Quick Bean and Cheese Empanadas

This is another in my series of quick dinners. I was looking for a quick meal tonight, but couldn’t find anything to eat; I was even out of lean cuisines! I had plenty of ingredients around, but for the most part not the kind of things you could put together into a dish. Then I saw some refried beans on my counter and remembered that I had a part of a package of puff pastry in my freezer, so I set about thawing it and making myself a quick dinner. I threw these together from things I had around the kitchen, and the filling can be easily changed to just about anything. I thought these came out pretty tasty, especially when I served them up with some salsa verde left over from this post.

Bean and Cheese Empanadas

Makes 3

1/3 of a sheet of puff pastry
¾ cup refried beans
1 cup shredded cheese
¼ cup red enchilada sauce
2 Tbs chopped Vidalia onions
2 tsp chopped garlic
¾ tsp cumin
¼ tsp chili powder
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp ground coriander
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp olive oil
Flour for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the oil in a pan with the onions and garlic. Sautee over medium heat until onions become translucent and garlic begins to brown.

2. Mix the beans, cheese, enchilada sauce, garlic and onions, and the spices in a bowl, set aside.

3. Cut the puff pastry into three equal squares, about three inches on a side. On a well floured surface roll out each puff pastry square until it is roughly 5 inches by 5 inches (I actually ended up with more rectangles).

4. Place 1/3 of the filling onto each piece of puff pastry. Roll up the filling in the puff pastry, and crimp the edges. Brush each empanada with beaten egg.

5. THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT: use a fork or the tip of a sharp knife to poke several holes in each empanada to let out steam. I only poked two holes in mine, and they blew up a little. At least one of the empanadas I made ended up close to hollow. Fortunately, a little salsa covered the hole nicely.

6. Bake the empanadas for 18 to 20 minutes, or until puffed and golden.