Category: Baking

Baking

Old El Paso Refried Beans,Chicken,Cheese Empanadas with Creamy Lime Cilantro Dip

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Here is another recipe I developed , incorporating Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans.These Latin inspired hand pies, empanada’s, can be filled with many sweet and savory fillings.Using  Old El Paso Refried beans with chicken and cheese add an extra creaminess. I used premade empanada dough discs , which can be found in the  Latin food freezer section in specialty supermarkets. You can also use a basic premade refrigerated  pie dough. Or if you have the time, patience, and skill, try making your own empanada dough. Either way your guests will enjoy these snacks, or even a meal in one. Play with sizes to determine your portions or style of serving.  The accompanying sauce has  a zesty coolness  of cilantro and lime. Perfect for dipping.

Empanada’s can be baked or fried. In this recipe I fried them. If you fry at the optimal temperature( around 350 degrees minimum), the result is perfect and food is not greasy. I love how frying blisters the dough and makes it perfectly crunchy and flakey. If you choose to bake your empanada, bake in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes on a silicone mat lined baking sheet. Be sure to brush tops with a bit of oil.

So you see the methods and options for empanada’s are endless. Savory, sweet, vegan, meat filled. Enjoy. And remember using a product like Old El Paso Refried beans adds more creaminess and goes with a multitude of filling options.

 *Disclosure

This is an endorsement of product from General Mills/ Old El Paso in which I developed a few recipes for compensation.

 

 

Old El Paso Refried Beans,Chicken,Cheese Empanadas with Creamy Lime Cilantro Dip
 
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Serves: 10
Ingredients
  • Empanadas
  • 10 premade empanada discs or ready made pie crusts cut into rounds( approximately 4 premade rolled crusts)
  • 1 cup boiled chicken breast, diced or shredded
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
  • ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
  • ½ cup Old El Paso Traditional refried beans
  • ½ cup shredded mozzarella
  • Vegetable Oil for deep frying.( amount varies on size of deep fryer or skillet)
  • Creamy Cilantro Lime Dip
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • ¾ cup cilantro chopped
  • ½ small onion minced
Instructions
  1. For Empanadas
  2. Heat deep fryer to 350 º
  3. In a small bowl mix diced chicken, chili powder, salt, pepper, and garlic.
  4. Take a small rounded tablespoon of seasoned chicken and place atop disc.
  5. Add a bit of cheese, and refried beans.
  6. Do not overstuff.
  7. Take each end of dough to fold over into half moon shape.
  8. Seal edges shut by pressing dough together, and then laying down on flat surface and using a fork to press in edges to seal.
  9. Fry empanadas a few at a time. Do not overcrowd fryer.
  10. Drain on paper towel. Keep warm on a parchment lined baking sheet in a 200 º oven.
  11. Creamy Cilantro Lime Dip
  12. In a small food processor or bowl/cup of immersion blender, add all sour cream, lime, cilantro, and onion.
  13. Pulse to blend.
  14. Refrigerate until ready to serve with empanadas.
Notes
You can use pre made refrigerated pie crust. If you make your own empanada dough, try coloring it with annatto. You can vary size of discs, empanadas, just remember not to overfill. You can use leftover rotisserie chicken, or other meats as a filling with Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans, and Cheese of your choice.
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Green and Blacks Toffee Milk Chocolate and Pretzel Cookies aka Victoria and Albert’s

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The vision of crushed pretzels  in some sort of sweet pastry raced through my mind as I sat in a seminar recently. As my colleagues jockeyed for attention and notice in those forced group games, I kept dreaming of pretzels. I had a big box of them sitting on my kitchen table. What to do? I then saw my Green and Blacks Milk Chocolate Toffee bar, and this cookie was born. I’ve seen other variations of a pretzel cookies on the internet, but ,mine is different as I incorporate the ground pretzels into the cookie dough, not just plunking some pretzel on top. The rich toffee and chocolate merge excellently with the salty, crunchy pretzel. When I think of toffee I think of England, and when I think of pretzels I think of Germany. So thus, I christened these cookies Victoria and Albert’s, the greatest Anglo/ Deutsche pairing ever. Yes. I’m a nerd who watches too much British Drama.


