Aztec Chocolate Cookies

Finals time is finally over! Hooray! Of course I still have a massive research paper to write, but that won’t stop me from doing some baking. Of course the end of finals entailed some celebrations, so I made some cookies. I found this recipe for “Aztec Chocolate Cookies” here, and thought they sounded pretty good; and they definitely lived up to my expectations. They were a little spicier than I expected, but I didn’t mind it. It also turned out I didn’t have any chocolate chips, so instead I chopped 7oz. of a semisweet chocolate bar (I used part of a Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Bar). I think the irregular chunks added something to the cookies over chocolate chips. The chocolate stayed gooey for hours after baking. I would definitely recommend these.

Aztec Chocolate Cookies

Makes ~25

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chili pepper
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces semisweet chocolate chips / chocolate chunks
1/4 cup granulated sugar

1. In a medium bowl mix together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, chipotle powder, and cocoa powder.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add the honey and vanilla and beat until mixed.

3. In a small bowl dissolve the baking soda in 1 ½ tsp boiling water. With the mixer on low speed add half the flour mixture, followed by the baking powder mixture, and then the rest of the flour.

4. Stir in the chocolate chunks. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll the dough into 2 inch balls, and roll them in granulated sugar. Place the dough 2 inches apart on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Flatten the cookies slightly. Bake the cookies for 18-20 minutes.

6. Cool the cookies on the sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool until cool, if you can wait that long.

Stuffed Poblanos

I’ve always had a weakness for Chiles Rellenos, unfortunately, making a frequent habit of eating them is an invitation to a rapid death (they’re basically deep fried cheese inside peppers). I’m also generally hesitant to deep fry things myself, as I find hot oil a little intimidating. Instead I decided I would make my own recipe for stuffed peppers. These have a lot more than cheese in them, and I think they’re really good. Mostly I put in what I had sitting around, and I also guessed a little on the amounts of things, so feel free to experiment with them to your tastes. I’m not entirely sure how many it makes, as I’ve made the filling, and am stuffing them at a rate of one per night for my dinner. Also, everything in here is finely diced because it needs to end up fitting inside a pepper. I made this fairly spicy, tone it down if spicy isn’t how you like it. It would also make an excellent vegetarian dish if you cut out the chicken and sausage.

Stuffed Poblanos

½ white onion, finely diced 

3 cloves garlic, finely diced 

1 jalapeno chili, seeded and deveined, finely diced 

½ Serrano chili, seeded and deveined, finely diced 

½ green bell pepper, finely diced 

1 green onion, finely diced 

1 cup frozen corn 

1 can black beans, drained 

½ tsp chili powder 

½ tsp Chipotle chili powder 

¼ tsp coriander 

1 avocado, finely diced 

Juice of one lime 

1 chicken breast, cooked and diced into ~ ½ inch cubes 

1 chorizo sausage 

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese 

¼ cup fat free sour cream 

Poblano Peppers

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put the first 11 ingredients (onion through coriander) into a large, heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes, or until onions begin to look cooked. Remove from heat.

2. Stir the remaining ingredients (except the poblanos) into the pan, and mix well

3. Cutting down from the top, remove the stems from the poblanos, but save the caps. Use a spoon to scoop out any seeds, and cut seed section from the poblano caps

4. Stuff each pepper with filling, and stick the caps back on. Put the peppers on a tinfoil lined baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, flipping the peppers over half way through. Peppers are cooked when they have softened and the skin has just begun to blister.

5. Serve immediately, garnish with cilantro. 

Mini-Empanadas

I finally got my digital camera back, which means I can post again. Of course that might create the illusion that I’ve been cooking all week, which isn’t the case. This semester has been busier than the last, and I haven’t had that much time to cook. My roommate did have a Superbowl party though, so of course I had to make something. I decided to make a few kinds of appetizer sized empanadas. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera while making them, so I couldn’t get any process pictures, but Laylita’s Recipes, from whom I got the recipe for the dough, has some great instructions. I decided to go with 4 kinds of filling, 3 savory and 1 sweet. With the assistance of my friend Jessica, who was instrumental in rolling out the dough and stuffing the empanadas, we made spinach and goat cheese, tomato, basil and mozzarella, chicken and vegetables, and rocky road. To top the first three I also made salsa verde. I thought the savory ones were good, but the rocky road was a little weak, they probably would have been better warm.

