Spinach Empanadas

I ended January well with my budget.  I ended up going over by some, because my favorite raw honey was on sale at Whole Foods, so I stocked up.  On the bright side though, I shouldn't have to buy any more honey for a couple months. 

Empanadas are a favorite around this house, both to eat and make.  You can basically fill them with anything you want and they are going to turn out great.  You have a couple dough choices too, a regular pie crust and baking (kinda calzone like), or using a masa dough and frying (as pictured above).   

Economically speaking, you really can't beat spinach empanadas.  Some chopped spinach, a little tomato sauce or tofu cream cheese, some seasonings... BAM! a taste explosion.  I tend to make the fried version more often than the baked simply because there is something about fried foods that excite my little one.  My daughter happily eats her spinach empanadas, whereas spinach in anything else creates plenty of complaints.  

As always, this is using organic products.  Frozen spinach, canned organic tomatoes, and Bob's Red Mill Masa Harina Corn Flour.  16 empanadas for around $3.75.  I usually eat 4, my daughter eats 2, and my husband eats 6 (our son isn't ready for these yet).  It goes well with some rice, or stir fried potatoes.  A zesty salad is always nice too.

Spinach Empanadas

Dough:

1 cup Masa Harina flour

1/4 cup All purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 to 3/4 cup warm water 

Enough oil to fry in

Fillings:

1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and drained

1/4 cup tomato sauce

2 tsp garlic salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

In a mixing bowl, mix the two flours and salt.  Slowly add enough of the water to make a soft dough, just shy of being sticky.  Gently knead the dough a few times on a lightly floured surface, roll into a ball and set aside.  In another bowl, mix the filling ingredients.  Set aside.  Begin heating your frying oil.  Fill a small bowl with water and set that aside too.  

Bring your ball of dough to the floured surface again and roll out to a log shape.  Slice dough into 16 even pieces.  Create a balls with the dough pieces.  Roll out the balls into about 3 inch diameter circles.  In the center or each circle, place about 2 tsps amount of the filling in the center.  Brush edges of circle with water. Fold the round in half over the filling, and press down hard along the edges to seal.  You can crimp the sides with a fork or your fingers.  Continue until all 16 empanadas are made.

At this point, your oil should be ready to fry.  Drop in 2-3 empanadas at a time, cooking until golden.  Remove from oil and place on a paper towel to help soak up extra oil.  Repeat with remaining empanadas.

Tamale Pie

I apologize for no pictures, for some reason blogger isn't uploading my pictures. :(

We are at the end of week two on my new budget rules, and things are going swimmingly.  The first weeks food total was $73.49, this week was $74.99.  I know its going to get a little tougher in a month from now, when a lot more of my staples start to need replacing, but I'm happy with my progress so far.

This week I purchased some meat.  Pork Carnitas to be exact.  Trader Joe's sells a nice little package of carnitas for $3.99 (I forgot to check the package, but guessing its a pound of meat).   This package of meat is great and simple.  Open it up, heat in the microwave a few minutes, then use two forks to shred the meat.  I turned this into 3 different meals this week.  All of these meals could have been completely vegetarian though, simply substitute the meat or just leave it out.

Monday: Breakfast Burritos.  A pack of flour tortillas, a couple scrambled eggs, some sauteed veggies and maybe a little soy cheese.  We add a little amount of carnitas with it to make it feel more like a dinner meal.

Tuesday: Taco Salad.  Some organic lettuce, 1/2 a can of organic black beans, carnitas, some more sauteed veggies, and a bag of unsalted tortilla chips for a base.

And Wednesday was our Tamale Pie.  This meal is $6.08 for 6 servings.  Pair it with some spanish rice, or a nice salad for a complete meal.