Green and Blacks Toffee Milk Chocolate and Pretzel Cookies aka Victoria and Albert's
 
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Recipe type: cookie
Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups of ground pretzel sticks ( reserve ¼ cup for topping)
  • 1½ sticks of unsalted butter room temp
  • 1½ cups dark brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 Green and Blacks Toffee Bar chopped
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Line Cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  3. In a blender grid the pretzel sticks. The texture should be medium coarse. Set aside.
  4. In a bowl of stand mixture, cream the butter and brown sugar for 3 minutes with a paddle attachment.
  5. Add the eggs, cinnamon and vanilla extract and continue to mix.
  6. Scrape down mixture for sides to thoroughly blend.
  7. Add the flour, 1¼ cups of pretzel crumbs and baking soda. Beat with paddle another 2 minutes, scraping down sides as necessary.
  8. Add the chocolate and mix lightly in mixture.
  9. Make rounded spoons of dough, no larger than a walnut . Carefully pick up up dough and dip top in the remaining ¼ cup of ground pretzels.
  10. Place on baking sheet. spaced apart. 12 to sheet.
  11. Bake until cookie spreads,crisp around edges and golden, approx 8 min ( varies by oven). Do not overcook.
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Eros Nests with Green & Black’s Chocolate

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Last year , after my lay off, I interviewed for what sounded as my dream job, as a brand ambassador for a food  marketing project. I didn’t get the gig, but was happy when the agency reached out to me to see if I was willing to sample some Green & Blacks and enter their contest. Of course I said an enthusiastic yes. Who turns down chocolate? In addition to sampling a variety of amazing chocolates , I was asked to enter a contest. The deadline was looming quick, and I needed to put something together. I hesitate with contests, because I never win, and really don’t promote myself and pimp myself out  enough  to get the votes. This contest was great because the Green & Blacks Team would pick the semi finalists, and then the voting would begin. Unfortunately I didn’t make semi finals, but that doesn’t matter as I made a co workers smile and talk about this treat . And that’s really all that matters, isn’t it? Because as my catering slogan goes… “Coco Cooks Food That Makes You Happy”. If you’re wondering what happened to all the chocolate, Certain Someone ate the majority of it , before I could even take a photograph or enjoy them. From what I did partake of,I can conclude,it was that good.

The inspiration behind these  Eros Nests came from a coworker celebrating Ramadan. She was trying to make simple syrup for a dessert made with shredded phyllo to break her fast.  I saw the shredded phyllo in my grocery adventures calling my name and decided to play around with it incorporation the Green & Blacks. I also had plenty of honey on hand that I wanted to infuse with spice. Honey, spices, nuts, and chocolates are all aphrodisiacs , hence the name Eros Nests , as they look like tiny birds nests. On friend on Facebook described it as an amped up deconstructed Nutella Turnover. I lost my original notes on this, but its easy enough to remember without notes and makes a stunning presentation when entertaining.

Eros Nests with Green & Black's Chocolate
 
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Miniature decadent desserts of chocolate, candied hazelnuts, chili infused honey, and shredded phyllo.
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • .5 lbs of Katafi dough/ shredded phyllo.
  • 4 oz of melted unsalted butter
  • ⅛ tsp of ground cinnamon
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 1 bar Green & Blacks Baking Chocolate with 72% Cocoa
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ cup honey
  • 1 dried Thai chili
  • 1 cup skinned hazelnuts
  • ½ cup brown sugar
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Carefully break apart half a package of shredded phyllo and shred into a bowl.
  3. Add melted butter, cinnamon and cayenne pepper.
  4. Take a 12 cup muffin pan and carefully form nests with shredded phyllo. Bake until deep golden and crispy. Approximately 25 minutes.
  5. Remove the pan from oven and let cool on rack. Carefully remove after 15 minutes from pan and continue to cool on rack.
  6. In a pot add sugar . honey, water and dried Thai chili. Bring to a rapid boil and reduce. Simmer for 15 minutes until slightly reduced. Remove from heat and let cool.
  7. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler.
  8. Place a baking sheet under cooling rack, where nests are resting. Carefully brush the simple syrup over the nests to. You want the crunch to remain, but you want a good soaking. Let excess drip to pan beneath.
  9. Carefully brush the melted chocolate over the nests interior. Dribble some down the sides for artistic effect.
  10. Let cool until chocolate is completely set. To rush this you can place in the refrigerator until hardened a bit.
  11. In a sauce pan, toast the hazelnuts. Remove from pan and set aside.
  12. In the same sauce pan caramelize  the brown sugar gently over a med high heat. You don't want to burn the sugar. Add hazelnuts quickly when caramelized and bubbly, toss and coat in pan .
  13. Pour onto parchment lined baking sheet or a Silpat to cool and harden.
  14. Break apart pieces of the candied hazelnuts to place inside the nests.
  15. Serve for dessert, with cheese course, wines, cognac, and coffee.
Notes
You will need a Silpat 12 cup muffin tin
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 Disclosure:

 I received free product from Green & Blacks in order to provide my honest opinions.

