming about this lunch project ever since I had my baby, but I was waiting a few crucial elements before I could try it:
1) daycare
2) no work
3) a little friend we like to call Veggie Nugget
    3a) little Veggie Nugget taking a trip to Wegmans with our parents' credit card

Actually, this is a cheap (I could have even used my own money), fast, and tasty project; I labeled it "canning" because, even though I didn't "can" the empanadas, I made them to freeze. Now I can microwave a couple for lunch any time I feel like it's not safe to light a burner in case my baby tries to blow us into space.

The recipe is inspired (aka mostly plagiarized) by one of my favorite blogs (this girl owns an empanada truck, so she knows what she's doing). I developed a taste for empanadas during my formative cosmopolitan years at this totally awesome restaurant. My heart skips a beat just looking at their website.

Here's how it's done (for 50 empanadas; trust me -- this whole thing only took a couple of hours):

you start with an obligatory "ingredients" picture

Then, in a big pot, combine two red onions (diced), two or three cloves of garlic (minced, or even from a jar!), olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, nutmeg (few T), and red pepper flakes (few T).

Gabrielle: is this what you meant by a "tad" of butter?

after sauteing that for a few minutes, add 4lbs of spinach (I used frozen), tons of lemon juice, 16oz of cottage cheese, and 12 oz of feta

Cook that until the cheese just melts and then crack four eggs into the pot, and stir until eggs are hot enough to be just cooked. You may need to cook/drain off liquid at this point; it may feel wrong to lose this great liquid, but it will make the stuffing way easier (you could use it as the liquid in a great pizza dough).

then it's time to stuff them! I used Goya frozen empanada wraps (no shame!); you will see that there are two colors

Secrets:
1) use as much filling as you can without any leaking out
2) close the wrappers by pinching your fingers like it's your job
3) it will go faster if you have a Veggie Nugget to help you and you're watching Mean Girls

bake them on stones or cookie sheets covered with parchment paper, 375 degrees for 18 minutes (until just starting to brown)

when cool, freeze -- don't worry Husband Mother Earth -- I am going to re-use those bags!

taste test

I moss you,
Tofu