Supermercado La Providencia And Much More

It was the one hundred and seventy fifth day of the twenty-fifth year of this life and...

Saturday, as usual, was a shopping day. After a quick stop by Target (mostly fruitless, went for diaper covers and found none) Wwe went to the local hispanic grocery store, Supermercado La Providencia. Wwe like saying that name way too much. Not so different from any other grocery store save for the plethora of products I cannot pronounce for the life of Me. That and the meat section was interesting. Chicken feet, thats all I have to say. I also picked up a tort press ($7). Its cheaply made, but you get what you pay for considering B3 (Bed Bath and Beyond) has them for $20. But what Wwe weren't expecting to find in a hispanic store was asian candies, and good ones. Yum Yums!!! White Rabbit out of Shanghai China, go buy some now.

Now the tort press was an important addition to My kitchen. Now, I'm putting this out here now since all of you are just getting to know Me, but I hate Hate HATE unitaskers in the kitchen. I have a small kitchen so if it can't do more than one job it doesn't have a home. The tort press, a unitasker by nature, is an exception. Wwe love hispanic food here, but rolling out dough by hand for something like empanadas is tedious and tiring. So that night I made a grand total of 3 batches of empanada dough (roughly 12 a batch) and made/froze the emps for cooking later. The filling was a spinach ricotta and a ground beef filling I made earlier in the week for empanadas I made for her to take to work. Yes I made big batches just to freeze later. It makes life easier with 2 under 2 to have food I can just pop in the oven that isn't mass produced and filled with chemicals.

Eventually I'll share a few of My recipies, as canibalized from others as they are. But for now here's the :

Empanada Dough

1 and 1/2 cup AP Flour
1 cup Masa Harina
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup melted butter
water
egg wash
cooked filling of choice [spinach ricotta, marinated beef, sausage egg and cheese, ect]

Sit dry ingredients together. [I usually just mix it up with the pastry blender]. Cut in melted butter until completely incorperated. Add water in small amounts and mix until dough is coheasive and workable. Chill 30 minutes. Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick and using a 4" cookie cutter cut out as many rounds as you can manage. If using a tort press divide dough into 12-16 equal portions depending on the size you prefer and press. Fill with half tablespoon of filling. Coat one side of edge with egg wash, fold over and press together. Use a fork to crimp edge for better seal and using the fork or a knife poke a hole in the center to allow steam to escape. Apply eggwash to tops for nice golden color and glossy look. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes until dough is golden brown.