Kumquat Confit and Kumquat Pistachio Palmiers

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The other day I was in Stanley’s and saw a nice punnet of kumquat’s staring at me. Do you look at some foods and think back to your first taste, which may or may not have been pleasant? That’s how I felt with kumquat’s. I wanted to love the cute miniature citrus fruit , but a distant memory of just eating one raw off someones little tree, as child always held me back. Well I’m a big girl now, 43 years of age, to be exact and it was time to acquaint myself with Kumquats again. Surely if  I cooked them down to a confit , almost candy like, they will go down well? And yes they did. Talk about a burst of sunshine and citrus finished with a hint of bourbon and cinnamon. The kumquats picked me up and tickled my tongue, as I ate it on hot buttered bread and black coffee. Preserved kumquat’s are better than orange marmalade in my opinion.The flavor more pronounced, as it’s really all concentrated in the peel.

Certain Someone is not a big jam , preserve type. He loves his  charcuterie, black coffee , good bread and butter on lazy weekend mornings. So while I made a small batch, I wanted more applications for my confit. I had small sheets of commercial puff pastry in my freezer and nuts in the cupboard.

I took my kitchen shears and cut up a small amount of the candid kumquats  to smaller pieces, as the confit was made from kumquat halves. I spread them over the defrosted puff pastry, added a mixture of pistachios and  raw sugar which had been blended to a coarse crumb, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I then carefully rolled them up on either end, to meet in the middle.  The rolls were sliced and dipped in more of the pistachio sugar crumb and baked on a parchment lined baking sheet at 375 degrees until golden. Careful not to burn the bottoms as the sugars from the confit and  sugar crumb will caramelize. Remove from oven and let cook. You will have a nice tea or coffee time snack.


Kumquat Confit
 
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Candied preserved Kumquats
Author:
Recipe type: condiment, preserves
Ingredients
  • 1 lb of kumquats, washed, halved, and seeded.
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon of Bourbon
  • * apple core
Instructions
  1. Halve and seed the kumquats.
  2. Place in a heavy bottomed pot with apple core.
  3. Add sugar.
  4. Slowly bring up the temp and stir and mash the fruit into the sugar until it starts to liquify slight. You don't want to burn the sugar or cook to fast.
  5. Stir in cinnamon.
  6. Cook on med heat until all the ingredients start to liquify and boil.
  7. Reduce heat until the boil is more like a simmer. Stir periodically and cook for several minutes until the fruit becomes more transparent and candied. This may take about 10 minutes more or less.
  8. The longer the cook time, the more candied the fruit. You want to make sure its spreadable and not to thick.
  9. Turn off the heat.
  10. Remove apple core.
  11. Stir in the Bourbon . The confit will sizzle a bit with the addition of the liquor.
  12. Place in clean jars.
  13. Let cool and cover
  14. Keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.
Notes
The apple core, loaded with natural pectin aides the thickening.
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Classic Stracciatella for a Beautiful Spring Day

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Certain Someone is a simple man in his dessert tastes. So naturally the divine duo of a rich vanilla based custard , with a semi sweet chocolate  ribbon stream  stracciato ( torn apart) while churning, is bound to be a favorite.  I decided to serve this up for the Easter holiday following a simple fresh slow grilled ham , pan fried leeks and potatoes, and a pea and carrot medley. Even stuffed , Certain Someone made room for two servings of ice cream.

I used to think Certain Someone would be a bit pretentious asking for Stracciatella in American Ice Cream parlors.It’s the European in him of course. But it’s more than differentiating between the naive assumption of  thinking this is something akin to the chunky American Chocolate Chip ice cream. Stracciatella was invented not to long ago, in 1962 by Enrico Panattoni at La Marianna, in the picturesque city of Bergamo in Northern Italy, not far from Milano.It’s based on the Italian egg drop soup of the same name, where beaten eggs are added to a hot broth. The chocolate is more interspersed into the ice cream and broken up into little bits, creating a alternating smooth and creamy yet crunchy sensation on the tongue. Stracciatella definitely has more finesse than the good ole chocolate chip from the USA.

You can find the recipe here. This was adapted from the renown David Lebovitz, who most definitely knows a thing or two about ice cream.