Tamale Pie
2 cups Masa flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 oz carnitas
1 cup black beans (rest of the beans from Tuesday's dinner!)
1/2 a 15oz can enchilada sauce
1/2 a 15oz can spinach

Heat the chicken broth to boiling, then remove from heat and add the masa flour, forming a dough.  In a casserole dish, lay half of the masa dough into the bottom.  Spread half the enchilada sauce on top of the masa, then layer your spinach, beans and carnitas.  Using your hands, make "masa patties" with the rest of the dough and arrange them as your top.  Spread the rest of your enchilada sauce as your topper.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Bake the tamale pie for 25 minutes.  Serve hot and enjoy.

Great Blog Post About Superfoods

I wanted to direct your attention over to Mission: Vegan for an excellent post on Superfoods in smoothies.  I use many of these ingredients for my own smoothies (and I love cacao on my oatmeal!).  I recognize that these products are not cheap, however, I think if you concentrate on buying one or two a month, you will find it easier.  The small amount needed for smoothies (or other things) will stretch the cost out for you.

So my favorite smoothie recipe?  Its a Mango-Strawberry Smoothie.  It comes to about $3.50 for about 18 oz of smoothie, which I share with my daughter.  On top of the goodness from coconut water and goji berries, it has a nice healthy dose of calcium (which those of us on a dairy free diet always appreciate).

1 cup coconut water
1/2 cup orange juice
1 Tbsp goji berries
1 cup frozen mango chunks
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 a banana
2 large leafs of kale

Blend and enjoy!

Slightly New Direction and General Tsao Chicken

I am going to change my blogs focus, but only slightly.  Everything on here will still be dairy free recipes, and other allergen free when applicable.  However, in an effort to stay budget friendly, I'm going to be trying to make healthy, low-cost meals.  My hope is this will help others feeling the money crunch and help me organize the cheapest meals in my repertoire.

So the rules: my budget is $75 a week, or $300 a month.  I am only buying organic produce and meat.  I am only shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.  And finally, everything will still be dairy free (of course!).  A tall order I think, considering the high cost of organic and dairy free, but I aim to make it happen.  Now on to the food.

This was a veery simple dish, and pretty tasty.  I found the sauce at Trader Joe's: General Tsao Stir Fry Sauce.  It's tangy and slightly sweet, it went great over my battered fried chicken cubes.  I also sauteed some zucchini to mix in the sauce as well, with some green onion too.  Some plain white rice to put it on top of, and viola!  Here is our meal.

Price breakdown for 4 servings came to roughly $5.50 total or $1.47 each person.

General Tsao Chicken

2 chicken thighs or breast, cubed

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup corn starch

1/2 cup cold water

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup General Tsao Stir Fry Sauce

2 medium zucchini, sliced

1/2 cup chopped green onion

Oil to fry in (we prefer Safflower for frying)

2 cups cooked rice

Mix the flour, cornstarch, water, salt and egg to make a simple batter.  Coat chicken cubes in batter.  Heat up your frying oil.  When hot enough, fry chicken cubes.

Meanwhile, saute zucchini to just al dente.  Remove to large bowl, add cooked chicken and green onions.  Pour sauce over and stir to coat evenly.  Serve with rice and enjoy!

Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Well, this was suppose to be posted on Christmas last week, as it was out Christmas breakfast.  However, I've been having just to much fun with my dear husband home to make time. Sad I know. :)

I hope your holidays have been as good as ours.  I was excited to receive "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook" for Christmas.  I also received some new mixing bowls and some bamboo cutting boards.  Watch for those to make an appearance soon. :)

On to our food.  As I said above, I made these rolls for our Christmas morning breakfast and they were a big hit.  I did most of the prep work the night before after the kids were in bed, so that in the morning I could just bake them.  Gotta say, I love having a bread machine for just these occasions.  So much easier!  We did not do a sugary glaze on top because we don't like things too sweet.  If you want a glaze, here is a basic one (replacing dairy butter with your own dairy free one of course).  We thought they were perfect without the sticky glaze though.

Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 cup room temp water
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large egg
Filling (recipe below)

Measure carefully, placing all the ingredients except the filling in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.  Select Dough cycle (do not use delay cycle).  Make filling and set aside.

