February 2009

I’ve never been a very good blogger.  Which is why there haven’t been any updates for a while.  Anyway, I thought I’d post the recipe and info for what we had for dinner for most of last week.  It was filling, nutritious, and very tasty (if I may say so myself). This uses my ever convenient slow cooker, but can be adapted for stove top.

Ingredients
1 lb dried kidney beans
1 medium onion (small dice)
1 tsp oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 tbl salt
1 56 oz can of crushed tomatoes
2.5 cups polenta

For the Beans
Pick over the beans and remove any stones. Pour over water to at least 4 inches over the kidney beans and discard any that float. Soak over night, changing the water at least once, if possible. Briefly blanch the beans in boiling water (a minute or so), and drain to remove any possible toxins, though this isn’t that common in the US. Drain the beans.

Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat and add the diced onions. Cook until soft, then add the garlic and spices and cook on high for about one minute. Put the onion mixture in the slow cooker, add the drained beans, then the crushed tomatoes. Fill the tomato can about half way with water, then add that tomato-y water (since it’s not actual tomato water…) to the crock pot as well. Stir well, then set the crock pot for about 7 hours on low to cook.

When it’s done, stir well, then salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 12 servings of 1/2 cup kidney beans.

For the Polenta
I use a 3 to 1 ratio for my polenta.  While I ended up making 3 cups for the whole week, some of that was included as part of breakfast, so right now, I’ll just do 2.5 cups that we ate for dinner during the week.

Bring 7.5 cups of salted water to a boil.

Slowly pour in polenta, stirring the entire time, in order to avoid clumps (biting into an uncooked, dry clump of polenta can ruin my meal).

Continue Stirring. Stir constantly for approximately 10 minutes, or until the mixture has completely thickened to a paste and a cooled bite of the polenta is soft when tasted. Ordinarily, this is where you add 2 table spoons of butter and a half cup of grated parmigiana reggiano. But, in the interests of frugality, they were omitted. *sigh*

Pour out onto a cookie sheet, large piece of parchment paper, or board. Spread the polenta into a large rectangle about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and let cool for at least 15 minutes.

Cut into 8 large, rectangular pieces (or 16, if you’re like me) and serve as needed. For this week, they were topped with a 1/2 cup of kidney bean stew!

The Numbers
For this month, 2 pies is a serving

Cost

Nutrition
Calories: 363
Fat: 1.3
Saturated Fat: n/a
Cholesterol: 0
Carbohydrates: 71.9
Fiber: 13..1
Protein: 17.0

It was very nice to be able to not think about dinner at all last week!

Now that the week is almost over, I suppose I should post about the lunch we’ve been eating every day. The mini chicken pies aren’t exactly empanadas in my mind, but they’re definitely empanada inspired.

The recipe for the dough comes from epicurious.com’s recipe for empanada dough. Go check it out. For this weeks purposes, I doubled the recipe to make 24 mini pies.

The filling is more chicken pot pie than empanada, and very easy to make. Much easier than dealing with the dough, in my opinion.

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimed (I actually used .91 lbs)
1 medium onion, small dice
.5 lb frozen peas
.5 lb carrots, small dice
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper, poultry seasoning
water
2 tablespoons of flour

Cut the thighs into half inch cubes. Place into a bowl with the diced onion and about a half teaspoon kosher salt, some ground pepper and a dash or two of poultry seasoning (ground sage, rosemary, etc). Let this marinate for at least a half an hour. Now is a good time to mix up the empanada dough – at least this is when I do it.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and saute the onions in a teaspoon of cooking oil until they are soft. Add the chicken and brown. Add carrots and saute for a few minutes. Add water until the mixture is just covered. Add more salt (maybe another half teaspoon), pepper and bay leaf and simmer until the the liquid is reduced by a quarter. The liquid should taste a bit like chicken broth. Don’t forget to remove the bay leaf.

Put the flour in a cup or small bowl. Using a large spoon or small ladle, scoop out the hot broth and add it to the flour to make a slurry. Stir in the liquid until it is a runny paste. Add the slurry to the chicken mixture, it should create a nice gravy.

Remove from heat and stir in the still frozen peas. They should bring the temperature down so you can spoon the mixture into the empanada pastry.

Assembling the Mini Pies

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Divide dough into 24 equal pieces and form each into a disk. Keeping remaining pieces covered, roll out 1 piece on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 5-inch round (about 1/8 inch thick).

Spoon about 2 tablespoons filling onto center and fold dough in half, enclosing filling. Press edges together to seal, then crimp decoratively with your fingers or tines of a fork. Transfer empanada to a baking sheet or sheet of parchment. Make the rest of the pies in same manner.

Bake 25 minutes. Transfer pies to a rack to cool at least 5 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

~

I can never get the crimping part right. All 24 of my mini chicken pies leaked. =(

The Numbers
For this month, 2 pies is a serving

Cost

Nutrition
Calories: 408
Fat: 19.2
Saturated Fat: 10.7
Cholesterol: 102
Carbohydrates: 2.3
Fiber: 2.3
Protein: 17.1

It’s a nice lunch to have. 10 minutes in the toaster oven reheats it nicely. =)