Basic Empanada Dough

Makes 25-30 small empanadas

3 cups all purpose flour 

¼ teaspoon salt 

6 oz unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks), cold and cut into 

12 pieces 

1 egg 

4-5 tbs water

1. Place flour and salt in a food processer. Mix to blend. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until a clumpy dough forms

2. Push the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

3. When you’re ready to use them, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness and cut out circles that are 4 -5 inches in diameter

 

Spinach and Goat Cheese filling

Makes ~20 empanadas

5 oz. goat cheese 

10 oz. spinach (fresh and wilted or frozen and thawed) 

2 tsp garlic powder 

½ tsp fresh ground nutmeg                                                       

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl

 

Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella filling

Makes ~35 small empanadas

2 cups freshly shredded, part skim mozzarella 

2 10.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes with basil and oregano, drained 

1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped 

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl

 

Chicken and Vegetable filling

Makes ~ 25 small empanadas

1 grilled chicken breast, cut into small pieces 

½ green pepper, diced 

½ medium onion, very finely diced 

½ cup frozen corn 

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded, deveined, and very finely diced 

2 cloves garlic, very finely diced 

1 tsp chili pepper 

½ tsp chipotle pepper powder 

½ tsp cumin

1. Mix all ingredients but the chicken in a frying pan set over medium-high heat. Spray with a little cooking oil and stir fry for about 5 minutes.

2. Add the chicken and cook just until heated through. Remove from heat.

 

Rocky Road Filling

2 cups mini-marshmellows 

12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips 

6 oz. chopped pecans.

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl

 

Assembly

Dough disks 

Filling 

1 egg mixed with 1 tsp water

1. Lay out the disks of dough, and place between 2 tsp and 1 T filling onto each disk.

2. Fold the disks over on themselves and press together the edges. You might want to use the tines of a fork to press into the dough

3. Brush each empanada with the egg wash (for sweet empanadas sprinkle sugar over the top).

4. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the dough is browned.

 

Salsa Verde

I made this salsa to accompany the empanadas I made. People really ate this up, and I thought it was really good. When I first made it, it was a little on the oniony side, but the onion mellowed a little with a night in the fridge.

Salsa Verde

Makes 3 -4 cups

1 ½ lbs fresh tomatillos, husked 

1 medium white onion, coarsely chopped 

3 green onions 

2/3 cup cilantro leaves 

1 ½ T fresh lime juice 

5 cloves garlic 

¼ tsp sugar 

2 jalapenos deveined and seeded 

1 Serrano, deveined and seeded 

Salt to taste

1. Turn on your oven’s broiler with a rack directly under it and let it heat up. Cut the tomatillos in half, and place them cut side down on a baking sheet lined with tin foil. Broil them for 5-7 minutes, until the skins are just starting to blacken.

2. Place the roasted tomatillos and all the other ingredients into a food processor and blend until fully mixed. 

Roasted Sweet Potato Empanadas

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, haven’t I seen that before?” And of course the answer is sort of. I’ve been making empanadas lately because I had some leftover puff pastry in my freezer, and didn’t feel like going shopping. I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner with a friend of mine, and she had brought over sweet potatoes, so this is what we settled on. I truthfully don’t know if I should call this an entrée or a dessert, they’re pretty sweet, but on the other hand, they are made with potatoes. What I do know is that I’ll call them good any time I eat them.

I didn’t try it, but I think this would be really good with either some goat cheese, or if you’re not quite adventurous some cream cheese. Try it yourself and let me know what you think.

Roasted Sweet Potato Empanadas

Makes 9 empanadas

2 Large sweet potatoes
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
¼ tsp salt
1 Tbs packed brown sugar
¼ cup maple syrup
½ cup chopped pecans
Flour for dusting
1 egg beaten

1, Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut the sweet potatoes into ~ 2 inch chunks (I left the skins on mine). Place them on foil on a cook sheet and roast until cooked through, about 15-20 minutes.

2. While sweet potatoes are roasting, unfold the sheet of puff pastry. Cut the pastry into three strips by cutting along the folds, and then cut each strip into thirds.

3. Working on a well floured surface, roll each piece of puff pastry out into a roughly 5 x 5 inch square. Set the squares aside.

4. Put the roasted potatoes in a large bowl. Use a masher to mash them up. Mix in the salt, brown sugar, maple syrup, and pecans.

5. Place equal portions of the potato mixture on each square of puff pastry. Put the filling on one half of the pastry, leaving a border of between one and two centimeters. Fold the puff pastry over the filling, and then curl up and crimp the edges (see photo below for final product).

6. Place the empanadas on an oiled cookie sheet (they even stuck to my non-stick sheet). Brush each empanada with egg. Use a fork to poke holes in the empanadas. I poked three sets of holes in the larger ones and two in the smaller ones.

7. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until puff pastry is puffed and golden.

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.