This Already Has Vodka In It

How To Violate Lent-Related Food Rules

Last week, I visited Santino's in Santa Monica (not to be confused with the also-excellent Santino's New York Pizza in Sherman Oaks) for the first time, and was supremely impressed with their empanadas, particularly considering the reasonable price. I used to be terrified of empanadas, because apparently the true way to make the meat filling involves the world's worst ingredient - raisins (it hurts me just to type the word). I don't even know if that's actually true, but, for some reason, I always assumed it to be the case. Either way, Santino's doesn't use them - they might do well to put that on their signage, actually.

Since then, I've thought quite often about making my own empanadas. I don't love making bread dough, but I'm into the idea of making a more adventurous version of a calzone, since we're just talking about an inside-out pizza. So, I used my day off on Good Friday to make this happen, and was quite pleased with the result. I found a dough recipe online, and then just winged it a bit with the filling. The end result wasn't even remotely photogenic, but neither is an In-n-Out Burger, and those rule. The filling, however, was glorious.

The filling included chorizo, 1 onion (diced), 1 red bell pepper (diced), 1 green bell pepper (diced), 1 yukon gold potato (cut into max of 1/2-inch cubes), 3 cloves of garlic (minced), fresh spinach (about two me-sized handfuls), 1 tablespoon of chili power, 1 teaspoon of chipotle powder, 1 tablespoon of mexican oregano, salt and pepper. I cooked the chorizo down in a couple tablespoons of olive oil for a few minutes, removed it, then started layering the vegetables, starting with the onions. I gave the onions 10 minutes to cook down, then added peppers and garlic (along with all of the spices and herbs) gave it 10 minutes, then the potatoes, another 10 minutes, then the spinach until it was wilted. I then added the chorizo back in and incorporated it well and let the mixture cool off.

Once I assembled the empanadas, the result looked a bit like a Hostess Fruit Pie before looking inside, but they were tasty enough to devour as my next two meals. Plus, I have enough leftover dough and filling to make about a dozen more (although, let's be honest, I'll probably get lazy and eat the filling and let the dough go bad).

Injury Report

It's been 100 days since The Accident. I still have no feeling in the tip of my finger. Like, none at all. I'd post a picture, but it just looks like a finger. That wouldn't evoke the overwhelming sense of sympathy I'm shooting for here.

I also have a sinus infection, and haven't missed any work. I'm like one step away from being one of those dudes in 300. Except I'm probably taller, because everyone from history is vertically inept.

Taco Monday

Another Monday night impromptu cooking party leads to beef and pork tacos with stuffed red bell peppers. Since Casey is regrettably more than 0% Mexican, we opted to go "original" with the tacos and stick to raw onions, cilantro and tomatoes (I cheated and added cheese), and ignored all the sour cream/guacamole/salsa nonsense that just wastes fridge space. The peppers were stuffed with an improvised black bean and corn mixture that I came up after I forgot to dice the peppers up to cook with the meat.

These were also served with a side of Spicy Nacho Doritos, because, you know, this is America.

What Should We Make Tonight?

Every time Casey gets a break from tour, he usually stops by the Sherman Oaks compound here for a couple days so that we can do some cooking while we catch up on all of the various internet-related phenomena that is absolutely essential we both know about. You know how it goes.

The other day, we couldn't decide what to make, but I knew I wanted pasta, and Casey wanted something involving artichoke hearts. It's not exactly a homegrown Iron Chef story, but I essentially went about making homemade pesto fusilli, and Casey sauteed chicken and some marinated spring vegetables with artichoke hearts. Then, we just threw everything into a giant pot and stirred it together... and it was awesome. Awesome enough that I had to retroactively document the ingredients - unfortunately I'd had a couple of gin and tonics and had lost my space-management abilities, so it's not as elegantly documented as I might like. Specifically, I wrote the recipe backwards, and parts of it don't really make sense. Maybe one day I'll do the internet a favor and type it up, even though I'm sure someone on Epicurious thought of this years ago.