The Holidays and New Year's Empanadas

It's been much too long since my last post.  Hubby and I spent the remainder of our December catching up on things and getting ready for the holidays... I'm sure I still have a few posts up my sleeve from the end of the year to share with you.  Hubby and I spent our first married Christmas with my family in South Florida.  He spent his time there enjoying the warm outdoors while I helped my mom cook up a feast.  Then we flew up to Connecticut to enjoy time with hubby's family and continue to eat well.  Now that we are back in Fort Worth, we are getting ready for things to get back to normal and starting off the new year on the right foot... and what better to start a new year, than with a new blog post!

I loved helping my mom cook while I was home... I always love a chance to cook for a crowd and try new recipes.  Unfortunately for you, I lost the pictures on my phone and won't be able to share with you all the great food photos... but lucky for you, the websites have photos, and you could always give the recipes a try yourself.  Our Christmas Day menu included:

Cheese Straws
Proscuitto Dijon Gruyere Puffs
Ana's Spanish Tortilla
Tomato Red Pepper Jam
Classic Meat & Cheese Lasagna
Fanciful French Macaroons (gracias Abuela!)
Knock You Naked Brownies (a reader request)
Strawberry Shortcake Cake

It was definitely an ambitious menu that took us a few days to put together.  The cheese straws were cheesy and crunchy, though I thought there were best right out of the oven rather than stored for a day.  The puffs were a great party find because they were easy to put together and were delicious.  My mom made a Spanish tortilla, which is a potato and egg pie that you might see on a tapas bar menu... so simple but so good and the perfect appetizer snack.  I made the tomato red pepper jam for all my aunts and uncles and had some left over to serve with crackers (see the recipe below). 

Tomato Red Pepper Jam
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 of a red pepper, diced
3 cups seeded and diced cherry or grape tomatoes (taking the seeds out isn't super necessary but taking the excess juices out helps)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Sweat the garlic in oil in a large saute pan over medium-low heat until soft, about 3 minutes.  Stir in red pepper, tomatoes, vinegar, and brown sugar.  Increase heat to medium-high and simmer mixture until tomatoes break down, about 20 minutes.  Season the jam with salt and pepper to your liking.  You can serve the jam warm or at room temp.

The main event on Christmas Day was the lasagna.  We spent Christmas Eve slowly cooking up the sauce and building the lasagnas so they would be ready to bake the next day.  The only tweaks (yes, there are always tweaks) I made was using butter to saute the onions and adding garlic and a little bit of sugar.  The sauce was meaty and delicious, and the lasagna as a whole was like being hugged by an Italian grandmother.

I'm not sure how many people really made it to dessert after all the food leading up to it.  I had been wanting to try the macaroon recipe since my Abuela sent it to me with stories of her own success.  We added a little red food coloring to make them pink and used berry jams as the filling.  My mom wanted to make a layer cake in order to use her cake stand, and I found this recipe that I thought would be light and fresh.  We doubled the recipe and used 9 inch pans.  It really only made two layers, instead of the four you might expect from doubling the recipe.  The strawberries and juices soaked into the cake (I kept the strawberry chunks fairly large) making it very moist.  Then I decorated it with strawberries on top of the cream cheese icing.  It was the leftover I was most sad to leave behind when we flew out.

I'm full all over again just thinking about all that food.  And before I end this very long post, I wanted to tell you about our New Year's Eve.  Our good friends invited us over for a small house party.  Since they were hosting (and had just hosted a holiday party), we all brought some food and drinks.  After spending my time in Florida in the kitchen, I was determined to think smart about delicious but easy snacks to bring.  I actually made the strawberry shortcake cake again (so good and easy) but wanted to also bring something savory.  My mom had made baked empanadas a few months ago, and this was the perfect opportunity to give them a try.  The key to making the recipe easy is buying the dough discs already made.  After that, you just have to make the filling, which in this case was a simple picadillo recipe.

 I cooked up a batch of turkey picadillo and beef picadillo to make sure the guests had options.

 Once the filling had cooled and the discs had defrosted, I filled them up.

 I used a fork to crimp the edges, which made them look fancy and kept the filling from spilling out.

Then I baked them in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  They were delicious straight out of the oven (with a little time to cool) or at room temperature.

And on that delicious note, I wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year!