Remove dough from pan.  Gently push fist into the dough to deflate.  Flatten the dough with your hands or a rolling pin to approx. 15 x 10 inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface.  Spread the filling onto the rectangle.  Roll it up tightly, beginning at 15-inch side.  Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal.  Stretch and shape to get it even.  Cut roll into 1 inch slices with dental floss or a sharp serrated knife.  Place slightly apart in pan.

*If you are looking to bake these later:  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator.  You will need to remove the rolls, cover them loosely with the plastic wrap and let them rise in a warm place for an hour or two (until they have doubled) before baking.

*If you are going to bake now:  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 30 mins or until doubled.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove rolls to a wire rack and let cool a few minutes.  If desired, drizzle a glaze over the rolls now.

Enjoy!

Jump Start Breakfast Granola

Well, really I eat it all the time as a snack, but it is a good start to your day if you don't have time to cook something.  Half a cup of this granola is 222 calories, so its pretty calorie packed.  That's because its full of super foods: cacao nibs, goji berries, hemp seeds.  I usually pour some coconut milk on top.  If you need it sweeter, go ahead and add some more honey.

Jump Start Breakfast Granola
4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 Tbsp chia seeds
2 Tbsp hemp seeds
2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
2 Tbsp cacao nibs
2 Tbsp goji berries
2 Tbsp almond butter
4-5 Tbsp raw honey

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large mixing bowl, add chia seeds, hemp seeds and flax seeds and mix so they combine.  Add the almond butter and 1 Tbsp honey and mix well with the seeds, creating small "balls".  Add coconut, goji berries and cacao nibs and combine.

Add one cup of oats at a time with 1 Tbsp on honey, mixing until well incorporated before adding the next cup.  When all the oats and honey have been added, pour mixture into a baking dish and press down lightly.

Put granola in the oven for 30 mins, mixing it up every 10 minutes to evenly bake.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Enjoy.

Kung Pao Seitan

I'm sorry I've gone so long without blogging.  I haven't been cooking much for two very good reasons: 1, I was doing NaNoWriMo last month and 2, my lovely husband is working long hours.  I expect my cooking creativity to snap back into gear as holiday's just scream cooking and baking.

I've been meaning to try seitan for a while.  While we do eat meat, we are trying to greatly limit how much we eat.  Both for health and price reasons.  I try to buy grass-fed, no antibiotics/hormones, cage-free, etc. meat, which can be pricey.  So I thought, if seitan doesn't taste to bad, then it might be a cheaper solution for meat (since we aren't big tofu fans around here).

The base for this recipe is from The Accidental Vegan, but as usual I did tweak it.  Can't help myself you know.  The basic seitan recipe is also from this book, but you can find others online as well.  The one created in this cookbook looks kinda like cut up and cooked chicken (as seen in the picture).  My daughter thought it was chicken just by the look, but I will admit that she didn't like the taste.

(Basic Seitan, before being added to the kung pao.  Tastes better than it looks!)

The verdict?  While the seitan turned out fine and was far better than tofu (IMHO), it still wasn't that great. It does soak up the sauce well, so it was really like eating really big flavor bits. haha  I'm not sure if I will make seitan again, but I will do this kung pao again.  My husband and I both agreed that just beefing up the zucchini and mushroom quantity would make it a great dish, or you could try tofu or meat in it too if you really wanted.  So on to the recipe.

Kung Pao Seitan

1 Tbsp oil (I used grapeseed)
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 carrot, chopped
2 zucchini, chopped
1 cup chopped bok choy
6 crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 cup basic seitan (or meat or tofu)
1 can sliced water chestnuts, drained
1 can bamboo shoots, drained
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp Sriracha sauce (this makes it pretty spicy so do less if you can't take to much heat!)

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium low heat.  Add the onion, garlic and ginger and saute for about 5 minutes or until onions are soft.  Stir in the soy sauce and carrots and cook a few more minutes.  Stir in zucchini, bok choy, and mushrooms and cook stirring often, for another 8 to 10 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Stir in the seitan, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, sesame oil and Sriracha sauce.  Cook stirring occasionally for another 5 minutes.  Serve hot.