Kulinarya Cooking Club - Mushroom Empanadas and Goat Cheese and Olive Empanadas

One of my many blogs I read daily is Divina blog, Sense & Serendipity, this last post was about a cooking club called Kulinarya.  The Kulinarya website goal is to inspire individuals to explore into the Filipino crusine.  This months topic was Empanada.  As some of you know, I make quite a bit of empanadas.  This has been one of the first recipes I learned.  Since first learning how to make it, I have adjusted the dough recipe and even tried different combinations.  My staple are the traditional ground chicken, beef, or pork with dice carrots, potatoes, peas, and rasins.  Since then, I have created various vegetarian versions and even dessert ones.  The Husband's favorite is my pumpkin while The Daughter loves any kind I make for her.  I had the opportunity to make quite a bit of empanadas this past weekend.  It was my god daughter's 3rd birthday so I wanted to bring some for her party.  I mainly made my traditional chicken version but I also made mushroom and goat cheese and olives.  I have made the mushroom version a couple of times but this is the first time I tried goat cheese and olives.  Lets just say, I am not a fan of olives and The Husband said it would be better if there was rasins.  I think due to the saltiness of the goat cheese and the taste of the olives, a nice sweetness would have been good.  What do you think? 

My crust is actually not the traditional crust.  I use a pie crust.  I started to use this type of recipe in attempt to make it a little healthier.  Every little bit helps, at least that is what I tell myself.  Anyway, my recipe I actually don't use eggs like in all the traditional recipes.  I even bake them instead of frying them.  Here are the recipes:

Dough


Ingredients
1 1/4 Cups of All-Purpose Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Butter Diced

1/4 Cup Ice Water

2 Tbs of Sugar

Directions *You could do this in a mixer or food processor

1. Put all the flour in the tool of your choice.
2. Add the butter and mix it in with the flour.
3. Once it is all incorporated, add the salt and sugar.
4. Than add the water.  It should form a ball *If it is too wet, add more flour

Mushroom Filling
Ingredients
1 Large Package of Bella Mushrooms or 10 portabella mushrooms *You could pick any type of mushrooms but I perferr the portabella types.
2 Medium Potatos

1 Cup of Diced Carrots *I cheat and I use frozen mix of carrots and peas, now you know my secrete.  I hate chopping carrots with a passion!

1 Cup of Peas
1/2 Cup of Dice Onions
2 Cloves of Garlic

Directions

1. Take the potatoes and put them into a pot of boiling water. 
2. While waiting for the potatoes to soften, chop of the mushrooms into large chunks *keep in mind, they do shrink when cook.
3. When the potatoes soften enough to be mashed, drain the water and mash the potatoes until it is very soft.  You could add butter to assist in softening the potatoes
4. Let it cool and while it is cooling, sauteed onions and garlic in the oil of your choice, I tend to use olive oil. 
5. Add the mushrooms and cook until it is tender
6. Add the carrots and peas
7. Add the mashed potatoes into the pan and than with salt and pepper. 

Goat Cheese and Olives
(Adapted from The Perfect Pantry)

Ingredients

6 oz of Goat Cheese
1/3 Cups of Pitted Black Olives *I used Kalamenta Olives, it was a bit strong for this
1 Garlic CLove mashed

1/2 Tsp of Olive Oil

Salt and Black Pepper to taste


Directions

1. Finely chop the olives
2. Mix the remainder of the ingredients with the olives and fully incorporate the ingredients.

To Assemble
I totally cheat and use an empanada press.  It allows me to be as consistant as possible. 

1. Roll out the dough into 1/3 inch thick discs
2. Place the dough into the form
3. Place the filling in the middle and fold up

 The Husband got conned to helping me make these

He thought he was being smart by making a big disc and cutting it in half

He realized the half pieces were not wide enough so he had to reroll the dough

Even The Daughter got in the action

Bake

1. Place the empanada on a greased cookie sheet.
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes
3. Brush a egg wash over the empanadas after the empanadas and than continue to bake for 5-10 minutes. 

 Mushroom filled

Goat Cheese and Olives

Kulinarya was started by a group of Filipinio bloggers living in Sydney, who are passionate about the Filipino culture and its cusines. Each month we will showcase a new dish along with their family recipes. By sharing these recipes, we hope you find the same passion and love for Filipino Food as we do.

If you are interested in joining our Kulinarya Cooking Club, please feel free to stop by our foodblog and leave a commnet - we would love to hear from you. 

The current members are:
Trish - Sugarlace
Kath - A Cup Cake or Two
Trissa - Trissalicious
Olive - Home Cooking and Baking
Caroline - When Adobo Met Feijoada
Peach - The Peach Kitchen
Cusinera - Busog Sarap
Asha – Fork-Spoon -Knife
Malou - Skip to Malou
Cherrie – Sweet Cherrie Pie
Acdee - Confession Nook
Valerie – A Canadian Foodie
Bel – foodgeek's diary
Divina – Sense and Serendipity

BTW I'm out of town for a couple of days with limited internet so hopefully I'm going to find a Starbucks with internet so I could post a few more things I want to talk about.