Vegan Empanadas with Smokey Chipotle Peppers (While Knitting A Summer Cardigan)

Yesterday afternoon, in the heat of the day (temps hovering around a hundred or so degrees--give or take), I hauled myself out of my knitting stupor. I'm currently working on this darling cardigan: Amiga from Knitty, using a nice cotton blend yarn to keep the wool-itchies at bay. Summer knitting is a love/hate thing for most knitters in the South--me included. Some going so far as to swear off the needles until temps are more favorable for dragging sheep and alpalca wools over the tips of fingers. Do I really want to work on that wool blend throw, or very cool looking Wurm hat I am dying to wear in December when it's a hundred outside . . . today? I have found that my knitting speed suffers if I take the summer hiatus. So instead of going cold turkey, I keep the clicking going by changing up my fibers.

I love this color! Sort of yellow-but-not-jaundiced-yellow. I find this shade creeping more and more into my knitting stash--matching the greys I own almost. (Grey is my favorite color by far, just in case you were wondering.) Knitting: the great stress reliever, sanity saver and mind occupier is helping me "recover" and "get through" all the stuff life has thrown our way lately. 

Anyhow, I broke away from the knitting to get some much needed staples from the store: bananas, Diet Coke and dog food--and walked out with twice that much. Just once I'd like to only go in for three items and come home with three items. Just once. I also needed some almond milk, but was so affected by the heat, I left the store without it. No cereal for me this morning! 

I've wanted to drench anything I eat lately in a ton of spice. The other night I made vegan tuna sammiches--but mine had to be smothered in Frank's Hot Sauce. (And some extra on the side for the spots where I missed.) I offered some hot sauce to Dr. Thyme as well. I might have overdone it a bit for him as he sort of broke out into a sweat during dinner. I was all cool as a cucumber--lapping up more sauce with every bite along the way. Back in the day, I used to participate in "daring hot sauce challenges". I discovered quite by accident that my tolerance for heat is higher than most. I was always the last to cry "uncle".

These empanadas were amazingly easy and incredibly tasty! Banish that thought of "OMG, I have to make the dough, too?" These were so easy! When I left the grocery store around four yesterday afternoon, I had no idea what I'd be making for dinner. (Planning? What planning?!) On my way out the door, I just happened to grab the local store's foodie magazine. Lo and behold, there was a little recipe section dedicated to the favorite recipes of St. Louis Cardinals' wives. One in particular stood out--Deidre Pujols's Empanadas. You may have heard of Albert--her husband. He's kind of a big deal here in St. Louis. His wife is a big deal as well--among foodies! Her empanada recipe sounded perfect on this very hot, very HOT afternoon. Not wanting to even remotely touch my oven, her empanadas required frying. Perfect! If it's good enough for Albert, then it's good enough for my husband, too! (Just an fyi, Mrs. Pujols is quite the cook and has been featured several times in St. Louis foodie columns--her recipe for these Albert favorites did not disappoint!) I adapted her empanada recipe by making several vegan changes and adding a few ingredients I had on hand that I thought might complement the filling. Empanadas in general are a very forgiving food, and I imagine any vegetable you have on hand would work as a filling. It's what I fondly refer to as stress-free-but-guaranteed-to-please dinner food. We LOVED these! And, as a side--if you are not into frying, and you live in say, Montana or Canada, you could probably bake these because the risk of passing out from heat exertion is not quite as problematic as it is here.    

Prep your veggies. Whatever you have on hand will work.

Saute veggies in some oil. Then, for the "meat" susbstitute, I opted for Gimme Lean Ground Beef. Just crumble this into the pan toward the end of cooking, along with a can of fire roasted tomatoes. I had some dried chipotle pepper seasoning AND smokey chipotle olive oil I added to the veggies toward the end of cooking also. (Hey sis, if you're reading this--I used that chipotle oil I bought when we went to that very cool olive oil store--remember?) This added a nice bit of heat and spice I was looking for. Oh, and hot sauce--don't forget!

I fried my empanadas in just a wee bit of peanut oil in my very old, very worn out dutch oven over medium heat. I had a few pieces of dough that sort of separated on me after folding them--don't worry about this--they fry up to a lovely flaky, golden brown, hiding any imperfections. About five minutes per side. 

I served these with a side of lettuce greens (from my OWN garden), tossed in chipotle olive oil and topped with guacamole. Yum. . . super yum!

Vegan Empanadas with Smokey Chipotle Peppers

*Adapted from Deidre Pujols Empanada recipe

For the dough:

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon Florida Crystals sugar

1/4 cup vegetable shortening cut into cubes (make sure the shortening is cold!)

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons ice cold water

1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 tablespoons water

4" round biscuit cutter

Place dry ingredients in a food processor. Pulse a few times to blend. Next, add the cubed shortening and pulse until little pea-sized crumbs form--about five or six pulses should do it. Next, take your egg replacer mixture and whisk together with the water. Slowly pour this into the flour mixture and pulse a few more times until the dough starts to come together. You don't want to over do it--a few pulses, like five or six, should do it. Remove the dough from the mixer and place on the counter and shape into a flat disc about an inch thick. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for 30 minutes--which is perfect because you'll be making the filling now and the time will fly and next thing you know, you'll be rolling your dough out. Once the time is up, remove dough from fridge and place on a lightly floured work surface. Use a well-floured rolling pin and roll the dough out to a nice circle about 1/8" thick. Take a 4" round biscuit cutter and cut circles out for each empanada. Place cirlces on parchment lined cookie sheet. Fill each circle with about 1/4 cup of filling. Fold over the circle until you have a half circle. Use a fork to pinch the ends closed. It's okay if a bit of the filling is sticking out--the dough will bulk up nicely when fried.

For the filling:

(This filling makes enough to easily fill six four-inch cirlces of empanada dough with extra for the side!)

2 tablespoons safflower oil

1/2 red onion diced

1 medium red potato diced (leave the skin on)

1/2 green pepper diced

1/3 cup frozen corn

5-6 cloves of garlic minced

1 can fire roasted tomatoes

1/2 or whole package of Gimme Lean Vegan Ground Beef crumbled

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried chipotle seasoning (*optional--but certainly helps!)

1 tablespoon hot sauce--or more to taste!

drizzle of chipotle olive oil

In a medium suate pan over medium high heat, add the oil and diced potato, pepper, onion and garlic. Cook these veggies for about five minutes--cover while cooking so the steam helps cook the potatoes faster. Then, add the canned tomatoes, corn and vegan crumbles. Next, add the seasonings. Mix well to combine. Cover and allow to simmer for about 15-20 minutes longer. The longer it simmers, the better the flavor. During the last few minutes of simmering, drizzle some of the chipotle olive oil over it and mix well. Allow to simmer a few minutes longer. Remove from heat and allow to cool for about five minutes. Fill your dutch oven with about an inch of peanut oil and warm over medium high heat. Carefully, very carefully, place only two-three empanadas in the oil at a time--don't crowd the pan. Allow them to cook undisturbed for about five minutes. Then, carefully lift one side up to check to see the color of the bottom--if golden brown, then they are ready to turn over. Very carefully turn over! Repeat for other side. Remove from pan with a slotted strainer and place on a paper towel-lined cookie sheet. Remove pan of oil from heat. You can keep these warmed in the oven if you'd like while making the others.